The strength of ‘weak signals’ | McKinsey & Company

The strength of ‘weak signals’ | McKinsey & Company



Spotting an opportunity to share this online engagement with in-store shoppers, the company recently started displaying popular Pinterest items in two of its Seattle-area stores. When early results were encouraging, Nordstrom began rolling out the test more broadly to capitalize on the site’s appeal to customers as the “world’s largest ‘wish list,’” in the words of one executive.² The retailer continues to look for more ways to match other customer interactions on Pinterest with its products. Local salespeople already use an in-store app to match items popular on Pinterest with items in the retailer’s inventory. As the “spotting” ability of companies in other industries matures, we expect visual tools such as Pinterest to be increasingly useful in detecting and capitalizing on weak signals.