Seems like with all the layoffs, store closings, and efficiency improvements profits should be higher?
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Online sales are more expensive than store sales and as online sales grow so do expenses (free shipping and returns) ongoing investments in fulfillment centers and upgrading distribution centers. Severance payouts and costs for layoffs and store closings. All the cost cutting (and there has been a lot of that going on) gets offset by the expensive and foolish decisions made by upper management . Too many examples to list but Puerto Rico was a classic example of buffoonism. Chasing out the employees who actually know how the systems work and bringing in the blind to lead the blind. This kind of thing plays out at many top companies eventually and it won't get any better in the long term but they will be able to limp along for another decade easy and will actually have some wins along the way. It won't matter who runs the company the results will be the same and the boys are doing better than most would under the circumstances.
Sales down compared to 2019 and Chase downgraded them ....you can cut expenses all you want, if you don't sell stuff...well, there you have it.
From Aug 25th article:
Nordstrom Inc. shares plunged 17.6% in Wednesday trading after the luxury department store reported quarterly sales that show a 6% drop compared with 2019.
Nordstrom JWN, -2.86% reported profit and sales that beat expectations. However, on a two-year stack, sales fell 6% versus fiscal 2019. The Nordstrom brand was down 5% compared with 2019 and the off-price Rack brand fell 8%.
Nordstrom says the Anniversary Sale shifted to the third quarter this year, driving down Nordstrom brand sales by about 300 basis points versus 2019, though sales exceeded that year’s levels.
On the earnings call, Erik Nordstrom, the retailer’s chief executive, said the Rack brand is undergoing a “merchandise repositioning” effort that is already showing results in the active, home and kids categories.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/nordstrom-stock-drops-17-after-quarterly-sales-fall-versus-2019-11629918742