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No more Free overnight shipping at Zappos!

By Pranav Chavda ⋅ January 9, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

According to an email sent out to it’s affiliates by the giant online shoe store – Zappos, they are no longer going to offer free overnight shipping on the web-store.
Zappos

We will no longer be promoting “Free Overnight Shipping” and we no longer will be promoting our price protection policy. Instead, we will be focusing more on our “free shipping” and our expanding selection of merchandise.

Earlier last year, Zappos started offering this facility to customers only a few days after Amazon announced their entry into the shoe retail business with Endless.com, a store owned by amazon that sells shoes and handbags, and ships overnight for free.

Clearly, Zappos seems to have come to realize that offering overnight shipping for free just because a new entrant in the market, albeit run by an e-retail pioneer, is offering such a scheme to get a share of the shoes and handbags pie, is just not profitable enough, even after doing Over $800 mm in sales in 2007.

Amazon, with is vast and diversified nature of business can afford to sell on very small margins. That, however, should not mean death for other e-retailers. IMO the future of e-retail is not in giant malls, but niche stores that know their product and can offer a quality of customer service that is at par with or better than big e-retail entities. By that, I don’t mean Amazon is the big brother or something, they are in fact doing a great job as a huge mall, and as endless – they run a fantastic niche store.

What I didn’t like is that Zappos quickly got afraid of amazon entering the market and started offering free overnight shipping, only to abandon the scheme later. If a niche store can’t afford the margins of their competition, they should work on bettering their product and service rather than copying their competition’s marketing tactics that they can’t handle.

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Discussion

Comments for “No more Free overnight shipping at Zappos!”

  • It must be very daunting for smaller e-commerce sites to feel they can compete with the larger sites that can afford to offer such low prices. I'm not sure how closely I would draw parallels from e-tailing to actual stores, though: whilst niche stores may succeed in the 'real world' where they can offer superior customer service and expert knowledge, I'm not sure this applies to online shopping as well.

  • I don't think it's much too different online as well,

    Zappos has it's own market of over $1B in sales per year - by offering shoes and handbags (and now few other related niches) along with great customer service.


    They did start off as a small niche e-retailer few years ago, For any business to sustain, it has to have growth, When zappos started, Amazon had already begun selling apparel, but zappos, shoebuy, shoes.com, ebags etc found their own markets and are growing every year. There is room for everyone in online retail, as long as e-retailers are not just in for the money, but to build something that online shoppers will appreciate and like.


    This "something" can be anything. Sometimes, it is simply a range of products that can't be found at the big stores, sometimes as simple as great customer services, quicker delivery or even a very well designed website,


    Ultimately, I think niche e-retail is not about running a small business and surviving in the midst of bigger players, but about starting a small business and making as big as it can be.

  • See the article on recent changes here: http://www.jangro.com/a/2008/02/06/zappos-affil...
  • Cassie
    I just ordered a pair of shoes from Zappos last night with free shipping. They will be here today thanks to the free overnight shipping service. Guess they still do offer it as it is July 11th, 2008.
  • Cassie,

    While they don't "officially" offer free overnight shipping, there have been reports ever since they discontinued the offer of them surprising customers by shipping orders overnight.
  • Piperslimed
    Beware of Piperlime! I ordered a pair of shoes from Piperlime and three times I got the wrong size. They eventually ran out of stock and I never got my shoes! Once is a mistake, twice is an accident, and three times a pattern. Their excuse? "...It happens"
  • jontyparker
    I thought Zappos always had free overnight shipping? ... No, I think they typically upgrade you to 1 or 2 day shipping, not overnight. Maybe it's different for the holiday season? ... Find More Posts by e-powersellers ...
    Online jewelry stores
  • I ordered a pair of shoes from Piperlime and three times I got the wrong size. They eventually ran out of stock and I never got my shoes! Once is a mistake, twice is an accident, and three times a pattern.
  • staffing225
    Nice blog. well posted.
    For more jobs visit http://www.staffingpower.com
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