Account by Lynsey C.!

January 21st

5pm Touchdown, Salt Lake City, grab our bags and head to the taxi line. This taxi line has proven difficult in the past, so we’ll see this year. Last show, Andy and I received a reprimanding from the line coordinator on how to properly wait for a cab ;)

530 Checking in at Grand America; I love this hotel. Every afternoon you are greeted with warm chocolate chip cookies!! Over warm cookies we have a slight confusion on rooms and end up switching roommates to “do more with less, core value #7” and save good old Zappos an extra night hotel.

January 22nd

7am Wake up call

715 Reality check that it’s 29 degrees outside and I packed for more like 70 degrees. I knew it was cold, but just didn’t really think about it at 5am while packing the day before.. Confirm that Tara (New Yorker) totally packed for cold weather.

830 am Bump into Steve from Zappos on my way out of the hotel. Salt Lake City offers a great little tram that runs about every 10 minutes and will take you from just outside the hotel to the convention center. Well, 10 minutes in 29 degrees with a thin cotton hoodie and leggings sounds like frostbite.

9am While waiting at the booth to meet with Brad and Jerry, another Hi-Tec employee and myself get to chatting about Twitter. He follows Tony and quite a few other Zappos employees. We exchange Twitter names and are destined to Twitter to one another someday soon! Next, Meet with Hi Tec team. I’ve been asking for more pink additions to the girls offering of the kids’ line and this season they have it! We review their Magalog spot last year and discuss our options for 09’. Overall, great meeting and partnership.

10am Swing by Life is Good to grab a catalog for our apparel buyer, Holly. Jimmy Ho and I share a tear that I no longer will get to work with him on apparel and then immediately after make plans for beers later.

10:20am Check out White Sierra for apparel group. Dom schools us on the Good/Better/Great method of buying.: ) Head over to Hot Chillys booth with Dom to discover that he won Rep of the year!! Dom received a very nice plaque that he flashed off for a second as well as a glass paper weight (at least that’s what I think it was) with Chillys on it.

11am Check out Baffin and Bogs with Greg. After two years of buying cold weather boots I still can’t figure out what kid goes into 60 degrees below-zero-weather.

12pm Lunch, beat the sandwich line rush and stake out a spot on the floor. Next, Teva with Barney and Liz. WOW, fall product looks amazing! Get to talking about European exclusives and special color make ups for Zappos. End up meeting the design team and marketing team. Great people. Meet the guy that started the Teva Mt. games! Run over to Birkenstock to recap with Scott about our '09 plan. Everything is solid, so on to next appointment.

330pm Check out J-41 with Fred R. Women’s line; looks awesome, smaller kids SKU count but continues to evolve season to season.

4pm Walk the show for an hour while answering emails and recapping topics with Tara.

530pm Get ready for meeting with Fred and Steve.

6pm Recap meeting with entire Zappos team at show as well as our executive team. Great meeting!

715pm Wonderful dinner with Kamik team, shut down the Metropolitan (amazing service).

January 23rd

7am Rise and shine; wake up call

9am Kamik Team meeting. Product looks great, looking at two spots for Magalog next year. Also, talking exclusives with Dave and wide width snow boots!

12pm Keen meeting with executives and meet Tom. Great guy! Business is good and just wanted to focus on Magalog and marketing initiatives!

1pm Andy and Erika head over to Ahnu to check out kids line. I take off to say hello and thank you to some of our apparel vendors. Tag teaming!

2pm lunch!!! WAIT, Sorel and Columbia with Katie. Grab lunch and eat on the way! Columbia’s got pop colors. Love it and have been waiting for some fun colors and new shoe types.

2:45 Head over to Sorel. Line looks amazing.Logo changes and marketing initiatives are great. Toddler boots are great addition and overall, really stoked on everything we saw.

5pm Head to airport…..long story short; forget my wallet at Grand America, but soon is brought to me. All is well and on the plane home at 7:30 (delayed flight)

Those crazy kids! See what Alesha G., from the kids team keeps on her desk.

