As part of my morning fitness routine, I realized I was in dire need of 1) shorts and 2) shoes. Checking prices, I found that Macy's had a sale on my shorts and Zappos.com had great deals on shoes. The same shorts were offered by Zappos, but not at the sale prices. So I put in my order, interested to see how the beleaguered brick and mortar department store would do against a pure "virtual" store. I made both purchases last Thursday.
No surprise, Zappos wins hands down. Within hours of ordering my shoes, I received an email notifying me that they were upgrading my free UPS standard shipping to free overnight shipping. No sales tax was added. Shoes were waiting for me at home the following day. Not only that, but they were already laced. I was astounded.
Macy's charged me $10 for shipping 2 shorts via UPS standard. I paid for shipping. I paid for sales tax (sale prices were still cheaper with the shipping charges and sales tax added in). I received an email 3 days later saying my items have shipped. UPS promises delivery by Monday - a week and a half after I placed the order.
The kicker of it all is that Macy's shipped my items from Illinois (far). Zappos? From Kentucky (farther). I have a nagging feeling that if I were to have contacted Zappos about the Macy's price, they would have matched it.
It'll be interesting to see how Zappos does this season as they have added a full range of merchandise, from clothes to electronic gadgets. As Customer Service has been their #1 mantra from inception, whereas Amazon's has been "frugality", it'll be interesting to watch. I love Amazon's ease of use and wish-lists...I think from now on, if something I want at Amazon is available at Zappos, I'm going Zappos (and you should too)!
Zappos Rocks.
Posted by: Jayson McIvor | November 21, 2008 at 02:29 PM