Zappos.Com Case Essay

1. Sources of competitive advantage lay in the field of their first offer. * First of all they provided a huge selection of styles, colors and sizes of shoes as it was one of the biggest problems of traditional retailers. * At the first stage of their entering of the market, Zappos was the first-mover, which eventually supported its success as the market for on-line order of shoes was estimated to be about $2 billion. * High level of customer satisfaction was also one of the important factors to indicate proper operations of the Zappos. Company achieved such a success due to its corporate culture and a value of extreme concentration on its customers. In the retail business on of the indicators of retailer success is the level of customer return and Zappos succeed to attain this indicator on a very high level. Corporate culture was about delivering WOW effect through service and hiring people who were passionate about service was the most important concerns of the top-managers. This WOW effect was delivering through many ways: from the speed of site loading, all-round telephone support, allowance for 365 days of return, extensive information about the products and fast site loading. That’s why customers were willing to make purchases more often.
In my opinion, service is a very important part of providing sustainable sales growth for the company as it creates an image of reliable company which operates in the internet and helps people to choose between traditional shopping and e-shopping. This image while managed properly was a sustainable competitive advantage for Zappos. As it was mostly mentioned features of a corporate culture which provide this competitive advantage than we can say that corporate culture is a background for it. 2. According to the position of the company to retain loyalty of the customers and provide WOW effect through service, it became more important to use UPS as a reliable logistics provider and organize 1-day air