"Zappos: Facing Competitive Challenges"
"What challenges is Zappos facing that may derail its attempt to be best online retailer? How can training and development help Zappos meet these challenges? Do you think that employees at Zappos have high levels of engagement? Why? Which of Zappos's 10 core values do you believe training and development can influence the most? The least? Why?"
The vision of Zappos is that, in future online sales will account for 30 percent of all retail sales in the United States and will be the company with best service and selection such as offer more shoes, handbags, eyewear, watches and accessories for online purchase. Zappos also believes they can become the online service leader, drawing customers and expanding into selling other product other than been offered. They also believes that the speed at which a customer receives an online purchase plays a critical role in how that customer thinks about shopping online again in the future, so it is focusing on making sure the items get delivered to customer as soon as possible. The new technology and impact of internet have large impact on all sectors of the economy.
Their main objectives are to help customers easy shopping, and every pair of shoes in inventory of total 58,000 pairs is pictured at 8 different angles. They also will do best service to their customer, and to make it happened and to ensure fast delivery, Zappos located its warehouses next to UPS' airports and make them work 24 hours daily, 7 days per weeks.
Zappos also come out with other business strategis such as free return which is no successful examples before in E-shoe retailing because it's too easy to buy the wrong shoes and they need to relief customers' discomposure as well as minimize the cost. The founder of Zappos, Xie designed E-mail system for Zappos to automatically reply customers' e-mail of return requests. Zaopps also paid $100 millions as a shipping cost for all returns and
References: R.A. Noe, "Employee Training and Development", McGraw-Hill International Edition, Singapore, 2010. www.zappos.com