Orlando, FL—This June, Nordstrom.com, the Cedar Rapids, IA-based catalog/Internet subsidiary of department store chain Nordstrom, will all but stop using Priority Mail for the majority of its catalog and Web order shipments, according to outbound fulfillment operations manager Bill Monk. During a session on March 26 at the National Postal Forum, Monk said, “The U.S. Postal Service priced Priority Mail out of sight in the recent rate increase,” he said.
Instead, Nordstrom will ship about 85% of its packages through several freight consolidators to the Postal Service’s lower-cost Parcel Select system, in which packages are drop-shipped into postal Destination Delivery Units (DDUs) for final delivery. Monk says that the delivery speed will be a few days slower—from two to three days via Priority Mail to four to seven days for Parcel Select. But Nordstorm.com is working on ways to speed up its own order processing to keep the shift seamless to customers.