Nordstrom 2010 Annual Report Download - page 4

personal styling are indicative of our ability to leverage our strengths in personalized service, breadth of
offering and collaboration across departments. Most important, both are helping us improve the shopping
experience in our stores while increasing sales.
As good as 2010 was, we know we have more work to do. Going forward, we want to be more than just
customer focused. Instead, we’re working to become a truly customer-driven organization.
This is a subtle yet profound shift. It means putting the customer in the driver’s seat and setting aside our
own notions and historical preconceptions of how the customer wants to be served. It’s about empowering
the customer to dictate their terms to us when it comes to all the different ways they choose to shop.
This is particularly important given the extraordinary speed with
which the shopping experience is changing and how customers
are rethinking what service is all about. Customers have more
information and choices than ever before. They have better tools
and higher expectations. Customers want to do business with those
retailers who understand their needs and desires and are moving at
their speed. They are responding favorably to those retailers who
are mobile, connected, convenient to shop with and know them
regardless of channel. What’s exciting about this changing landscape
is how it gives us wide-ranging opportunities to combine new tools and techniques with our culture of service
to offer a highly personalized customer experience that adapts to our customers’ shifting expectations.
One of the ways we’re working to become more customer driven is by building on our multi-channel progress.
We’ve long recognized that customers want a seamless shopping experience no matter which channel they
shop. For several years, we’ve been developing our infrastructure behind the scenes. In 2005 we started the
process of better integrating our systems. In the following years, we steadily improved our online offering
and broke down the barriers between our online and store businesses. Then in 2009 we took a major step by
creating a shared inventory platform and enabling all our full-line stores to fulfill online orders. As a result,
our online and store inventories now work together as one to give the customer access to our merchandise
regardless of location. We made multi-channel a priority because we knew it would help us improve service
while leading to meaningful results.
In this same respect, our focus is now shifting to more customer-facing initiatives while still leveraging our
multi-channel capabilities. We believe online and ecommerce represent our next big opportunities. Within two
years, more customers will access the Internet via a mobile device than with a computer. We’re responding.
In 2010, we completed the first major overhaul of Nordstrom.com in 10 years. We introduced new navigation,
more features and learned a lot from this redesign. It is helping our efforts to optimize the online experience
no matter which device our customers use to shop with us.
Late last year, we also put WiFi into all full-line stores. We did this to help our customers stay connected, make
it easier for them to shop using their handheld device and set the stage for better mobile capabilities in our
stores. We’re now in the process of rolling out mobile checkout and equipping our salespeople with mobile
devices. We will continue exploring other ways to make our sales floor more responsive to the mobile customer.
GOING FORWARD, WE WANT TO
BE MORE THAN JUST CUSTOMER
FOCUSED. INSTEAD, WE’RE WORKING
TO BECOME A TRULY CUSTOMER-
DRIVEN ORGANIZATION.