It will be interesting to see how Nordstrom reports on the fortunes of the Manhattan FLS, if they will break it out like the Anniversary Sale or at least answer specific questions on it in the earnings call. Up to now they have been very open and honest about earnings, about the relative share of online vs BAM stores, where other retailers have tried to combine and obscure their performance.
I love NYC, and will certainly visit the Manhattan flagship the next time I am there, but will I buy anything? Probably not. The restaurants will likely outperform the sales floor for a while. Those of you who have gone, are you seeing shopping bags, are people buying things? This store, while it is shiny and new, will harpoon Macy's and Bloomingdales in town. Their Christmases will be pretty grim.
Nordstrom is seeing the retail business turn from a "trade" or "business" within Nordstrom – one's Personal Book – to more of a show or spectacle. Draw the millennials in for an "experience", I guess, and then move in another pop-up shop in 2 months to bring them back.
They did this in tech, too, with the old "Innovation Lab", whose projects more often then not were just tech marketing gimmicks, like motion detectors in the store windows, and similar experiments. They could have been working on a proper technical foundation, real agile, etc for the messy back-end of the company, but wasted their time and a lot of money. Crucial YEARS were lost in the first half of this decade.
Has the Magic Mirror paid for itself yet? Are people still abuzz about that id–tic Instagram on the roof of store 1? Someone, please, chime in, name some more stunts.
I noticed they are promoting one of the VPs now into some sort of fake celebrity, some creative director, basically, a self-promoter, an advertiser. She's not a fashion creator or anything real, just another professional marketer. Aren't tattoos just so edgy on an SEA woman? What is this deal now with Nike on some shoes branded in her name? I haven't seen anything so pathetic and truly lame in ages. OH I WANT A PAIR OF THOSE, SO EXCLUSIVE. Why promote this person in so public a way? bizarre.
It's my understanding that a TJ-MAXX opened up just across the street from the 7 story disaster. Now that's intelligent, that's balls. Remember, the Manhattan FLS has to sell like Topanga on crack just to break even, nevermind how many cost overruns went into the mix to make it truly "unique" and "special".
As Blake used to say, "sales are the truth". Next stop, earnings in November.