I have no affiliation to this company. I get no benefit from providing this shout out, other than hoping it will and/or has made you happy and your life easier, and hoping their business succeeds and continues to provide me great service.
I want to say Zappos rocks. I know, support small local business is a better public announcement, but sometimes big business does things right, and I find Zappos is doing it right.
I will say I don’t have any endurance or passion when it comes to shopping, and my UPS guy will tell you Amazon Prime and online shopping is my M.O, so Zappos already has that going for it in my book.
In addition to school and other life transitions, my middle kid has a lot of trouble shifting to new footwear. My older daughter on the other hand loves new shoes, but all of the females in this house suffer from very narrow heels, which limits easily finding reasonable school shoe options.
So the handful of times per year when it’s time to shop for new shoes/sneakers/cletes/sandles, our household process goes something like this:
- Step One: Find nothing at small selection local shoe store – except perhaps one pair of shoes that I refuse to spend the $120 price ticket and fight ensues over evil mommy. After many years, this step is now often skipped.
- Step Two: Check another not so local shoe store with a large selection, find up to a few pairs of shoes that fit, but only fit into one of the following criteria: don’t slip off heels and appropriate for school. Sometimes come home with cool good looking shoes that only get worn a couple times before being left in the closet because of “not feeling right.”
- Step Three: Mall. Try four or five stores at the mall and find nothing that fits or styles we can compromise on. Often my oldest finds something she likes and might fit, but is one of those kids that stores never seem to have her size in stock. Leave with at least middle child and myself with tears of frustration.
- Step Four: Order from Zappos. By this step we have reliable feet measurements and have narrowed down the hunt to brands or styles that might not slide off heels. We order two or three sizes of every pair we are interested in. Usually ending up with over a dozen pairs of shoes on the order. Shoes arrive in under 48 hours almost every time (for free!) We try all of the shoes on (often it takes middle a few days to accomplish this), and can send any that don’t fit back (for free!). We often end up sending them all back and ordering a whole new slew. I drop the box off at our super friendly local UPS Store and the credit is back on my credit card with in another 48 hours. Amazing.
Zappos makes my life easier. They are efficient on sending orders out. I always opt for the free shipping option, and only once in many years did the order take more than 48 hours to be on my doorstep. This past week I placed an order around 6pm one night, and the box was on my doorstep before lunch the next morning, 18 hours later. That amazes me.
Free shipping on returns. Sometimes it seems like my credit card has been credited for the return before I get home from the UPS Store. They don’t carry every brand/style (especially in kids cletes or “fake Uggs”), but the overall selection is vast. The prices are okay, around the manufacturers suggest price, sales aren’t huge, and no coupons, so you can find cheaper costs elsewhere, but by Step Four in our hunt, I’m on the cusp of ready to return to Step One store to spend $120 on a pair of kids shoes, so the convenience of free shipping, being able to order a few sizes of the same shoe and send back what doesn’t fit (sometimes allowing a few days wearing around in house trial period) is worth the cost to me, as well as not bear another 15 minutes at a store.
I’m a fan. Thank you, Zappos.
