Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Location

I received my Zappos.com shoe order today, 24 hours after I placed the order. Wonder how they did it? Location.

Although their corporate headquarters is in Las Vegas, their distribution center and warehouse is located in Kentucky – right smack in the middle of the United States. Zappos.com can have their products reach their customers quicker through strategically leveraging the convenience of also being located next to the UPS Worldwide hub.

Yes, even in the age of e-commerce and Internet businesses, location still matters.

Monday, August 3, 2009

Exceeding Expectations

The greatest way to create a loyal customer base is to exceed expectations. I ordered some shoes through Zappos.com today, with the shoes expected to be shipped within 4-5 business days. A few hours later, I received an email that my order had been processed and would be shipped today priority at no extra charge, saying:

Please note that this is being done at no additional cost to you. It is
simply our way of saying thank you for being our customer.

As a customer, I felt valued.

Perhaps they planned on shipping it out today all along…but the way that it is portrayed makes you feel like you are receiving something additional. It can be a lesson to us all on how to ‘package’ our services to exceed our customer expectations.

On a side note, my husband used to be an auditor at the bank and Zappos.com was one of his clients. He had to go out and audit the inventory so that they could obtain the necessary financing. The company was amazing then, but has come a long way. Last month, Amazon bought Zappos for about $880 million.

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