Nordstrom Announces Investments In Digital Technology

SEATTLE, March 8, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- To further meet the needs of today's customer, Nordstrom continues to make investments in evolving the customer experience, with a strong emphasis on integrating technology across its business. To support these efforts, Nordstrom announced it has closed deals to acquire two leading retail technology companies: BevyUp, the innovators behind a digital selling tool, and MessageYes, a platform rooted in conversational commerce. 

"The retail environment is changing faster than ever, but the value of service, speed, convenience and newness remain constant," said Brian Gill, technology senior vice president at Nordstrom. "To continue to be successful into the future, we need to invest in technologies that will enable us to deliver on those qualities and better serve customers in a digitally-connected world."

The two deals are a part of the retailer's innovative approach to creating a seamless shopping experience for customers. To serve customers on their terms, Nordstrom is looking at ways technology can support the evolution of the customer experience.

"We're investing in providing our salespeople with a mobile suite of capabilities that enables them to be relevant, informative and accessible to our customers," said Gill. "As a leader in retail technology and an existing Nordstrom partner, BevyUp is uniquely positioned to help us deliver for our people and our customers."

BevyUp's digital selling platform will be incorporated into a new, integrated mobile Nordstrom employee app that will be rolled out in the coming year.

"BevyUp was founded on the simple idea that retailers could develop meaningful connections with their customers. We've helped revolutionize the customer experience by extending a salesperson's relationships beyond the confines of brick-and-mortar stores. Becoming a part of the Nordstrom team gives us the opportunity to take our combined efforts even farther," said Mauricio Cuevas, founder and CEO of BevyUp.

"MessageYes marks a meaningful addition to our existing depth of talent and experience in engineering, data science and machine learning ? all skills that are essential to our future growth," said Gill. "We share the same vision for the future of retail, and their team will accelerate our efforts to deliver a meaningful, personalized experience for our customers."

"Personalized shopping has long been our focus, and it's something that's been core to Nordstrom since they were founded back in 1901," said Dave Cotter, founder and CEO of MessageYes. "Nordstrom has succeeded in building emotional relationships with their customers ? creating connections that go well beyond a transaction. When we started MessageYes, that's exactly what we wanted to do. Joining Nordstrom enables us to take a lot of our concepts and integrate them across all of the channels Nordstrom uses to serve customers."

ABOUT NORDSTROM
Nordstrom, Inc. is a leading fashion retailer based in the U.S. Founded in 1901 as a shoe store in Seattle, today Nordstrom operates 366 stores in 40 states, including 122 full-line stores in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico; 232 Nordstrom Rack stores; two Jeffrey boutiques; two clearance stores; seven Trunk Club clubhouses; and its Nordstrom Local service concept. Additionally, customers are served online through Nordstrom.com, Nordstromrack.com, HauteLook and TrunkClub.com. Nordstrom, Inc.'s common stock is publicly traded on the NYSE under the symbol JWN.

ABOUT BEVYUP
BevyUp is enhancing the omnichannel experience by extending sales associates' customer relationships beyond brick-and- mortar stores. Stylists use BevyUp's mobile clienteling app, Style Boards, to provide their customers with a personalized, omnichannel experience unlike any other in the market. BevyUp's retail customers are based in both Europe and North America, and include many publicly-traded, mid-cap and enterprise-level companies. Founded in 2012, BevyUp continues to grow their services to meet the needs of the retail industry. BevyUp is located in the retail technology and eCommerce innovation epicenter, Seattle, WA.

ABOUT MESSAGEYES
MessageYes' mission is to help people effortlessly discover and purchase items they love using their mobile phones. MessageYes is the first platform to offer frictionless e-commerce over mobile messaging for brands looking to engage and transact directly with their customers. Leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), human-assisted AI, and integrated payments, the MessageYes platform learns from customer feedback to make the experience serendipitous to each person and brand. Message recipients simply reply "Yes" to instantly buy from their mobile phones.

Karin Muskopf
Nordstrom, Inc.
[email protected]  
877-746-6228

SOURCE Nordstrom, Inc.