Zappos.com Review

I don't like to shop. Never have. And when it comes to shoes, I do tons of research online so I know what I want, and I really hate driving from shoe store to shoe store in the hopes that I'll find it. Enter Zappos.com, an incredibly large retailer of mens, womens and childrens shoes, bags and accessories online.

About Zappos.com
Zappos sells shoes, but their website proclaims that they're a "service company that just happens to sell shoes". By my very nature, I don't believe any website's claims of their spectacular service until I have a chance to experience it myself, and with Zappos, I have.

The company, founded in 1999, sells an immensely wide variety of shoes. Their website is easy to navigate, and when searching for shoes you can see customer reviews of each shoe, along with the percentage of customers who felt that the shoe was true to their size, true to their width and that the shoe had good arch support.

Most people are uncomfortable buying shoes online, because the fit of a shoe is a very personal thing. I often range from a size 8.5 to 9.5 when buying shoes, and so I almost never know if the shoe I'm going to get from an online store will fit perfectly or not. That's where the Zappos return and shipping policy comes in.

Zappos.com - Free Shipping AND Free Returns!
Zappos offers free overnight shipping on all of their shoe purchases, and their shipping is astonishingly fast. My last order went in on a Sunday afternoon. By Sunday evening I had a shipping confirmation and my order was on my doorstep Tuesday morning.

Each purchase from Zappos comes with a large receipt with specific instructions for returning the item, for free, in its original condition within the next 365 days. I've never heard of any other company offering such a long return period. Part of my order contained some very expensive socks that I had purchased, which were too large in spite of the website's claim that they would fit a woman's size 9. Following the instructions on my receipt I went online, clicked on my order, selected the socks, processed a return form by answering just a couple of questions, and printed out a return shipping label for UPS, all without having to pay a single extra penny.

About Zappos.com Customer Service
But my wonder at the Zappos experience doesn't end there. When I purchased my shoes on Sunday evening, I ordered a size 9. Checking my other pair of shoes (by the same manufacturer, and a very similar style) about five minutes later, I saw that in fact they were a size 9.5. I called the 1-800 number at the top of the Zappos.com website, and within just a few rings the most amazing thing happened - something that I've only heard about in fairy tales and urban legends: On Sunday afternoon (Easter Sunday no less) an actual human answered the phone without me having to navigate tons of call center menus!

Once I got over my astonishment, I had a great conversation with someone named Stuart on the other end, who quickly helped me cancel the order for the wrong size, and process a new order with the size I needed. He had a friendly and polite voice, and was incredibly helpful without being smarmy.

Reading the Zappos.com website, I found this interesting tidbit about their customer service:

"...every new employee that we hire in our corporate office is required to go through 4 weeks of Customer Loyalty training (answering phones in our call center) before starting the actual job that he/she was actually hired for. To us, customer service isn't just a department -- it is the entire company."

Cat's Bottom Line
The selection at Zappos.com is great, and their prices are in-line with other online retailers. All of that is wonderful, but where Zappos really shines is their customer service and their generous return policy. If you've ever been nervous about buying shoes online, Zappos is the place to help put all those fears to rest. I highly recommend Zappos.com to anyone who wants to buy a good pair of shoes, but doesn't want to drive all around town to find them.

Zappos.com: http://www.zappos.com