Case Study: Zappos

Zappos is an online shoes retailer that started its business in the year 1999. Later on the company had expanded its business to include the beauty products, clothing and even the housewares within its leading e-commerce website. This case emphasizes on the customer service department of Zappos Company and initially the business focused only on the drop ship method. Later on the company also increased the variety of the products. The company had also created a bricks and mortar storefront to expand the business and increase the sales of the business.

In her interview with Motto, Victoria’s Secret Model Erin Heatherton admitted, “My last two Victoria 's Secret shows, I was told I had to lose weight. I remember staring at my food and thinking maybe I should just not eat.” Erin, like many, was pressured by Victoria’s Secret and societal standards to get a near perfect body image. Stores and their advertisements influence how humans behave, see themselves, and think of other people. Stores can affect consumers in negative and positive ways. Victoria’s Secret, known for its quality lingerie, has also branched off into perfumes, apparel, and lotions. Their audience encompasses mainly ranging from preteen to middle aged ladies. Many of their target audience members are easily influenced by Victoria’s Secret’s advertisement strategies and sales. Victoria’s Secret at the Empire Mall in Sioux Falls attracts customers with elaborate displays, and periodic sales and erases identity by creating a false sense of normalcy.

The owners of Zappos did an amazing job coming up with the idea of selling shoes to from online. There was a market that was created by Zappos. Zappos has been able to continue to grow due the advancing in technology that has made it must easier for customer to shop online. A lot of people know what kind of shoes they like and what size shoes they wear. If a customer does need a product in the next few days and can be patient then Zappos is a great store for that customer. Zappos makes it very easy for the customer because of it policies and customer service. Zappos offers free shipping. Zappos also give

Founded in 1999 by Nick Swinmurn, Zappos.com, initially named ShoeSite.com, has grown from an inventory-less, “drop-ship” shoe sales website that connected customer orders with shoe suppliers to an Internet shoe mega-retailer that recorded a reported $2.1 billion in revenue in

JC Penney’s physical international locations consist of inspection only locations. These locations outside of the US provide quality control for the product items that are made overseas helping to ensure that the products being imported for sale at JC Penney stores in the United States are of a quality consistent with the standards set forth by JCP.

American Eagle is audited by CBP which is Bureau of Customs-Trade Partnership and other agencies within the Department of Homeland Security. The company also has auditors within their company that does pre-inspections of all potential production facilities.

The Dollar General has the vision of believing in a number of activities that it seeks to deliver to the people. For instance, the Dollar General believes in respecting the personality and rights of its employees whatever their differences. The company believes in using decisions and actions that are direct from them. Moreover, the company likes being happy for the successes achieved, working hard in order to deliver goods and services to all its clients, and providing growth and development opportunities for employees in a

JCPenney’s strategies have been successful so far, but still need to fulfil everything. They have everything planned out from 2015-2017. They biggest things that is keeping them a floating is the Sephora new plan. The portion of JCPenney’s net sales from women’s accessories has increased 12.0% in fiscal. The Sephora boutiques has delivered a good performance in the first quart of fiscal 2015. They are working on upgrading different merchandise, but some are taking longer than others to succeed are. It is all a time thing and making sure, they are making sales.

The threat of new entrants into the online shoe/apparel market is relatively small due to the fact that Zappos is such an established brand and has specialized their business model. It would be far too expensive for a new company to copy the characteristics of Zappos including their next day delivery and large overhead. The fact that Zappos was losing money initially illustrates this difficulty. Another issue that would create a high barrier to entry is Zappos commitment to the consumer through overnight shipping. Zappos stated that the overnight shipping caused them to leave their warehouses open for the entire day. Any other company would

Besides, E-commerce is also considerably fast and means that the business will be more efficient. Furthermore, saves costs, as the business does not have the costs associated with running the business. They do not have to pay for such things as lighting, electricity, and fittings. With ecommerce the user has the ability to search for their product without having to look around shops in a time consuming manner. In fact the information is at their finger tips and can be accessed within minutes without even having to leave your home unlike shopping on the high street.

1. One of the requirements to successfully apply as a Zappos employee is to be happy. The company hires only happy people, after which the company expends significant effort to maintain this sense of happiness. The philosophy behind this is that customers will be happy when being served by happy employees. This is why the company strives to create a company culture that inspires its employees and promotes their sense of well-being.

Zappos started out by selling shoes online to become the world’s largest online retailer of shoes. Subsequently, in their quest to boost sales, they moved beyond footwear to become an E-tailer that sells ‘anything and everything’.

Zappos.com, established in 1999, has rapidly become a strong competitor in online apparel and footwear sales. With the original corporate vison of offering the absolute best selection in shoes; the vision has evolved over the past several years to include the goal of being the retailer that “provides the absolute best service online -- not just in shoes, but in any category” (Zappos, 2014). The online retailer stocks millions of reasonably priced footwear products; carrying thousands of hard to find brand named shoes, handbags, apparel and accessories via the company website and 7,000 affiliate partners. In recognizing their rapid success, Zappos credits it to their commitment to the customer, stating,

E-business uses the digital technology to optimize the business activities of organization in order to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of operation and gain competitive advantages. E-business provides the solution that allows the organization to instantly share database, information of products and services, financial figures and data and nearly anything else that the organization may need to operate the business activities effectively and efficiently (Nguyen, 2013). E-commerce which is the abbreviation of electronic commerce is the subset of e-business. It focuses on the online transaction which includes selling of products or service by using computer network, primarily the Internet.

We would like to show our gratitude to Resp. Prof. Mr. Sham Sharma, for providing us with the golden opportunity to prepare an intellectual report, on Distribution & Logistics Management of “wal-mart”.