Analysis of Zappos.com 2009: Clothing, Customer Service, and Culture

This case study provides an overview of Zappos.com, an online shoe and clothing shop headquartered in Las Vegas, founded on July 12, 1999. It discusses the company's order winners, qualifiers, operations strategy, and high-quality service delivery, emphasizing free shipping, outstanding customer service, and an easy online shopping experience. Zappos impressed customers by switching from direct shipping to carrying inventory and serving customers alongside established brick-and-mortar chains. The case also highlights limitations such as being a subsidiary of Amazon, having fewer than 2000 employees, and the challenges of switching to a super-flat, holacratic structure which struggled to retain top talent. The document references the company's focus on increasing customer purchases, retaining clients, ensuring customer satisfaction, and delivering great service.

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About
 Online shoe and clothing shop
 Headquartered in Las Vegas (Warrick,
Milliman and Ferguson 2016)
 Founded in 12 July 1999 by Nick
Swinmurn

Order winners and
qualifiers
 Size of the potential market
 Create something big
 Increasing the number of customer purchase
Retaining the old clients
 Customer satisfaction
 Repeat business
Great service delivery
Wowing the present customers (Eremina and Puhakka
2017)

Operations strategy
• Free shipping for
increasing business
growth
• Delivery of outstanding
customer service
• Easy online shopping
experience (Warrick,
Milliman and Ferguson
2016)
• Example: Visitors could
print a shoe sizing
template, live online

High quality service delivery
 Switched from direct
shipping
from the manufacturers to
carrying inventory
 Impressed the customers
with their achievement in a
short span of time
 Serving the customers
with established brick and
mortar chains (Eremina
and Puhakka 2017)
 Research the customers

Limitations
 It is a totally owned subsidiary of Amazon
Less than 2000 employees
 Mixing all the job titles and managers
 Switching to super- flat structure
 Holocracy is unable to retain the top talents of the company

Reference
Eremina, A. and Puhakka, V., 2017.
Comparison of organizational structures–
case Zappos. International Business
Management.
Warrick, D.D., Milliman, J.F. and Ferguson,
J.M., 2016. Lessons learned from Zappos on
what it takes to build high performance
cultures. Organ Dyn.