The Zappos Kid's Team decided to embrace our Zappos Core Value of "Do More with Less" last week by hosting a Thanksgiving potluck. I know it's a bit early, but you can't ever go wrong with finely cooked bird and all the fixings!

Below is an account from Kid's team specialist, Lynsey C.!

This month we cut back our team dinners and events and decided to host a mixed Kids team potluck with our awesome Content Team! We had everyone sign up for various dishes and then Nick P. and myself took on the meats. We had two dishes of everything from sweet potatoes casseroles to Mashed Potatoes. We had a mini pie contest that consisted of a killer home baked pie by Marisa R. and a (shhh Costco maybe) pie by the other entry. Andy H. surprisingly made his very own green bean casserole...actually no one believed that he did actually make it, we assumed he had conned someone into making it for him! But, nope, Andy came through for us!

Kelly D. and Tara J. made very different, but equally awesome sweet potatoes, both won the eaters votes! All in all, our early Thanksgiving was quite a success. We are all happily stuffed employees ;)

Below is a shot of the most original desert I've seen in years......an Oreo, Rice Krispies Treat, Candy Corn turkey! Fine work!!!

Happy Monday and welcome to a new episode of Things on my Desk. Today we explore the desk of Jackie M. from our Customer Loyalty Kid's Business Unit.

Here on the Kids’ Content Team, we all work under the watchful eye of Nick P. He is a leader, mentor and a darn good griller, despite the fact that he is only working with one and a half thumbs. Nick’s path to greatness started off in an odd way. He was born two weeks early, but still weighed in at an enormous 14 lbs. Stories have been told that he was born with a full beard on his face and a spatula in his hand.

When Nick was 3 years old his right thumb was crushed by a steel door and he was never the same. He was forced to use his left hand to complete his everyday tasks while ol’ stumpy healed. To this day, Nick can use both hands equally, which if you ask me is just plain creepy. He claims that he eats with his right hand, throws with his left, plays tennis and ping pong with his right, writes with his left and can swing a bat either direction, but I don’t actually believe that he plays tennis.

Nick never let his stump slow him down. At one point he was on a swimming team, a diving team, 3 soccer teams, a football team and a baseball team at the same time. His parents were forced to tell him to pick a sport and go with that one. In Nick’s free time he enjoys going to see live music, particularly jam bands. He has been to over 70 music festivals and 40 Phish shows and still claims that he is not a hippie. He also enjoys haggling with hippies and people in general. He has one word of advice-never pay full price in an open market over-saturated setting.

In all seriousness, Nick loves the Kids Content Team and the Kids Content Team loves Nick. I asked him what he likes most about working at Zappos, which is definitely a hard question for everyone who works here. Here is what he said, “The thing I like the most about Zappos is waking up in the morning and still liking my job after nearly 3 years. Most people go to work because they have to and they do so every day with a chip on their shoulder. Maybe it's just a means to an end for them. Maybe they hate their job and just see it as a paycheck. I like being able to honestly say that coming to work is something I like to do. I feel like what I do makes a difference and I truly enjoy what I do.”

Beautiful and so touching.

Now I’m sure you understand why I say: Thumbs are overrated!

On Thursday, Zappos was invaded by an army of Kids' Clothing companies for our first ever.....drum roll.... Kids' Clothing Expo!

Brands that attended were:

• cachcach
• Corky & Company
• LeTop
• Biscotti (coming soon!)
• Kate Mack (coming soon!)
• Kaiya Eve
• City Threads
• Ben Sherman
• Disney Couture
• Me & Mind
• Mountain Sprouts
• Columbia
• Spyder
• Sara Prints
• Hatley
• Outside Baby
• JB Originals
• Hartstrings
• Kids Ink
• Sister Sam
• No Sugar Added

The brands were here to show off their current product lines and show Zappos a great time for the day! Large groups of Zappos peeps made the long and treacherous journey to the 2300 building in the training room to play around in the Enchanted Forest, which the kids' team began constructing on Tuesday. Everyone was blown away by what an awesome job that they did!

