Try to Create Some Retailing Folklore

“AND NORDSTROM refunded the cost of a set of tires ….” Yawn. OK, so you know the story. (An Alaska Nordstrom was housed in a former tire store, so the man had, technically, purchased the tires in that location.) What’s important here is not whether it’s a fresh tale or that it’s even true. (Nordstrom insists it is.) What matters is that it’s now part of American retail folklore, a tireless generator of goodwill capital. This year, create your own legend with one outlandish, cost-be-damned act of customer service — trudge through the snow on Christmas Day to hand-deliver a rescue pup to an orphan … It doesn’t have to become standard operating procedure. Be sure the press finds out — second-hand, of course.