$1Mil to $1Bil in 10 years: Zappos. What You can learn from them (especially Internet retailers)
I attended the PubCon Internet marketing conference last November. I spoke, I learned a lot, but I was most inspired by a keynote address by Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.
Zappos has grown from a little over $1 million to over $1 billion in just 10 ten years!
“We’ve aligned the entire organization around one mission: to provide the best customer service possible. Internally, we call this our WOW philosophy” says Tony Hsieh
Their goal is to position Zappos as the online service leader. Everyone in the company is trained in Zappos’ culture, values and customer service. Everyone!
It certainly has paid off! Much of Zappos billion dollar business comes from happy repeat customers and word of mouth. And at the same time they’ve created one of the Best Companies to Work For (2009 Fortune’s Top 100 Best Companies to Work For).
You can learn from Zappos , especially if you run a retail ecommerce business (Zappos.com sells clothing).
How you can learn from Zappos.com
Read This TopRank Article
An article posted on Lee Odden’s TopRank blog after Tony Hsieh’s keynote address at Pubcon 2009 gives a good overview of Zappos and what they do on their web site and internally to develop a customer service focus including:
- 365 day return policy
- Free shipping both ways
- “above and beyond” customer service – even directing customers to competitors if they are looking for something Zappos doesn’t have
- No sales-based performance goals for reps
- 5 weeks of culture, core values, customer service and warehouse training for everyone
Learn about their core values and how they build their culture
http://www.zapposinsights.com/main/
Read Books Suggested by Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh
Here are some lists of these books
Booklist: Zappos CEO Lists Books That Inspire
New Zappos Culture Book . It’s not on the lists above. I haven’t read it yet myself. Still working my way through some of the others.
Search on “zappos social media”
Learn how they did and DID’T use social media to build their business, including;
Zappos : Social Media Marketing Example #26. A look at Zappos on twitter, Facebook, Youtube, etc
Check out their web site, Zappos.com. Buy something
I bought some winter boots to start experiencing what they do first hand
For More Info
Signup for Our Blog Newsletter
Stay up-to-date with eVision’s newsletter – You’ll get our latest content right in your inbox!
By simply subscribing, you’ll be sent a weekly email that summarizes our newest posts (In reality it’s usually an email every couple of weeks).
There are usually 1-3 posts in each newsletter that you can quickly scan. With a click you can read the entire article.
To subscribe, enter your email address in our blog’s sidebar.
Need to unsubscribe? Follow the prompts in any newsletter and you’ll be immediately unsubscribed.