So, I posted a few days ago about receiving an email from Nordstrom saying they were “firing” me as a customer because I returned too much over the past 12 months. Initially I was feeling pretty bad about this, it felt like a personal rejection, although of course it was not. The original post is here… https://youlookfab.com/welookf.....-nordstrom. Thanks to all for the great feedback and suggestions from all, not to mention the sympathy/empathy and support. I consider the issue resolved, although it did not work out quite as I had expected. As always, comments, questions, suggestions are welcome.

Over the past few days I looked at some numbers.
I went back into my spreadsheets, and looked at numbers for combined Nordstrom and Nordstrom Rack Shopping.
• For the first half of 2020, I returned 85% of the items I bought, measured by quantity of items and total $$ value. In ALL cases they were items not available in stores, and most cases returned because they didn’t fit.
• For the 2nd half of 2019, the numbers were even “worse” from Nordstrom’s perspective; I returned 91% of the quantity and 95% of the total $$ value. Similar story otherwise.
• I also looked at how many things I've bought at Nordstrom over the past few years (thanks to YLF Finds), and found it was not a very large number, a lot of it could be found at other stores, and the number has gone down over time. They just don't carry much that fits me AND appeals to me.

Log of events
On Fri 6/5, I received email telling me Nordstrom no longer was willing to do business with me. Within the hour I called Nordstrom customer support, to ask them if it was a scam. I spoke with a 1st level customer service rep who forwarded me to another 1st level person at nordstrom.com. Between the two of them they verified that the email came from a real Nordstrom email account, had a real Nordstrom phone # in it, and that Nordstrom does cancel customer accounts sometimes. The also confirmed that my account had been closed. (I didn’t ask about that very precisely at the time).

Mond 6/8, I called the contact phone # on the email (Account review team), and left two brief voicemails saying I’d like to discuss it with them. Later that day I was able to log in to both my Nordstrom.com account and my Nordstrom store credit card account. Neither had been cancelled although I suppose they might be in the future.

Tues 6/29 I received a return call from a guy on the Nordstrom account review team. I decided to start off my conversation on a positive note, by saying that I totally understand from the numbers that I could be costing Nordstrom $$$ (after all every return has to be processed and then resold or whatever and that is an operational cost) and did not want to do that to them, but wondered if he could advise me on how I could change my purchase practices to better insure that they do not lose money on me. I also asked if there was any path to reinstatement. I also said I thought the way I was given the news was pretty awful from a customer support perspective. The guy said I was the most considerate and reasonable customer he had ever spoken with in the 10 years he’s been doing this sort of work, because I “get” the business needs and because I was pleasant with him. So, we started off on a very positive note on something I expected would be unpleasant and contentious.

He confirmed that they do "fire" customers when their rate of returns gets high, and said that the Nordstrom leadership has decided that there is no path to reinstatement at present. They apparently tried issuing warnings at some point in the past when customers got near the “danger zone” (my words) but it did not result in any change in customer behavior so they stopped doing it.

We then had more conversation. I told him I thought Nordstrom needed to come up with some changes to their business model around online ordering and returning that would allow for lots of returns but not cause them to lose too much money….like maybe charging for returns. He said that he’s been hearing a lot of feedback like mine, which he passes on. He said that 80% of sales were in stores before Covid-19, but in the last few months it’s been 100% online and will potentially never go back to the way it was, and he believes the Sr Execs will have to pay attention to that and think about online ordering in a new way. Of course none of that guarantees that they will change anything but he was honest with me. He did suggest that I try reaching out to him personally or the company in general in 6 – 12 months and see if anything has changed.

So, I FEEL much better about this. I started the conversation by acknowledging what part I had unknowingly played in the situation,and had a very positive and honest conversation with a real person. I told him what a horrible customer experience it was and he listened when I suggested that they may need to rethink their policies. Given how I find less and less that interests me at Nordstrom, I’m OK with ending the relationship now, but I'm content to let it go without saying "never again". I did find the name of the VP of customer support but I’m not planning on reaching out to him, and I’m not planning on posting on social media either. I’ve spent way too much time on this; time to move on.

So, to summarize:
• They issue is not just how may returns you do, it’s returns as a percentage of what you buy overall. If you return 85-90% of what you buy you might get "fired" as a customer. I didn’t ask if that threshold was different for people who spent huge amounts vs lower amounts. You should consider tracking your own patterns if you return a lot.
• I would recommend that if this happens to you, you call them and voice your displeasure, and if you have tracked real numbers make that part of the conversation. If they hear enough complaining maybe they will adjust their business practices to something that works better for both their bottom line and their customers.
• If anyone would like to see my real $$ amounts, PM me and I’ll share them. I don’t mind sharing them 1-on-1 but am not comfortable doing it here in an open forum

p.s.....now that I think about it I'm going to call back tomorrow and ask if I should expect my Nordstrom credit card to be cancelled and make sure that if that happens it will not impact my credit rating.....