Saks Global’s $2.7 billion takeover of the Neiman Marcus Group hasn’t been easy and has kept many vendors on edge.

But in a media briefing Tuesday morning at Bergdorf Goodman, Marc Metrick, chief executive officer, along with Emily Essner, president and chief commercial officer, and Tracy Margolies, president of Bergdorf Goodman, outlined progress, as they see it, in the integration, as well as opportunities for the future.

Combining the Saks and Neiman’s merchandising and marketing teams into a single organization, from a human capital perspective, is “wholly done,” Metrick said. “They’ve largely been integrated, though there’s always work to do.” He said there’s about a 50-50 split with half the team coming from Neiman’s and half from Saks.

Data will be key to differentiating from competitors, Metrick emphasized. “We’ve got data on 30 million luxury consumers. We have 700 million visits to our website and record every move that customers make. We understand more and more about this luxury consumer.”

Inventory sharing between Saks and Neiman’s will be another competitive advantage, he said. “It’s going to start with online fulfillment, and then it’s going to move into the stores. So you’re looking at every customer that walks into a Saks or Neiman’s store, any size they want, any color they want, any designer they want, anything they want that we have, you’ll have access to.”

On store closures, “There’s probably an opportunity to rationalize our fleet,” though it wouldn’t be based on the integration of Saks and Neiman’s, Metrick said. “What you’ll see over the next couple of years is an ordinary course type of closings — nothing on a large scale.” In a past interview, Metrick projected fewer than 10 closings. Already, Saks in Palm Beach closed, and Neiman’s in Dallas has an uncertain future, but remains open at least through the holiday season. Saks Global bought Neiman’s in December.

Metrick suggested Saks Global stores have been seriously over-assorted. “I want us to return back to our roots of being that fashion arbiter, that authenticator. Customers have simply too much choice,” he said. “We figured out through hyper-personalization, the exact assortment of product [shoppers] would be interested in when they go onto saks.com. Everyone’s home page at saks.com is personalized. The bottom line is, we have to do more with less.”

Saks Global is reducing its vendor matrix by 25 percent with some vendors leaving voluntarily while others are being dropped.

Earlier this year, Saks Fifth Avenue launched a storefront on Amazon Luxury Stores, following Amazon’s investment in Saks’ purchase of Neiman’s. It’s a move aimed at boosting the revenues of Saks and some vendor partners, though it poses some risk to hurting the luxury image of Saks and the participating vendors.

On the other hand, “There’s an international opportunity with Amazon,” Metrick said. “We’re not thinking about it for 2025 but more as we get into next year and the year after. Amazon is built ready for luxury, globally. There might be opportunities in specific regions and countries,” which could be enticing to brands.

Metric acknowledged that much of the conversation surrounding Saks Global has been about late or non-payments to vendors.

“I appreciate that and I’m aware it’s caused a lot of pressure and has resulted in noise,” Metrick said. Certain vendors continue to complain about overdue payments, but the CEO said: “We are largely in line with our payments with our brand partners. We need to move on from that part of the conversation and move towards saying, ‘Good news. We’re going to have $600 million in synergies, so now we can pay you.” The expected $600 million in annual savings will come through layoffs, consolidation of functions, and increased buying power over suppliers. Bergdorf Goodman maintains its own buying team, separate from the centralized Saks/Neiman’s organization.

“They want to get paid, but that’s not going to excite them,” Metrick added, referring to vendors. “What’s going to excite them is [Saks Global] adding 50 percent of volume over the next five years, through knowing the customer, giving you more space, being more efficient with your inventory, better sell-throughs, and making it more special through events and activations.”

While not disclosing any new financial results, Metrick suggested Saks Global is on sounder financial footing, noting the company recently closed on $600 million in financing through a bond exchange with existing holders. “There is north of $2 billion in bonds out there,” Metrick said.

With more money available, the Saks Fifth Avenue flagship holiday light show, which was canceled last year to the disappointment of the hundreds of thousands who crowd the streets to see the show each year, is being revived this year and will happen in November, Essner announced.

Essner said new Saks Fifth Avenue shop on Amazon was launched “with the hypothesis there’s still an untapped luxury consumer we can access and serve on Amazon. We’ve really found that’s true. The vast majority are new customers, not [those] shopping Saks previously. We are selling true luxury. We’re selling very high price point handbags and dresses in a way that surprised us. And it’s early days. There’s a lot more to build here, but we feel very good with some of the early signals.” About 50 vendors launched with Saks on Amazon.

The market has been curious on how Saks Global evolves Saks and Neiman’s and to the degree they differentiate. “We’re being very intentional about this,” Essner said. Saks Fifth Avenue is “really for the fashion enthusiast who is seeking originality, who views Saks Fifth Avenue as their partner in discovery. Neiman Marcus is really for a sophisticate who doesn’t settle.” In terms of items sold, there’s an over 60 percent overlap; the percentage is even higher in terms of brands.

Also on Tuesday, Saks Global unveiled its latest Luxury Pulse Survey, which from July 17-21 queried 995 U.S. luxury consumers over age 18. Among the most optimistic of the findings, 56 percent of luxury consumers said they planned to spend the same or more on luxury in August, September and October, compared with the previous three months, representing a 9 percentage-point increase compared with the April survey and nearly flat compared to the same time last year. But that also means that 44 percent of luxury consumers plan to spend less. Whether that all translates into better business for Saks Global this fall depends on how much more, or less, shoppers spend. Saks surveys luxury consumers on a quarterly basis.

Based on the July read, Saks does anticipate more spending through October, which Essner attributed to “a desire to treat themselves, which is something we hadn’t seen for a while, as well as feeling better about the overall economy, and their need to update their wardrobes. Some of that might be seasonal. Some of that might be the reality of the fashion coming up, but overall, those were very positive signs.”

The survey also found that 32 percent of luxury consumers feel optimistic about the economy, up 4 percentage points compared with the April survey, but 13 percentage points lower than the same time last year. Fifty-nine percent of luxury consumers feel good about their personal finances, 8 percentage points above the April survey, but a 9 point decline from the same time last year.

Asked about rising prices, Essner said luxury consumers “are very concerned about value.” That value can be inherent in the craftsmanship and in the design of the product, she said. “The luxury consumer is not necessarily concerned about price.”

With tariffs impacting prices, Essner said: “Some brand partners are being thoughtful about their assortments. They’re being thoughtful about pricing, looking potentially in some places to introduce more entry price points as appropriate. In general, what we’re hearing from a tariff perspective is midsingle-digit price increases. That’s very much in line with the increases consumers have seen over the last few years and not going to necessarily stand out.”

When querying luxury shoppers in July, Essner said tariffs were not hitting in a big way. “It was a little bit too soon to tell in terms of how, especially the luxury consumer, is going to react, because, frankly, the impact of tariffs isn’t something that they have seen. The bigger concern, the macroeconomic noise generated from all of the tariff discussion.”

Looking ahead, Essner noted that recently the saks.com homepage became “a fully personalized experience. We will be taking that capability to neimanmarcus.com and bergdorfgoodman.com.”

She also said over 60 percent of the luxury brands Saks Global carries are working on exclusives for the fall season.

At Bergdorf Goodman, “We have over 120 events for this fall,” said Margolies. She also said Bergdorf’s, as part of improving its store experience, launched new shops for Tom Ford ready-to-wear and Dior beauty, and will launch a new Schiaparelli shop in the fourth quarter.