Comments on: Zappos CEO Bares His "Sole" and Shares His Lessons http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/2007/08/zappos-ceo-bares-his-sole-and-shares-his-lessons/ Tips, Tricks, and Best Practices Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:16:27 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Administrator http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/2007/08/zappos-ceo-bares-his-sole-and-shares-his-lessons/comment-page-1/#comment-102280 Administrator Fri, 10 Aug 2007 18:40:30 +0000 http://ystoreblog.com/blog/2007/08/zappos-ceo-bares-his-sole-and-shares-his-lessons/#comment-102280 Hi Lars, <p> Yes--some good insights that were worth sharing. I think your comment ties back to his last point about ignoring the "experts" because no one knows your customers (hopefully) as well as you do.</p> <p> In the same respect, no one knows the reality of your business like you do. Would your customers order more frequently, or purchase more per order, if you could offer similar shipping rates? If so, then it may make sense. However, this is one of the "big bets". Get it right and you have explosive growth. Get it wrong and your business may implode under the extra costs. For shoes, with relatively low flat shipping, and with a historical order and return rate upon which to base assumptions, it may be a great tactic. For heavier reel mowers or similar, perhaps not.</p> <p>Maybe test the waters with some light-weight products first and see what it does to the numbers. But you do need to be able to track over a longer business cycle to understand if it is viable. Higher repeat visits where you are not paying CPC costs, could help off-set the shipping costs so you need to view the overall impact across multiple variables. </p> Paul Hi Lars,

Yes–some good insights that were worth sharing.
I think your comment ties back to his last point about ignoring the “experts” because no one knows your customers (hopefully) as well as you do.

In the same respect, no one knows the reality of your business like you do. Would your customers order more frequently, or purchase more per order, if you could offer similar shipping rates? If so, then it may make sense. However, this is one of the “big bets”. Get it right and you have explosive growth. Get it wrong and your business may implode under the extra costs. For shoes, with relatively low flat shipping, and with a historical order and return rate upon which to base assumptions, it may be a great tactic. For heavier reel mowers or similar, perhaps not.

Maybe test the waters with some light-weight products first and see what it does to the numbers. But you do need to be able to track over a longer business cycle to understand if it is viable. Higher repeat visits where you are not paying CPC costs, could help off-set the shipping costs so you need to view the overall impact across multiple variables.

Paul

]]> By: Clean Air Gardening http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/2007/08/zappos-ceo-bares-his-sole-and-shares-his-lessons/comment-page-1/#comment-102279 Clean Air Gardening Fri, 10 Aug 2007 18:24:29 +0000 http://ystoreblog.com/blog/2007/08/zappos-ceo-bares-his-sole-and-shares-his-lessons/#comment-102279 Thanks for that link! I had not seen that article, and I think it is really enlightening. I was just talking to someone yesterday about Zappos, and how I think they are crazy to offer free overnight shipping. I said that they should offer it for $5 extra instead, and they could still have an amazing deal and lower their shipping costs significantly. But I obviously don't know what I'm talking about, because his sales numbers and sales growth proves that he's onto something! We get killed on shipping, which just goes up and up and up every year. With our larger items, it isn't possible to offer free shipping without significantly increasing the price, and that seems like cheating to me. So we just try to keep our shipping costs as reasonable as possible. I love the part about not being secretive, and ignoring competitors to focus on their customers instead. If you're growing that fast, who cares what your competitors are doing, right? Thanks for that link!

I had not seen that article, and I think it is really enlightening.

I was just talking to someone yesterday about Zappos, and how I think they are crazy to offer free overnight shipping. I said that they should offer it for $5 extra instead, and they could still have an amazing deal and lower their shipping costs significantly.

But I obviously don’t know what I’m talking about, because his sales numbers and sales growth proves that he’s onto something!

We get killed on shipping, which just goes up and up and up every year.

With our larger items, it isn’t possible to offer free shipping without significantly increasing the price, and that seems like cheating to me. So we just try to keep our shipping costs as reasonable as possible.

I love the part about not being secretive, and ignoring competitors to focus on their customers instead. If you’re growing that fast, who cares what your competitors are doing, right?

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