Plenty of companies have turned Pinterest into a de facto catalogue as a way to drive online sales. Nordstrom (JWN) is going in the other direction: stretching the image-based social network into its brick-and-mortar stores.
In March, the department store chain started marking its “most-pinned” products from Pinterest with little “P” logos at two stores near its Seattle headquarters. Now Nordstrom has expanded the initiative to 13 of its 248 locations in a trial that will end just before the company’s big anniversary sale later this month. The Pinterest push marks the latest play by the 112-year-old brand to leverage tech startups for in-store sales.
In a sense, Nordstrom’s move to bring an aspect of Pinterest into its stores was just a way the company could mesh with an online environment its shoppers had embraced. The department store has 4.5 million followers on the social network, many more than its closest department store rivals combined. “We had such a large and engaged Pinterest community already,” says Nordstrom spokesman Colin Johnson. Executives had already adopted Pinterest as a tool, he adds, ”to find out what’s exciting for our customers—and what’s inspiring them.”
Nordstrom has a Pinterest page featuring Boo, the world’s cutest dog, perhaps a nod to the Internet’s cute-animal obsession. But the Pinterest campaign goes beyond fluffy puppies and super-saturated shoe photos: Nordstrom uses the items pinned by its followers to help manage inventory. The company developed an app that lets workers on its sales floor access a “dashboard” that cross-references the most-pinned handbags, shoes, and other offerings with the products in stock at that location. “If we’re not deep in stock in something,” Johnson says, bookmarking something on Pinterest is “not going to help the customer.”
A dress marked as “most-pinned” near one Nordstrom might not hold that distinction elsewhere, and the company can shift supplies to match. There are other layers of geography to consider, too. A pair of much-pinned snow boots probably aren’t going to sell well in a Sun Belt store, even if Nordstrom has them in stock. Johnson says the strategy is more about “engagement” than a way to drive revenue. “You get such great instant feedback that it makes a lot of sense that you’d want to capture it,” he says.
The goal is to develop a consumer label that will rate apparel, from a jacket to a pair of jeans, based on a company's adherence to environmental and worker-safety practices.
Will the Bangladesh tragedies cause a shift in how consumers buy clothes?
"In the short term, yes," said Kimberly Elsbach, professor at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management. "But people tend to slip back into old habits. … It's tough to keep people vigilant, especially when so many other things fight for our attention."
Elsbach said consumers would need more constant reminders, such as a "humane trade" label, similar to the "fair trade" tags found on edible products in grocery stores or organic food vendors. "If an entire (apparel) chain can guarantee humane trade, it's easier for someone to say, 'OK, I'll just shop at 'XYZ' chain, because I know their products are produced humanely,' " said the UC Davis professor.
Clothes-shopping on a recent summer afternoon in midtown Sacramento, elementary school teacher Suzy Brusca said she typically doesn't spend too much time checking labels, partly because it's hard to know how to judge a company's adherence to worker safety or environmental concerns.Shopping is the best place to comparison shop for bottega purses.
"When I look at labels, I don't know which ones are ethical and which aren't," said the Carmichael resident. "But it's just like with our food, where people started reading labels and following where it came from and what's in it.
"Maybe that's where we need to go with clothes."
'SUSTAINABLE' CLOTHING If you want apparel produced in environmentally friendly and/or humane manufacturing conditions, here are starting places.
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