• Marketplace, Friday, October 29, 2010 10:49 AM

Janet Babin reports about Nordstrom's plans to open a concept store in the Soho section of New York City that will give all of its profits to charities. Details aren't plentiful yet, but observers are impressed.

"I think this is a fantastically crazy idea, because it not only benefits the charities," says Trutina Financial retail analyst Patricia Edwards, "but it also improves the Nordstrom brand in Manhattan, where they want to be able to bring a full-line store."

But Christopher Gergen, who is with the Hart Leadership Program at Duke University, has a few cautionary thoughts for the Seattle-based retailer. "Consumers are getting more and more sophisticated," he says. "And if they feel like they're getting taken for a ride -- they're basically just providing a lot of marketing bump for Nordstrom -- that's going to create a level of cynicism that's going to be hard to recover from."

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