Starbucks Company : A Successful Internet Distributor Of All Things From Shoes

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.

Zappos has made the online shopping experience very safe and easy. The marketing strategy used by Zappos has to be one of the best one in any market. Zappos took was given to them and turn the focus to the customer experience. The entire idea was to make the shopping experience better so that customers would return. The promotion of a fun and hip culture for the employees is a big reason this strategy is working. Employees are in good moods and so this passes on the customer. The Zappos atmosphere is fun. There are no sales goals for employee because Zappos wants the relationship between the employee and customer to be genuine.

the mindset of the CEO is that there is no limit to what Zappos can accomplish with the right leadership, which can make or break a company. A company that attempts to move their company into another industry, without doing research or contact customers to get feedback on what new product they want to sale in their stores. Keeping in mind that they have to answer to their stakeholder also executive members (Ferrell & Hartline, 2013).

The final value asks employees to remain humble; another value considered in the hiring process. Zappos has turned down many candidates for employment that boastfully spoke of individual accomplishments instead of giving credit to their team. The Zappos culture requires employees to take a modest approach to customer service; constantly obsessing over the customer’s needs. As aforementioned, building relationships is key to the Zappos brand. In order to build strong relationships, employees must treat everyone with respect.

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

Founded in 1999, Zappos started as site that only sold shoes. The idea for the site came to founder Nick Swinmurn in his quest to find the right shoe. Swinmurn couldn’t find exactly what he was looking for in the different stores he visited. The stores either didn’t have his size or the right style and color. After spending hours searching and getting no where he went home shoeless. Swinmurn attempted to shop online for the shoes he wanted. He couldn’t believe there wasn’t a site that offered a huge variety of shoes. This inspired him to create a site that he envisioned that had a big selection of different size, styles and colors of name brand shoes (“In The Beginning - Let There Be Shoes”, n.d.).

Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative University of New Mexico http://danielsethics.mgt.unm.edu  Zappos: Delivering Happiness to Stakeholders INTRODUCTION Can a company focused on happiness be successful? Zappos, an online retailer, is proving that it can. The company’s revenue grew from $1.6 million in 2000 to $1.64 billion in 2010. Tony Hsieh, Zappos’ CEO says, “It’s a brand about happiness, whether to customers or employees or even vendors.” Zappos’ zany corporate culture and focus on customer satisfaction has made it both successful and a model for other companies.

Zappos was founded in 1999 during the dotcom boom by Nick Swinmurn [ (Twitchell, 2009) ] on a quest to buy a pair of sneakers at a local mall. It has grown in to a 1.2 billion dollar subsidiary of Amazon.com and a leading on-line provider of everything from shoes to couture handbags. They have done this with a simple motto: “Powered by Service”. Providing all of their customers with free (sometimes next day) shipping and returns, Zappos has invested in the power of word of mouth to fuel their business.

Tony wasn’t initially sold on the concept of an Internet shoe store. He notified Inc. magazine, “It sounded like the poster child of bad Internet ideas…but I got sucked in.” After Tony became CEO he made an unconventional decision to continue operating Zappos, even selling his San Francisco loft to afford a new warehouse and once making his salary at just $24. Zappos didn’t do well for its first few years, making sales but not producing a profit. The dot‐com crash made Zappos lay off half its staff, but the company eventually recovered. By the end of 2002, Zappos generated sales of $32 million but still was not profitable. In 2003, the company decided that it had to control the whole value chain in order to offer the best customer service. They made the whole value chain from

Zappos has the capabilities to offer a variety of cyber selections such as unthinkable items of shoes, apparel, accessories, and home products, with every shopper dream of free shipping and full refunds within five business days of your returns date. Zappos willingness to think outside of the box has made a name for the corporations by employing a phenomenal innovative and creative diverse group of visionary individuals whom have made a cutting edge cyber industry. Zappos corporation make a personally commitment to serve the customers and employees has made them one of the most desirable places to work national and internationally that rewards with internal promotions. Unlike other corporations Zappos have been able to maintain its unique culture and continues efforts in developing innovative categories such as clothing and merchandise markets.

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’.

The company had a reliable website infrastructure that utilized Henderson, Nevada’s online servers for quicker online transactions and consistent 24/7 customer service support via toll free telephone operators. Zappos posted a large selection of shapes and styles of shoes to match a variety of consumer taste. The company dealt with less physical constraints such as shoe store inventories and stocking floor space. Zappos took advantage of the weakness of brick and mortar locations by including a large selection of goods with the convenience of merely shopping from home through the internet.

The management team at Zappos must analyze and carefully determine which path will ultimately offer the best growth potential for the company as a whole; whether that is continuing business as usual by remaining independent, or successfully merging with Amazon.com.

Zappos.com is a privately held online retailer with an extensive product category mainly including apparel, footwear, handbags, and watches. Headquartered in Nevada, it primarily operates in the US with about 1,300 employees and revenues mounting to $635M in 2008. Thanks to its strength in offering an outstanding customer shopping experience and strong corporate cultures and values related to customer service, it was the largest online shoe retailer in 2008, with a positive growth outlook. However, in the face of possible economic

Zappos.com is a leading online based retailer that focuses and offers an incredible shopping experience to its customers through fast, friendly, and professional customer services. Having established a strong foundation in customer relations, Zappos shifts its attention to other opportunities and challenges.