Retail Watchers

Just wondering if I'm hallucinating. We're out in Palm Springs at the moment and need to head into the Inland Empire for some appliance shopping. As it's hot as f***, perhaps a visit to the mall would be in order. Hmm, wouldn't mind stopping at Nordstrom. Surely the mall they're at would be more worthy of a visit than a generic Macy's-anchored mall.

Except...where is their storefinder on Nordstrom.com?

After several minutes(!) of looking I finally find it alllll the way at the bottom. The "pick it up at the store" thing midway through gives me 8 different locations, with distances helpfully noted, but zero context.

I've spent 10 more minutes trying to get a simple question answered: "closest full-line store to Palm Springs, CA" and I cannot figure it out!

Driving away in-store traffic, I'd say.

and the chat...
Thank you for contacting Nordstrom! Can we have your name please?
8:49 am
Jamie
8:53 am
Hi Jamie! Can we get your email address? We will only use it to find your profile.
8:53 am
xx@uux.com
8:53 am
How can we help you today Jamie?
8:53 am
Customer Service - U.S. and Canada
8:53 am
Thank you! Someone will be with you shortly. If you have your order number handy, you can enter it in the chat at any time.
Hi Jamie! My name is Juan. How can I help you today?
Are you still with me, Jamie? I would be delighted to help! However, if there is no response in the next minute, regrettably this chat session will be disconnected.
8:55 am
what is the closest full-line store to palm springs, fl
palm springs, ca
I cannot believe I can't find this myself--i've been on the site for 10 mins.
8:55 am
I would be more than happy to check on this store for you! May I have your zipcode?
8:56 am
92264
8:56 am
Thank you so much for that information, I really appreciate it. Allow me one moment please
Thank you so much for the kind patience, Jamie! I am truly sorry, I was not able to find any Near store. The one that I found is the Nordstrom Rack Town Center about 86 mi
8.6* sorry!
8:59 am
thank you.
9:00 am
Absolutely! By any chance do you have any questions about the information I provided? Was the information clear for you?
9:01 am
I am looking for a full-line store, not a Rack store.
9:01 am
I completley understand, Jamie, as I did say no near store, the nearest one is that Rack. I do apologize
9:03 am

It just took me about a 1 minute to do. Yes, the store locator is at the bottom, but that's not unusual for any place that does online sales and you can always do a key word search, which is what I do with cluttered webpages. I typed in "Palm Springs" and there was a map with a store location of a Nordstrom Rack, as well as list of all the cities in California with locations and a list of stores within 25 miles, which is just a Nordstrom Rack. The icon on the map could have been bigger, but this was not difficult. There isn't a conventional Nordstrom E of Arcadia which doesn't surprise me.

The problem I see is that give no way to find the nearest full line store. I go there and type in Palm Springs and it comes back with that one rack 11 miles away. I go type in Riverside and it gives me a few other racks around there.

If Nordstrom is a destination store, one people would drive many miles to go to, their store locator needs to show the nearest full line store.

These rack stores are basically garbage and they should be embarrassed to have their name on some of them. They have closed some poor full line stores in the past few years. They need to take a very hard look at some of these rack stores too. I don't necessarily think the rack stores need to be closed but they need to take a radically different approach to their merchandising and assortment. The Reno rack has very few customers while TJ Maxx is jam packed across the street and Ross is quite busy. That TJ Maxx looks like a Costco it is so busy, and many of the customers there look like they should be at rack.

They were supposed to build a full-line Nordstrom in Palm Desert years ago but it never happened.

timanny wrote: ↑September 3rd, 2022, 12:01 pm They were supposed to build a full-line Nordstrom in Palm Desert years ago but it never happened.

Couldn't even get Dillards. Desert out there. Gives Macy's a chance to shine. But do they take advantage of that chance?

timanny wrote: ↑September 3rd, 2022, 12:01 pm They were supposed to build a full-line Nordstrom in Palm Desert years ago but it never happened.

The real estate bust around 2008 ruined that PLUS................there just isn't enough "seasonal business" to sustain a FULL service store.

The Coachella Valley is not a retail paradise by any measure. Most retailers experience low average store volumes in comparison to other areas.

Even Paseo Drive is a retail joke even though it likes to claim to be the Rodeo Drive of the desert.

veteran+ wrote: ↑September 4th, 2022, 6:53 am

timanny wrote: ↑September 3rd, 2022, 12:01 pm They were supposed to build a full-line Nordstrom in Palm Desert years ago but it never happened.

The real estate bust around 2008 ruined that PLUS................there just isn't enough "seasonal business" to sustain a FULL service store.

The Coachella Valley is not a retail paradise by any measure. Most retailers experience low average store volumes in comparison to other areas.

Even Paseo Drive is a retail joke even though it likes to claim to be the Rodeo Drive of the desert.

But does Macy's step things up in that market? Palm Desert was one they've put some money into recently...

Almost would argue situation is better in El Centro since it has Dillards.

Speaking of Dillard's I wonder which local mall one would fit best among the Sacramento malls with at least one anchor vacancy.

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norcalriteaidclerk wrote: ↑September 4th, 2022, 2:50 pm Speaking of Dillard's I wonder which local mall one would fit best among the Sacramento malls with at least one anchor vacancy.

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I think Dillards is finally proceeding with a couple of new stores this year, including the Sioux Falls Store that I thought must be shelved. They are closing more stores than they open but that is pretty typical for this business and at least they are actually opening full size stores unlike any other department store chain at this point. Dillards should have jumped when the Sears went vacant in Roseville.