In Canada, Nordstrom Rack has been put on the shelf.
Seattle-based Nordstrom said this week it is delaying the expansion of its lower-priced Rack stores into Canada, a cautionary move that comes on the heels of Target’s disastrous foray north of the border last year.
Instead, Nordstrom will proceed with plans beginning this year to open full-line stores in Vancouver, Calgary, Ottawa and Toronto, according to spokeswoman Brooke White.
That rollout is slated to extend through 2017, at which point Nordstrom will begin to open Rack stores under a newly revised plan — a delay of about two years.
Rack stores had been slated to open in 2015.
“We’ve done a lot of homework, and what we’ve heard is that they want the full Nordstrom experience when we come,” White told The Post. “They don’t want ‘Nordstrom Light.’ ”
Insiders said some Nordstrom employees working on the Canada expansion have begun looking for jobs as the project gets dialed back.
Likewise, some landlords have been notified that pending lease deals may not get signed, sources said.
The company, however, said it’s sticking to the scope of its original Canada plans, which in 2012 called for 8 to 10 full-line stores and 15 to 20 Rack stores.
“We just want to make sure we get it right when we do come,” White said.
Nordstrom operated 117 full-line stores and 142 off-price Rack stores as of Feb. 1.
The Rack stores outperformed Nordstrom’s full-line stores in 2013, posting same-store sales gains of 2.7 percent compared to a 2.1 percent decline for the full-line stores.
Nordstrom execs have been studying the plight of other US chains in Canada, including Target, J. Crew and Williams-Sonoma. Still, Nordstrom said it decided to rein in its plans for internal reasons.
“We realized that nearly every internal system would need to be altered and that distribution was more complex than we originally anticipated,” the company said.
Nordstrom shares fell 0.2 percent on Friday to $62.50.