If Pete Nordstrom has a pep in his step as he gives a tour of his family’s luxury department store flagship in Manhattan, it’s because he is starting to see signs that his executive team’s efforts to rejuvenate the 125-year-old retailer are working.
As he walks the store’s street-level floor, he proudly shows off the recent overhaul of the beauty section: While Nordstrom still offers the decades-old department store counter service, it has added a lot of the self-service, discovery-centered style favored by shoppers at Sephora and its ilk. The beauty section still stocks the luxury brands you’d expect, but has added hip, less pricey items to help Nordstrom reach a wider clientele.
“We thought, ‘Let’s create more authority,’” says Nordstrom, who serves as co-CEO with his brother Erik. “The store feeling good and feeling energetic is in large part because we’ve improved our beauty.”
There are other signs in the store of Nordstrom finding its mojo again in the nearly one year since the family and a Mexican investor took the retailer off the stock market. There is an overhauled, much larger jewelry section on the same floor, as well as a two-level, design-y brand-showcase section called “The Gift Shop at The Corner” that changes every month, prominently placed at the busy intersection of Broadway and 57th.
