Online sales grow an estimated 16.2% in March

Net Sales for the third quarter were $532 million, down 0.2% or $1 million, year over year. The net sales decrease was driven by a $6 million decrease in our Education segment, partially offset by a $5 million increase in our Trade Publishing segment. Within our Education segment, which includes our Basal business and our Extension businesses, the decline in year over year net sales was attributable to our Basal business, inclusive of international sales, which declined by $6 million from $301 million in 2016 to $295 million. Billings for the third quarter of 2017 were $584 million, down 6% or $36 million compared with $620 million for the same period in 2016. The decrease was driven by a $41 million decrease in our Education segment billings, slightly offset by a $5 million increase in our Trade Publishing segment billings. Within our Education segment, the decline in year over year billings was attributable to our Basal business, inclusive of international sales, which declined by $27 million from $338 million in 2016 to $311 million. Net income of $91 million in the third quarter of 2017 was slightly higher compared to a net income of $90 million in the same quarter of 2016, due primarily to the same factors impacting operating income offset by an unfavorable change in our income tax benefit of $5 million, from an income tax benefit of $16 million for the same period in 2016 to an income tax benefit of $11 million in 2017, primarily related to a change to our estimated annual effective tax rate during the prior year period. Click Read More below for additional information.

The United States Postal Service reported new delivery performance metrics through the first two weeks of the fiscal third quarter. For the week ending April 15 and the third consecutive week, First-Class Mail on-time delivery performance was nearly 94 percent. Through the first two weeks of the third quarter, the average time for delivery of a mailpiece across the postal network was 2.4 days. Third quarter service performance scores covering April 1 through April 15 included: *First-Class Mail: 93.6 percent of First-Class Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, an increase of 5.7 percentage points from the fiscal second quarter. *Marketing Mail: 95.4 percent of Marketing Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, an increase of 2.8 percentage points from the fiscal second quarter. *Periodicals: 87.7 percent of Periodicals delivered on time against the USPS service standard, an improvement of 5.8 percentage points from the fiscal second quarter.

During the holiday season, Nordstrom continued to leverage its digital and physical assets to provide a unique breadth of merchandise selection across brands, price points and styles and convenient shopping experiences for customers: *December sales across the Nordstrom and Nordstrom Rack brands reflected sequential improvement from November with momentum continuing into January. *Digital sales grew 23 percent over last year and represented 54 percent of total sales compared with 34 percent from the same period in fiscal 2019. *Approximately 11 percent of Nordstrom.com orders were picked up in-store, which accelerated to more than 20 percent during the week preceding Christmas. *Approximately 9 percent of Nordstromrack.com orders were picked up in-store, which was enabled by the integration of Nordstrom Rack store and online inventory in October. *More than 30 percent of online orders were fulfilled from Nordstrom and Nordstrom Rack stores. *As a result of expanded gifting selection, gifting items made up 67 percent of sales, an increase of 600 basis points from the prior year.