Christina E., makes her Zappos directing debut in this video starring the always amazing Sarah W., giving us a tour of the forest.


Thanks Kids' Team, you rule!

One of the ways we like to WOW our customers at Zappos is by having specially trained CLT members available to answer category-specific questions by dialing them direct between 6 am and 6 pm Monday through Friday. The CLT business unit teams sit on the Merchandising floor alongside our buyers so that they can get answers for customer inquiries directly from the source!



From the left: Heather, Priscilla, and Sarah

Since our CLT business unit teams are here to answer questions all day, I decided to turn the tables on them by asking them a few questions. Please find their candid responses below:

Question: If you
could be 5 years old again for 24 hours, and could do anything, what would you
do?

Priscilla: “I’d probably play with all 500 Barbies I had for the entire day. I miss those good ol’ days!”

Sarah: “I am going to have to be generic on this one and say go to Disneyland! I love that place!”

Heather: “Eat as much ice cream as I could!”

Question: Have you ever received a phone call to the Kids line from anyone under the age of 10 (approximately)? If yes, what were they trying to buy?

Priscilla: “Haha yes! It was really cute! She wanted these Roxy straight leg jeans and
just wanted to make sure they were long jeans and not capris!”

Heather: “Yes, Heelys.”

Question: What is the
most ridiculous question you have been asked by a customer?

Priscilla:“I’m 5 months pregnant and want shoes for him when he is 2 years old. What size should I get?"

Sarah: “I'm looking for a shoe. Do you have it? Ummm........ sure! We
have two million, which one would you like?!”

Heather: “Do you take cash?”

Question: What is the most common question asked by our customers?

Priscilla: “How do these shoes run, true to size?

Sarah:“How does this brand run and how do I figure out what size my child wears?”

Heather: “What size does my kid wear?”

Question: What activity do you do that makes you feel like a kid again?

Priscilla: “Hmm… I would say, using the ‘paint’ accessory on my laptop! I use to spend hours on that when I was younger, and still do!”

Sarah: “I feel like a kid every day! I like to jump on the trampoline!”

Heather: “*Bringing my son to the playground & playing with him.”

Question: I know a lot of customers call in asking what size of shoe their kids wear. Where did your clairvoyant powers originate from?

Priscilla: “WIKI is my best friend!”

Sarah: "In my past life, I was a child and I memorized every size, age, measurement of every child's foot that could possibly be. hahaha Well...... I have two kids, so it helps!”

Heather: “Being a mom.”

Question:If you had to pick one department in the company that acted most like kids, what would it be?

Priscilla: “CLT, all the way!”

Sarah: “CLT.”

Heather: “CLT.”

Question: What do you love most about your job?

Priscilla: “I love, love, love how amazing everything and everyone
is. I've been here for quite some time (my longest job ever) and look forward
to it everyday! The team I'm with is so awesome! It's a home away from home!”

Sarah: “It's ZAPPOS! ....One must experience it to truly understand. If I had to pin-point one thing, it would be the people and all of my awesome friends that I have made!”

Heather: “The fact that I can come here & be who I want & not be judged for it. Even though I
think I'm pretty normal...for the most part.”

Let’s play a quick game of word association with the operative word being princess. For me, the following things come to mind: princess cut diamonds, my new title when Prince Harry decides to marry me, glitzy tiaras, etc. Others may think of Disney princesses and go-to Halloween costumes for the Infant/Toddler crowd. However, on rare occasions events take place which require us to reevaluate our internal definitions of given words.



A pivotal event took place here at Zappos.com in March that forever changed our idea of what we associate with the word princess. During the first ever Kids Expo, an event put together where brand reps from a given category commence at Zappos to enhance brand awareness among our Customer Loyalty Team (or CLT if you will), a couple members of the Kids team decided to redefine what it means to be a princess.

I present to you Matt and Stephen from Kid’s Product Information…

Ohhh how they dazzle in pastels!! Thanks for the memories guys! Matt and Stephen are available for hire on a
case-by-case basis. I know for certain they accept bribes in the form of Zollars and Grey Goose for anyone that is interested! ;\