Retailers Integrate Brick-and-Mortar Stores to Expedite Online Orders

Some traditional retailers, seeking to compete with the efficiency and shipping speed of online merchants like Amazon.com, are finding new ways to tap their stores to fill online orders. Nordstrom and Jones Apparel Group are increasingly using their large store networks, in addition to big centralized distribution hubs, to ship online orders quickly to buyers nearby. New inventory management software, they say, helps them increase efficiency in part by using online orders to keep excess inventory from building up in stores.