Eassy On Nordstrom

As companies started to acknowledge the value of customer data and how that data can be used to increase profits, many companies were willing to go a little further than others in acquiring that data. An example of one of these companies is the department store Nordstrom. Back in 2013, Nordstrom enlisted the aid of analytics company Euclid to assist in acquiring information on customers that could help improve insights on how shoppers spent their time in the store. At the time, Nordstrom was among 100 Euclid customers that the New York Times reported had already tracked about 50 million devices in 4,000 locations (Cohan 2013). Nordstrom with assistance from Euclid was operating a pilot program in the Dallas-Fort Worth area for a special technology that would track shoppers’ in-store foot traffic via cell phone signals (Hinshaw 2013). Euclid outfits its client’s stores with Wi-Fi antennae capable of tracking the habits of Wi-Fi-enabled phones that enter the store or simply come within range of the store’s Wi-Fi signal (Heller 2013). …show more content…
Nordstrom did attempt to notify their customers by placing printed signs in some of its stores notifying customers that “Nordstrom is using Euclid to gather public-broadcasted information your Smartphone or Wi-Fi-enabled device sends out when it’s attempting to connect to a Wi-Fi network (Heller 2013), The ethical question that followed was whether obtaining this information was unethical and/or an invasion of customer privacy. The answers to these questions may depend on which side of the customer/marketer divide you stand on. Heller went on to say that customers felt like it was an invasion of their privacy. Despite the signs, “many shoppers said that they were unaware of the tracking and considered it