Embolden Communications Group

AIMC 486 Jones

Zappos.com: Ensuring a Good Fit Case
A. THE PROBLEM
1. Key Problem:
How to gain top of mind mindset in ecommerce shopping for
busy mothers (without alienation of other prospective customers)
while offering a pleasurable user experience, and increasing the
level of interaction and relationship intensity between current
and prospective customers with the brand.
2. The Marketing Problem Advertising can solve:
Persuade busy mothers (without alienating other prospective
customers) to become repeat visitors, check out new website
features, mobile applications, social media interactions, and to
learn how quick and easy it is to order from Zappos.com, while
encouraging both customers to reach out to the company with
their stories about products, experiences, and/or the company.
(Taking the human approach to ecommerce shopping)
B. ADVERTISING STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT FORM
1. What is the product?
a. Reality
Zappos.com is a well-respected and highly successful
ecommerce shoe and clothing website based in Las Vegas,
Nevada. In July 2009, Amazon.com acquired the company
in an all-stock deal worth an estimated $1.2 billion. The
primary selling base of Zappos.com is shoes, which
accounts for 80% of its business. Of its customers, over
75% are repeat buyers. They do not offer international
delivery, but offer free shipping on all orders, a lengthy
(365 day) return period, and stresses excellent customer
service, with 24-hour call centers, e-chats, and emails.
Within social networks, Zappos.com can be found on
Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Glance, and through their own
mobile applications.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zappos
The IMC Handbook
b. Perception
Rated Great 7.1/10 (out of 107 reviews on trustpilot.com)
and a 8.4/10 (out of 335 reviews on resellerratings.com)
Out of these customer reviews most praised customer
service, sharing their stories (ranging from true horror, to
horror turned amazing, to heartfelt human interactions)
and about 80% of them praised the super fast free
shipping (this will aid anyone who is busy (like our
primary target market). Most complaints are about
shipping date errors (due to shipper), that were corrected
when Zappos.com customer service was contacted, and/or

Embolden Communications Group

AIMC 486 Jones
being pricier/not allowing price matches to their
competitors. Zappos.com offers the customer the chance
to try on the shoes, and return them for free (shipping
covered by them), and if the product has a defect, often
credits the amount back to the customer (same day) and
lets them keep the item. Has an outstanding 9,948
testimonials from customers displayed on their own
website.
Sources:
https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.zappos.com
http://www.resellerratings.com/store/Zappos
http://www.zappos.com/testimonial/page/1/start/0
2. Who are the prospects?
a. General
Our primary target market is busy mothers, aged between
26-40 years old (Average age of the first time mother is 26
years old), who have multiple children, are working and
busy taking care of their children, the children maybe in
sports. As these mothers are busy they need a quick and
easy option for shopping for items their family needs, and
as they are social and own a computer/smartphone,
ecommerce shopping is an option. Women account for 58%
of online spending in the U.S. However, 22% of men made
a purchase off a mobile application compared to 18% of
women, and 20% of men bought off a tablet, while women
accounted for only 17% of tablet purchases. An Experian
survey found that 55% of e-commerce shoppers in the U.S
live in households with incomes above $75,000. (40% were
in households earning $100,000 and above) The median
household income in the U.S. is around $50,000, according
to the Census.
Sources: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-surprisingdemographics-of-who-shops-online-and-on-mobile-2014-6
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-demographics-of-ecommerce-shoppers-2014-8
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-worldfactbook/fields/2256.html
b. Specific
Tara Strayer, 29, mother of Xander (step son, 10) and
Ryleigh (daughter, 3), wife to Jeremy Strayer who is 34 and
an independent masonry worker. Tara is currently a senior
at Grand Rapids Community College going for her RN in
Nursing. She has three twelve-hour days full of clinical
studies, two six-hour days of class, homework whenever
she can squeeze in, sandwiched in between the rest of the
week being a loving mother, supporting parent cheering at

