Nordstrom acquires personalized clothing service for men
Nordstrom has entered into an agreement to acquire Trunk Club, a personalized clothing service for men.
Trunk Club delivers a stylist service that combines the convenience of online with a high-touch, personalized shopping experience. Nordstrom plans to leverage the acquisition to offer superior customer service and a seamless shopping experience.
"What Trunk Club is doing in the personal styling space is a natural extension of our core business," said Erik Nordstrom, president of Nordstrom Direct. "This acquisition is reflective of how we want to move quickly to evolve with customers by finding more ways to deliver a great shopping experience. One of the pillars of our long-term growth strategy is to integrate the online and offline customer experience, and the personal styling space is a great example of how these two worlds are coming together. We view this investment as complementary to our own business and our efforts to better serve customers."
"Nordstrom is stellar at many of the things we aim to improve on to offer our members the best possible service: inventory management, planning and logistics are great examples. We knew that a partnership with the best-in-class retailer could significantly enhance our member experience and we are excited to have found a company that is such a natural fit with our culture and approach to customer experience," Trunk Club CEO Brian Spaly said.
Trunk Club has 250 personal stylists that work one-on-one with members to help them hand-select merchandise that is then shipped to them. Customers keep what they like and return the rest free. There is no membership fee, no obligations and no commitments.
Trunk Club offers a full suite of solutions, from day to day ready-to-wear basics to high-end custom garments. Customers can seamlessly access the service across the Web, mobile and in-store, with showrooms in Chicago, Dallas and Washington, D.C., and a fourth opening in Los Angeles next month, where they can meet face-to-face with their stylists.
Trunk Club will continue to operate independently and focus on its core business while leveraging Nordstrom's capabilities and resources to scale its business. It will be managed by its current leadership team and remain headquartered in Chicago. The transaction is subject to closing conditions, including customary regulatory and stockholder approvals, and is expected to close in the third quarter of 2014. Nordstrom will provide additional details of the transaction on its upcoming earnings conference call August 14. Guggenheim Securities, LLC is acting as financial adviser to Nordstrom; Paul Hastings LLP and Lane Powell PC are acting as its counsel. Goodwin Proctor LLP is acting as counsel to Trunk Club.