Pros
Nordstrom as a whole is a great company to establish a great clientele base, depending on where you are. The many different departments give you a wide selection of merchandise to sell and the freedom to take your client anywhere. Nordstrom wants to make sure you are prepared to assist any and all customers so they will try there best to motivate you, help and assist you when you seem to be struggling. You can make some real money as well if you establish your clientele book. The more consistent your client base is the more you make basically. The best part is that the more expensive departments have a great commission rate. So the more expensive your sales are the better your paycheck. Nordstrom really tries to make sure you are knowledgeable about their products by having brand reps come in and teach you about their merchandise, its history and where its going in the future. The management is also very kind and they emphasize teamwork among each other through communication. Build a healthy relationship with the many department managers and you'll see them trying to help you in every way possible. They also like to promote from within which is great if you haven't had an established management career before Nordstrom. You can build your career in Nordstorm and continue up the corporate ladder, though that may take a while.
Cons
The biggest problem with Nordstrom is their return policy, or the lack thereof. What I mean is that Nordstrom doesn't have a true return policy which means customers can return whatever whenever they want. And what makes that worse is that all associates are commission based. If a customer buys something from you today but decides to return in in 364 days, that's money out of your paycheck (After a year, your pay is no longer affected but they may still return and it will still hurt your department). They try to encourage you to establish a relationship with all of your customers and communicate with them to prevent these returns but the truth is it's just plain unrealistic. The customer can return used merchandise and get there money back, and all of this is worse if you work in a designer department. Most merchandise there is worth $100+ and having sales with large amounts of merch. from there can really kill you especially if you've struggled during your pay period. You can communicate all you want but if your customer wants their money back they're getting it back. Nordstrom tries to create restrictions to help minimize the returns, like designer merch. cannot be returned if worn, missing tags and/or seemingly fraudulent, but the fact of the matter is that all the customer has to do is argue enough to the store manager and they'll grant them a return or exchange or the customer just goes to another department where they don't understand the designer return policy. The employee PTO system is also very flawed. You have to work a large amount of hours to even build one hour of PTO. I've worked for 8 months and have yet to see any accumulated hours of PTO. Lastly they really expect employees to make money when it is extremely slow with is very difficult if you don't have a well rounded clientele book. Many times in Nordstrom you'll have a customer drought and that may be more often depending on where your store is. Mine is in a pretty populated area and even we get struck by this drought and it creates a very depressing atmosphere when you don't see your numbers improving especially if you've been struggling throughout the pay period.