Online Shoes, Clothing, Free Shipping, and Returns - Case Study Example

Zappos is an online shop that mostly deals with women, men, and children's clothes and shoes. Over the years the company has been facing a myriad of challenges that have prevented the company from being the best online retailer. One of the challenges is unlike other online retailer’s Zappos only deals with clothes, shoes and accessories such as watches, handbags, belts and hats. They need to increase the number of goods they are offering to be the best. The company also deals with shoe sales which have dragged the company behind. Most customers end up buying oversize shoes or undersized shoes and they are forced to return the shoes. The takes a lot of time and many customers end up being dissatisfied. The company is also thinking of ways it can make sure that the products reach the customers much faster. Easy shopping is also a problem that the company is facing. The company is planning to enroll in a new program where each inventory has 8 images taken from all angles before being posted on their website. The company is also making a lot of losses on shipping redeliveries.

          Training and development can help the firm reduce return deliveries. The competent and knowledgeable staff can help customers choose merchandise that fits them. Training on innovation may also help the employees come up with programs that will help counter some of the challenges the company is facing. Training will also help reduce the amount of time taken before the goods finally reach the customers.

          In the year 2009, the company was ranked as one of the best companies to work for in the United States of America by fortune (Zappos.com, 2015). In order to increase employee engagement, the company offers perks. The company believes that having happy employees is critical to ensure that the organization is successful. The company provides free lunch and even has a game and nap room (Zappos.com, 2015). The company also believes by offering their employees perks, they will not feel that like they are being forced to work. This makes the employees work harder, be committed to their work, and are not likely to leave the company.

This requires that employees be trained about always putting their best foot forward for the good of the company. However, some of the company’s core values cannot be influenced through training and development. Being humble is one of them. Humbleness is inborn and is a trait that is not easily changed.  Embracing and driving change is another core value that cannot be influenced (Zappos.com, 2015). There are people who are change agents are others are simply against change (Sung & Choi, 2014).