Embolden Communications Group

AIMC 486 Jones
football games, and/or ushering the kids to whatever event
they have, cooking dinner, cleaning, and the small amount
of social life she can manage with the help of social media.
Has mortgage out on the house, lives in rural area, strictly
a student at the moment. Family income is roughly
$40,000 yearly. She enjoys crafting, DIY, trying new craft
beers, and prides herself on her family and friendships. She
shops at the local none chain grocery store (as its close),
and WalMart (as its close, but hates taking the kids) She
has used Amazon.com and Ebay.com to purchase items in
the past.
Source: personal interview 10/5/2015
3. Who is the principal competition?
As Zappos.com is originally known for its ecommerce shopping of
shoes, most of the competition information is found based off of
this category. Zappos.com is the #1 seller of shoes online, by
stressing the importance of customer service. JC Penney
Corporation and Footlocker Inc. are Zappos.com two primary
competitors. Both JC Penney and Zappos.com received an A+
by the Better Business Bureau. Zappos.com has a global rank of
820, and a U.S. rank of 197, whereas Footlocker Inc. ranks 3,469
globally, and 1,196 in the U.S. JC Penney has a rank of 802
globally, and 180 in the U.S. Rankings are based on site
popularity. Zappos.com held a 5% of the market share (2007) in
online shoe sales.
Sources: http://cultbranding.com/ceo/create-strong-brandpositioning-strategy/
http://cultbranding.com/ceo/create-strong-brand-positioningstrategy/
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2
006/12/01/8394993/
4. What is the competitive consumer benefit?
Zappos.com understands how busy life can be and offers a
unique human approach to take the challenge out of ecommerce
shopping by offering various easy to use interfaces, free and
quick shipping, and encourages relationships with its customers,
even if only through digital means.
5. What is the support for the benefit? The reason why?
Zappos.com now carries a wide selection of brands for men,
women, and children, 180-degree views of products, 365-day
return time frames, free shipping to the customer and back to
Zappos.com (so you can try on before you buy), 24-hour
excellent customer service call centers, and easy to use web and
mobile application interfaces showcasing their understanding
that ecommerce shopping does not need to lose the human
element.

Embolden Communications Group

AIMC 486 Jones
6. Positioning Statement
To the busy on-the-go mother, Zappos.com understands that
relationships are important; this is why we are the brand that
cares about our relationship with you, and why we take a unique
human approach to ecommerce shopping by offering assistance,
free and quick shipping options, and a wide selection of brands
your family already loves at the tips of your fingertips, so you
can quickly get back to what is truly important.
7. What is the Communication Objective?
a. Zappos.com takes the challenge out of ecommerce
shopping with easy to use interfaces via website and
mobile applications features, free 24-hour excellent
customer service assistant at the customers convenience,
and free and quick shipping options.
b. Zappos.com understands how busy life can be; we care
about our relationship with you so you can care about your
relationships that matter.
8. What is the Tone of the Advertising?
Understanding, Caring, Heartfelt, Friendly, Quickly informative
9. Perceptual Effect
After one year, busy mothers, and other prospective customers
will be aware of new items and brands Zappos.com carries, as
well as new website features, mobile applications, and social
media interactions. Customers will feel that Zappos.com cares
about the customers ecommerce shopping experience, makes it
easy to shop how the customer wants to shop, aids in the help of
customer decision making, and invests in their relationship with
those customers as they openly ask for two-way communication
via digital transaction orders and social media interactions, and
because of these reasons will become top of mind when it comes
to ecommerce shopping.
10.
Divisional/Corporate Requirements
Source: http://www.zappos.com/c/code-of-conduct
C. ANSWERS TO SPECIFIC CONCERNS RELATED TO THE CASE
AND PROBLEM
1. Zappos.com SWOT Analysis:
Strengths

Weaknesses

Embolden Communications Group

AIMC 486 Jones
-Excellent customer relationships
-Free shipping & returns
-Try on shoes and send back if they
dont fit
-Extensive product
information/images
-365-day return frame
-Easy to use web navigation
-High quality appearance

-Higher priced than competitors

(Amazon)
-People view it as just a place to
get shoes
-Only online

Opportunities
-Adding new product lines
-Specialty subsites
-Rewards Program
-Social media contests
-Customer Convenience

Threats
-Amazon prime-offers members
music, TV shows, and movies
-Amazon offers Kindle eBooks
-Android devices come with
Amazon apps already installed

2. Zappos.com can drive viewers to their website or social media by

having social media contests. At the end of their advertisements
they can list their web URL that consumers can visit and their
hashtag so they can interact with them through social media.
Since the target audience is busy moms and Zappos.com is well
known for their customer service, they could do a social media
contest to #showyoucare like Zappos.com does, where moms
could post pictures of them doing fun things with their kids. The
mom with the most likes/shares/retweets could win a gift card to
Zappos.com or free shoes for them and their kids. For signing up
for the contest they would receive 10 % off their order from
Zappos.com. Moms already love to take pictures and share them
with their friends and family so this would be a good way for
them to interact with their favorite ecommerce site, Zappos.com.
3. One of the biggest trends that Zappos.com needs to focus on is
that the future is handheld. More and more people are doing
their online shopping on their phones or IPads than ever before.
They pride themselves on having easy to use navigation on their
website and excellent customer service, but this has to carry
over to their mobile app as well, especially to target busy moms.
Consumers still need to be able to live chat with someone when
they have a problem using the mobile app as easily as they can
on the website and product images still need to be easy to view
and compare.

Embolden Communications Group

AIMC 486 Jones
4. For our target market, Tony Hsieh should not be featured in any
advertisements for Zappos.com. He is known more for his
personal success in the business world instead of his success
from Zappos.com. Also, the busy moms demographic are not
heavy twitter users and probably dont even know who he is.
They will be more interested in hearing how Zappos.com can
make their lives easier, not how successful he has become in the
business world.