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Nordstrom

Nordstrom posts higher profits; Trump impact 'negligible'

Charisse Jones
USA TODAY
Nordstrom says there has negligible impact on its business in the wake of its decision to stop selling Ivanka Trump's brand, triggering her father's anger earlier this month.

Nordstrom's co-president discounted the impact of dropping the Ivanka Trump fashion line as the high-end department store chain reported better sales and profits for the fourth quarter.

Better control of its inventory and particularly robust sales by its off-price stores helped boost Nordstrom earnings in the fourth quarter.

The retailer posted $201 million in net earnings during the three-month period ended Jan. 28, or $1.15 per diluted share, vs. net earnings of $180 million during the fourth quarter the previous year, or $1 a share.

Net sales saw a 2.4% uptick, to $4.2 billion in the quarter. But sales at stores open at least a year, a common industry measure of a company's health, slid 0.9%.

“We are focused on speed, convenience and personalization,'' company CEO Blake Nordstrom said in an earnings call with investors on Thursday. He noted several tech innovations that are gaining traction, including a 45% increase last year in customers buying items online, then picking the purchases up at a store.

Additionally, a mobile feature that enables shoppers to reserve items online, and then travel to a store to try them on resulted in more than 10,000 reservations during its pilot phase and will now be rolled out to 50 full-line stores this year.

Nordstrom's financial results reflect a period that preceded the retailer announcing earlier this month that it would no longer carry Ivanka Trump's fashion line. That decision sparked the wrath of President Donald Trump, who tweeted that the store chain was treating his daughter unfairly. Nordstrom said at the time that the move was motivated by the brand's declining sales, not politics, and its stock price saw an uptick.

During the earnings call, company co-president Pete Nordstrom said the dust-up's impact on the business was "negligible.It's not really discernable one way or the other.''

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