ordstrom's need to manage its compliance procedures. Another potential area of difficulty is that of equal employment opportunities regardless of ethnicity or national origin. In that regard, Nordstrom appears to be ahead of the game. It has in place a diversity program, and it touts its offer of employee benefits to households that are governed by domestic partnerships (Levering & Moskowitz, 2010).
Technological Forces. Technological forces have strongly shaped retail practices in recent years. The advent of the Internet has transformed the retail market. The traditional nature of retailing has been that store traffic is a determinant of sales. However, the Internet made it possible for consumers to do all manner of shopping online. The principal effect of that shift in the structure of retail selling was to force traditional retailers--even higher-price-point retailers such as Nordstrom--to establish and maintain an Internet presence. Further, Nordstrom's image mandated that the Internet presence be readily functional, easy for consumers to use, and of the highest-quality presentation possible. An Internet search of Nordstrom's online presence reveals that the company has a full-bore online shopping capability. The presentation is of high quality, and the company offers a variety of coupons, special promotions, and the like. One proprietary promotion is the offer of free shipping on orders of $200 or more. There are 10 online departments that customers can use (men, women, juniors, babies, shoes, accessories, cosmetics, gifts, sale, and designer collections), as well as customer-service tags of various kinds. Significantly, there is even a customer-service telephone number on the home page of Nordstrom's shopping utility (Nordstrom, 2010). To put it another way, Nordstrom appears to have responded to the technological challenge to retail sales with a proactive technological presence. The ongoing challenge will be to exploit...