Dive Brief:

• Seattle-based department store chain Nordstrom announced on Tuesday that chief financial officer Mike Koppel will retire in spring 2017.

• Koppel, who joined Nordstrom in 1999 and has been the company's CFO since 2001, will use the intervening months to help find his successor and aid in the transition, the company said.

• Under Koppel's leadership, Nordstrom took a second look at its five-year-capital plan, and in May he announced the retailer was looking to trim $150 million in expenses.

Dive Insight:

For a while there, Nordstrom, which has 329 stores across 39 states and Canada (including 121 full-line stores and 200 Nordstrom Rack stores), escaped the trouble that visited other U.S. department stores. 

Earlier this year, several experts told Retail Dive that there is indeed something unique about Nordstrom, citing its design thinking and superb customer service, and said those differentiators give the company a good chance of thriving, even within the embattled department store niche.

But that was before Nordstrom began mirroring its rivals with disappointing sales and store traffic results, and before it announced in April that it was eliminating some 400 jobs in a cost-cutting effort. The company has also grappled with the high cost of e-commerce, and in May, executives announced it would be selective about what it sells online and take steps to make its supply chain more efficient.

Koppel's retirement announcement follows a recent executive shakeup in September, in which Ken Worzel, who had been executive vice president of strategy and development since 2010, was promoted to president of its Nordstrom.com unit. Brothers Pete, Erik and Blake Nordstrom, who had served as co-presidents of the retailer, were shuffled to various branding and merchandise executive positions.

While in recent quarters Nordstrom has finally felt the 'difficult retail environment' hitting department stores, it did join in this summer’s retail rally, reporting second-quarter same-store sales that beat expectations. Its off-price Nordstrom Rack unit, which includes Rack stores, the Rack website and flash-sales site HauteLook, was even more impressive, logging an 11.2% net sales increase and same-store sales growth of 5.3%.