So much for the classic story of the ultimate in customer service, in which Nordstrom accepted the return of a set of tires, even though they didn’t sell tires, because that’s what the customer wanted.
Whether it’s BS or not, politicizing your product offerings is no way to maximize business results. Of course I can’t remember setting foot in a Nordstroms store nor do I intend to, so what do I know?
Actually we had a similar experience. For our wedding we got a set of really ugly Onyx horse head book ends from a relative and they came in a Nordstrom's box. We took them back. After a long time of the store trying to find the book ends in their inventory, they had to finally tell us that the book ends did not come from Nordstroms. BUT they offered us a $10 store credit for them. We took it.