Bloomingdale’s to Focus on Bloomingdales.com

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Bloomingdale’s today announced plans to shift the focus of its direct-to-consumer business to the bloomingdales.com Web site, where sales growth has far outpaced the Bloomingdale’s By Mail catalog in recent years. The company will continue to enhance bloomingdales.com as a robust growth vehicle for the Bloomingdale’s brand. The Bloomingdale’s By Mail catalog will be discontinued by early 2009. Advertising catalogs produced by Bloomingdale’s marketing division are unaffected by this announcement.

“Bloomingdale’s is focused on growing its online business, increasing profitability and reflecting a seamless brand and merchandise selection, whether it be in-store or online”

The restructuring, which will occur incrementally over the next eight months, reduces redundancies, streamlines operations, and creates a more efficient and focused organization to capitalize on the opportunities within the online business.

Bloomingdales.com is part of the direct-to-consumer business of Macy’s, Inc. (NYSE:M), which is expected to exceed $1 billion in sales in 2008. These direct-to-consumer businesses have benefited from significant infrastructure improvements, including two 600,000-square-foot fulfillment centers opened by Macy’s, Inc. over the past year in Portland, TN, and Goodyear, AZ.

“Bloomingdale’s is focused on growing its online business, increasing profitability and reflecting a seamless brand and merchandise selection, whether it be in-store or online,” commented Michael Gould, Bloomingdale’s chairman and chief executive officer. “As more customers turn to the Web for access to Bloomingdale’s, their shopping experience must be brand-right. We intend to implement various enhancements to the Web experience, including ones that can bring to life some of our celebrated special events. Eliminating the paper catalog is also consistent with our sustainability and environmental policies of communicating more with customers electronically and less in paper.”

Bloomingdale’s is America’s only nationwide, full-line, upscale department store; and a division of Macy’s, Inc. It was founded in 1872 and currently operates 40 stores in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Illinois, Minnesota, Georgia, Florida, Nevada and California. For more information, or to shop any time, visit www.bloomingdales.com.