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Zappos.com and customer experience
"The way we've gown primarily over the past eight years is through repeat customers and word-of-mouth," [CEO Tony Hsieh] explains. "Our philosophy [is] 'Any money that we would have spent on marketing, let's instead put it back into the customer experience and the customer service level we provide.'" And it's working: On any given day, 75 percent of Zappos.com's customers are repeat customers, according to Hsieh. Examples of Zappos.com's stellar customer service include free, overnight shipping...
Interesting, because their site is utterly and totally awful. Painfully ugly, and quite difficult to use. I guess shoe-lust can overcome nearly anything.
Don't they spend more money on marketing than Endless, Shoebuy, Online Shoes, Famous Footwear and Piperlime? I have never seen an mag ad for any of these groups the word out there is they spend tons on marketing.
I am a customer of Zappos.com and I'll tell you why I continue to go back: their customer service! My teenage boys HATE to go shopping. When they need new tennis shoes, we look at the pictures (and prices), I buy 2 sizes that I think are close to right, keep the one that fits and return the other pair (return shipping is also free -- you log on and print a UPS or USPS shipping label, your choice). Since my purchasing history is saved, I can also see what sizes I bought last time. When I buy my own running shoes, I research the model that I want on the manufacturer's web site and order two of the models (if I'm not sure which one I want) in my size. I pay full price but it saves me a lot of time. Once we received a shoe that was the right size but wrong width. I called and they sent out a replacement that arrived the next day and didn't charge me at all.
BTW, I'm a UI/usability professional and have had no problems finding what I need on their site. The multi-view feature is great too. I'm sure I could nit-pick their web site to death but I'm able to use it without any problems.
When talking to people about Zappos, the first thing they'll probably mention is how great it is to not have to pay for shipping when buying shoes off their site.
This is just another way they edge out all the other shoe sites on the web today.
I'm a Zappos guy for life.
"Interesting, because their site is utterly and totally awful."
Interesting, their site is one of the fastest to access on the internet. Zappos is the pr0n of shoes. You get there, find the show you want, buy it, and sign off.
I'm a huge Zappos fan but the "Any money that we would have spent on marketing," comment is misleading.
Zappos is advertising in print media all over right now. I'm not sure if this fits into the CEO's definition of marketing but it would seem that Zappos isn't just relying on word of mouth to build their brand. They're doing traditional print media campaigns as well.
Zappos has a good formula. They don't mark down products and instead realize that customers will pay higher prices for a good customer experience. I personally buy all of my shoes because I have very narrow feet. Shoe shopping for me is always difficult. However, Zappos lets me find and look at shoes that actually come in my size. Then they ship them for free overnight. Shopping is easy, accessing product is easy and returns are easy.
I'm happy to see that companies that are focused on the customer experience and customer service are actually beginning to win in the market.