Bloomingdale's

Lizzie Radabali has that story.

On November 19th, there will be hiring events at all Macy's, Bloomingdale's, and Blue Mercury stores across the country.

We are looking for dependable people that want to earn a little extra for the holiday season.

The seasonal supply chain colleague, they are the back-scene heroes that deliver the holidays for our customers.

Retailers are leaning harder on the one thing a machine can't replicate, a human salesperson who knows exactly what their clients want.

From Nordstrom's uncapped commissions to Bloomingdale's dedicated personal shopping suites for its top stylist, the perks available to salespeople who can single-handedly move millions of dollars in merchandise underscores just how valuable the talent has become.

Here to discuss with me is BOF's retail editor, Cathaleen Chen, whose retail coverage has been exploring these shifts across fashion for quite some time.

Kat, welcome to The Debrief.

But the other side of it, I think, is actually just...

the interest in multi-brand.

I think that people want to shop in this multi-brand discovery prone environment that only the Nordstrom's, the Bloomingdale's, the Saks's of the world can offer.

I mean, Amy O'Dell's Substack, she interviews sales associates from like Hermes and then the row.

Yep, apparel.

I started at Macy's, moved to Bloomingdale's.

I was always doing product development or buying, but always in apparel and accessories.

Nothing to do with jewelry.

And I was the exact agent demo of, you know, a New York City bride at the time and thinking there's a different way to do this.

It was right when e-comm was exploding for most other categories and e-comm was hardly even, it wasn't even considered, I think, for jewelry at that point.

I was coming from Bloomingdale's.com.

It was this massive focus on how do you sell clothing online? Because that was new back then, which it's kind of crazy to think about.

After that, he founded Ferra, one of the most popular review apps for Shopify merchants.

And now he's co-founded Ocelo, a marketplace listing platform optimized for agentic workflows used by Shopify fashion brands listing on Nordstrom, Macy's, Bloomingdale's, and Target Plus.

Hello, Jay.

Hello.

So could you please let the listeners know where they can find you and Aselo if they want to get in contact with you and get help with their marketplace listings?

Yeah, so you can go to our website, ocello.com.

If you are looking to sell on Nordstrom, Macy's, Target Plus, or Bloomingdale's marketplaces online, or if you're already selling on them and you're struggling with listing, you're having to fill out spreadsheets, make... little image edits here and there and keeping yourself up at night, you know, with that, and you're getting delays, especially as we enter, you know, especially into the holiday season, then please do check us out, particularly if you're a fashion brand and, or you can find me on LinkedIn.

I'm always posting there and your social spots.

She was a feminist in a certain way, but she was born in 1934.

So she had to navigate a world which was a male-dominated world and to crack into The New Yorker, the way she did, she had merely been writing about the latest products at Bloomingdale's and Bergdorf Goodman for them without signature.

And somehow she worked her way into one of their star writers, if not their star writer.

She and Joseph Mitchell are the great writers of the New Yorker and especially of the Sean period.

And he's like, what just happened? It's unbelievable.

On Black Friday in Bloomingdale's, I shut down six computers.

They loved me.

I had to walk out of the store for my husband to buy my purchases.

So a lot of people don't realize this, but a lot of those loyalty apps, regardless of the brand, you have given permission for that app to track your location.

And when you go into an area that is geofenced, it will signal that you're within the area.

People wonder, why is it when I drive by Macy's or Bloomingdale's that suddenly the app gives me a

discount?

I can only assume that she's now learned things like all of the Beatles' best 1960s album tracks and maybe Bill Belichick is now a fan of K-pop? So in the UK, there is a store called John Lewis.

I guess it's a bit like Macy's or Bloomingdale's.

But there is a thing that every year they have a Christmas ad on the TV and they get a current artist to cover an old song.

And people place bets on what the song's going to be and who the artist is going to be.