I just had an impressively spooky experience.  I’m hanging out with my brother and sister-in-law on their couch, doing what people do these days when they communicate; we are having about three conversations at once, all while on our phones, iPads and computers.  We are flipping between three conversations of holiday shopping, work updates and house hunting; meanwhile, we are all flipping between email, Google searches, holiday shopping websites and home buying websites.

My sister-in-law took the challenge to help me find some pants for my husband.  We both focused intently for about 15 minutes, trying to find 36×36 pants of a certain color and style (I thought I had problems finding long enough pants!).  She finally hit the jackpot on the Nordstrom site. After some online chats with a wardrobe consultant, I found two pair I thought would work and added them to my shopping basket.  Then I got distracted.  In fact, for about 20 minutes, I’d rerouted to LL Bean, then house hunting, then Toys R Us and finally, my email.  Then I started back on the holiday shopping, looking for a gift for another difficult-to-purchase-for relative.  I was looking for something specific and found a personal blog of a mom to help me; I can’t say any more or I might spoil the gift. 

The best part is that I was reading through this blog and after I paged down a bit, a Nordstrom advertisement showed up in the middle of the text!  Not any ad, an ad with the two pairs of pants I’d selected and forgotten about in my shopping cart.  I was so impressed with Nordstrom’s insistence I switched tasks and purchased.

I guess in today’s world of short attention spans and multitasking, companies must advertise to get their customers back when they forget about their purchasing.  I’m impressed!