Zappos Case Study

The primary objective of this paper is to address three key problem areas within JCPenney: age diversity, sexual harassment, and lack of organizational commitment. These specific problems have led to many challenges for not only management, but also for employees. Without motivated and satisfied employees, the JCPenney business has been trickling down. The dissatisfaction of employees has been represented through the decrease of productivity, morale, and enthusiasm towards the retailer. Due to the growing generational gap, there has been a notable increase in workplace deviance behavior. In addition to that, with all of the recent changes within the company, employees have felt neglected due to the lack of communication

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.

They are more like a big family. At Zappos there are lots of fun activities to get the employees involved, like face painting, wacky parades, and gaming in the lounge on breaks. Employees have the freedom to dress causal and comfortable. The company ensures customer loyalty by closely training and mentoring their team, and at the end of training they offer their employees $3,000 to leave (most of whom do not except the offer after weighing the options). Besides their fun and supportive environment, Zappos offers their employees full health care benefits, free meals, and competitive salaries. Lastly, while many other companies have call centers located outside of the country, (in order to save money) Zappos call center is located in Loss Vegas. Phone calls are not timed or scripted, which gives the employees a chance to interact with the customers on a more personal

Over the decades there were tremendous amount of challenges for every business. Customers have more knowledge, they have more options, and they have higher expectations. Customers are more informed with the humungous development in technology. Having more options in front of them, expectations has surpassed in retail industry. Loyalty is a customer having faith that your organization’s product or services offered is the best for them. It is the process of tapping the buying pattern of customers in a store based on their preferences. Customer loyalty is significant because it is economical to retain the old customers rather than acquiring new customers. So, organizations employ loyalty programs which reward customers for their repeat business.

A firm’s performance and financial standing can be measured by a number of valuations and techniques. Financial data is used to perform a financial analysis on a business to determine the company’s stability, profitability, and liquidity. For instance, J.C. Penney’s financial stability was drastically damaged leaving all external and internal stakeholders questioning the value of the department store. J.C. Penney’s has a number of stakeholders that should always be satisfied while making business decisions. One of J.C. Penney’s most valuable stakeholders is its customers. J.C. Penney’s customers expect the retailer to provide them with up-to-date products at an affordable cost, while also expecting trained personnel to attend to their needs. One of J.C. Penney’s main goal is to get new and repeated customers; therefore, it is critical for J.C. Penney’s to develop a strong understanding of its customer base. During J.C. Penney’s failure, many customers reported that employees did not make an effort to develop a professional relationship with them.

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.

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

Zappos efforts are generated with good motives, but applying this system on 1,500 employees will not be simple and will probably have some consequences. Employees and managers on the same level playing field can restrain friendly antagonism that motivates employees to keep progressing.

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

Innovation has been another key component for Zappos.com Inc. The company itself was started by an innovated idea of having a large inventory shoe store online and it has continued to be innovated from offering free shipping to having an intelligent tracking system. Such innovation has been geared towards a productivity-driven practice. Normally inventory is stocked in a warehouse by stacking the shoes with the same brand by each other; however Zappos tracks each pair of shoe allowing for random stacking and saves lots of time (Kopelman at., el, 2012). This means the shoes or products gets to the consumer faster.

The CEO of Zappos Tony Hsieh depends on two focus areas to manage a successful business, customer service and culture. Zappos commitment to the highest level of customer service is legendary in the industry. Hsieh believes that his organization could be prosperous, regardless of the product they are selling, based solely on the customer experience. The culture is the main foundation of Zappos, and that culture is built on fun and family, which is evident in the organizations ten core values (Zappos. 2016). This assignment will answer the case analysis questions regarding Tony Hsieh’s unique leadership style and how Zappos can have continued success under new leaders (Schermerhorn & Bachrach. 2015. p. 457).

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.

Unfortunately, many online retailers have begun to catch up with many of these core competencies. The concepts of next-day delivery and “above and beyond” customer service are no longer the “WOW” factors that they may have been five years ago. However, the relationships that make up “Powered by Zappos” are tough to beat and give the company a competitive advantage through its supply web. At the time of this case, Zappos still holds the niche of being an online shoe expert, but companies

Zappos employees truly believe that above all else, the secret to customer loyalty is making corporate culture a priority which is directly driven from their Human Resource management.

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,