Phony shoe-sale victory gets eight fired at Nordstrom
The problem arose when some employees and managers at the downtown Seattle store apparently cheated to win. And now, eight have lost their jobs because of it.
Nordstrom said yesterday it had fired eight of the 17 employees in women's shoes at its flagship store after an internal investigation found that those employees fudged sales totals to win the April 26 contest.
"There were a handful of employees who took liberties with this contest for their own personal gain," company spokeswoman Shasha Richardson said.
Employees sold shoes to themselves and rang up sales for co-workers, family members, friends and customers knowing the shoes would be returned in a few days, Richardson said. Nordstrom is known for its generous return policy: It takes back most items unconditionally.
Internal security systems flagged an unusually high volume of returns after the Munro event, Richardson said, and detected employees ringing up sales for themselves, which itself is grounds for termination. No shoes were billed to customers' accounts without their permission, Richardson said.
The downtown store sold 339 pairs of Munro shoes to win the companywide contest, which pitted stores against each other as part of an effort to promote one of the company's top vendors.
As the department that registered the highest increase over its goal, downtown women's shoes employees and managers each won a $500 bonus from Munro.
"I can't say that those were 100 percent pure sales," said one fired employee, who didn't want to be named. "Basically ... we manipulated the contest."
Munro shoes usually go for $60 to $130 a pair. Richardson said 120 pairs were returned. Nordstrom is paying Munro back for the bonuses it paid.
Employees normally wouldn't have much incentive to sell shoes that will be immediately returned because they don't earn commissions for items that are returned. But the contest's bonuses raised the stakes. On top of $500 apiece for winning the contest, employees received $5 for each pair of Munro shoes they sold.
At the downtown store, Munro American Vice President Mollie Munro handed out $5 bills on the spot.
Blurring the line between actual and artificial sales is something every Nordstrom employee knows about, the fired employee said.
Sales manipulation is a common practice for store sales and contests, the fired employee said. But it's not just downtown. Workers at every store fudge a little to meet goals or push their department into a winning position, the employee said.
"They're just wanting to strong-arm everybody and make an example of us," the employee said. "We're not the only ones who've ever done this, and it's not like this is our fresh and brand-new idea.
"They probably want to stop it throughout the company, but if that's so, they need to do it through training and not by firing people who have invested their time and hard work in the company."
Richardson said the company's investigation into the Munro event looked at every Nordstrom store, but what the company found at its downtown store was most troubling.
At other stores, "there might be a few individuals, but nothing like we saw at the downtown store," she said. "This is not widespread. It is an issue at our downtown store."
Robert Spector, co-author of the 1995 book "The Nordstrom Way," said the episode runs counter to Nordstrom's customer-service culture, which emphasizes "taking care of the customer and selling the customer the right product at the right price at the right time."
"If somebody does something like that, it really goes against the spirit of the company," Spector said. "The top Nordstrom salespeople, the people who understand the system, know it's not the one-shot deal, it's building up business over time."
Spector said sales events showcasing a particular vendor "can be very, very positive because they create excitement on the floor."
"It brings in customers, and there are positive incentives for people on the floor," Spector said. "Obviously, when that designer is there, you're going to work a little harder to sell. But as we see, just like anything else, it can be abused."
The company's investigation is continuing. Nordstrom officials are considering everything in weighing how to prevent this from happening at future vendor sales events, including whether to have them at all, Richardson said.
"We've always had contests, and they've gone really well; it's been a good way for employees to learn more about the product," she said.
"The vast majority of our employees are honest and ethical. It's really sad because we have a few employees who made some poor choices."
Seattle Times staff reporter Steve Miletich contributed to this report.
Lisa Heyamoto: 206-464-2149 or lheyamoto@seattletimes.com.
Jake Batsell: 206-464-2718 or jbatsell@seattletimes.com