W7 Discussion: Lululemon: Turning Lemons into Lemonade

Chapter 12: Lululemon: Turning Lemons into Lemonade: 12-4c Customer Privacy Book Title: Business Ethics: Ethical Decision Making and Cases Printed By: Kennisha Holloman ([email protected]) © 2019 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

12-4c Customer Privacy

Lululemon is known for wanting to avoid collecting large amounts of customer information

through big data techniques. Instead, it desires to have a close and open relationship with

customers. One of the ways it does this is by listening to customers as they shop in the

store. Lululemon takes customer complaints or concerns seriously and will attempt to make

decisions based on this information.

Although this emphasis on listening to the customer is an important part of Lululemon’s

customer relations, some people believe Lululemon takes it too far. A less well-known

ethical risk that the company practices is the training of retail employees to eavesdrop on

their customers. Lululemon prefers this to spending money on marketing software that

tracks purchases or sending out survey requests. Christine Day, the former CEO, used to

spend much of her time in retail stores, pretending to be a customer, in order to listen to

complaints and observe shopping habits. When she was with the company, she had stores

set up their clothes-folding tables next to the fitting rooms so employees could better

overhear any complaints. Whether these practices are smart marketing techniques or

infringements on privacy is ambiguous.

Chapter 12: Lululemon: Turning Lemons into Lemonade: 12-4c Customer Privacy Book Title: Business Ethics: Ethical Decision Making and Cases Printed By: Kennisha Holloman ([email protected]) © 2019 Cengage Learning, Cengage Learning

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