Nordstrom, the high-end department store famous for carrying everything from designer shoes to luxury makeup, just announced that they are closing down two of their flagship locations, one in Santa Monica, California, and the other in St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1901, Nordstrom has been one of the most important department stores in the country for more than a century and seeing these two iconic locations close down is one more sign of the times that are changing for the entire retail industry.
The Seattle based company has been making changes to how they work almost since the beginning, in an effort to adapt to a changing market. And while usually these changes have lead to a physical expansion effort, Nordstrom is now choosing to downsize in order to focus more on the online world and the way customers shop today, which is rarely in store.
The two announced Nordstrom closings that are taking eh world by surprise
Considering how shaky the department store scene has already been across the country, this move by Nordstrom should not have taken customers by surprise, and yet the announcement that these two locations will be closing their doors for good by the end of summer 2025 has been quite shocking. But this is part of a trend that has been going on for a while, more and more shoppers are turning to online options or heading to smaller, nearby stores instead of big department store chains and there are a lot of retailers that are feeling the pressure to change their business model to stay relevant or just open.
Nordstrom seems to be taking this in stride and have been making a plan to change and adapt to how people shop today, and they have announced that they are not giving up. A company representative explained to the DailyMail.com, “We believe we can better serve customers in each region by leveraging our nearby stores and through our digital channels.” In other words, they are putting more focus on perhaps smaller stores that are performing well and improving their online presence so that customers feel better taken care of.
The only part that seemed worrisome after this statement was the fate of the 130 employees in Missouri who are affected by that store’s closure, but the company as stated that they are working on relocating those who wish to remain employed by Nordstrom rather than firing them, as this is not on the employees.
This is not the first big move that the company is making in the past few months. Nordstrom made a big move in December 2024 when they teamed up with a retail group called The Port of Liverpool and bought the company back for $6.25 billion. By going private again and stopping being a publicly traded company, Nordstrom took off some of the pressure of having to perform well in all areas and in all stores, which was not happening due to the changes on how people shop. By putting a stopgap measure they bought themselves time to go in a new direction with a lot less public scrutiny.
This does not mean that Nordstrom is giving up and becoming a fully online company, there is still a market for in person shopping and they are willing to bet on it. They have been opening up new stores in places where there are gaps in the market they can fill, in locations like Florida, Texas, Idaho, and yes, even Massachusetts despite closing another location there, but these are smaller stores that do not have the pressures of being flagships. This continued investment in brick-and-mortar stores is still a key component to the company, but they are being much more selective about where they are located.