Word: nordstrom
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...Nordstrom. In the low-margin, highly competitive world of department-store sales, Seattle-based Nordstrom has turned exacting standards of customer service into a billion-dollar annual business. The rapidly expanding chain, which has 45 stores in California, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Montana and Utah, has drilled its staff incessantly with the venerable dogma that the customer is always right. Result: the chain's sales, 73% derived from women's retailing, passed the $1 billion mark for the first time in 1985 and reached an estimated $1.6 billion for 1986. Sales per square foot of space, a basic retail performance yardstick...
...major ingredient in Nordstrom's success is the quality of the salesclerks. They are paid about 20% better than those of competitors, and they are well trained and encouraged to do almost anything within reason to satisfy customers. In Seattle, a store salesclerk personally ironed a customer's newly bought shirt so that it would look fresher for an upcoming meeting. Thomas Skidmore, vice president of a Los Angeles-area real estate brokerage, tells of bringing back a squeaky pair of year-old shoes to a local Nordstrom outlet, hoping merely for repairs. Instead, he got a new pair...
Other retailers look on Bloomingdale's as the store to watch. Margaret Dadian, chief buyer for Kay Campbell Stores in Evanston, Ill., says of her frequent trips to New York: "I'd miss seeing my grandchildren, but I'd never miss seeing Bloomingdale's." Nordstrom, a company that operates 17 stores in Washington, Oregon and Alaska, makes a point of sending buyers on pilgrimages to Bloomingdale's. "It is a very flexible store," says Merchandiser Jack McMillan. "It's quick to see and develop new lines." In Boston, once-staid Jordan Marsh has patterned part of itself after Bloomingdale...
...PAULINE NORDSTROM Santa Monica, Calif...
Chairmen of the Graduate School Drives are: Richard B. Angell, Arts and Sciences; Alfred Nordstrom, Business; Royal McClure, Design; Forest K. Davis, Divinity; William A. Penrose, Education; John G. Wilson, Engineering; John F. Martin, Law; Bradley Bigelow, Medical; H. Ralph Taylor, Public Administration; and Audrey Bill, Public Health...