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.”

Today is the day of the Smurf here at Zappos! The halls of our offices were invaded by dozens of Smurfs just after lunch. Word has it that the Kids team was responsible for the random act of Smurf but no one will confirm for sure.



Not only did the Smurfs steal the attention of every department here, they also overhauled the Zappos Core Values! Find a few words of the wise from the creatures in blue below:

1. Deliver SMURF through service
2. Embrace and drive SMURF
3. Create SMURF and a little SMURFiness
4. Be SMURF, SMURF, and SMURF
5. Pursue SMURF and SMURF
6. Build SMURF and honest SMURF with SMURF
7. Build a positive SMURF and family SMURF
8. Do more with SMURF
9. Be passionate and SMURF
10. Be SMURF

Today in C-Life, we interviewed a woman named Melissa. When asked the most facinating thing about her, she explained that she could sing a song with all fifty states. She then agreed to let us film it and post it. Thanks, Melissa for being such a great sport!

The Zappos Merchandising team is working with ZU to put together a Zappos.com Edition of Monopoly. 5000 custom Monopoly boards will be created by Parker Bros. featuring Zappos.com and our Core Values, and will feature properties "sponsored" by many of our top vendors! The proceeds from the property sponsorship and sales of board game set will benifit The Nevada Childhood Cancer Foundation.

Special thanks to Andy H., Richard Z. and Mark G. for putting this together! We're almost there! More info to follow!

The Bridge the Gap Project (BGP) put together a "Sweet & Greet" today in the lunch room of the Henderson office. It ended with a good old fashioned eating contest.

Bryan of Merchandising, Amanda of Customer Loyalty, and Jay of the Content Team sat down in front of a crowd of thousands (slight exaggeration)with three minutes on the clock. Who would be crowned champion of this annual event? (This was actually the first one, and likely the last.) Who would claim the $1 Million prize money? (Prize money not actually awarded.) So
many questions were yet to be answered (many of which were made up by me).

The contestants readied themselves, cupcakes in hand. Last minute coaching advice from their trainers: frosting is filling; don’t eat the wrappers; why are we even doing this?

Ladies and Gentlemen, ready your stomachs! DING, DING! And they're off!

For those of you who know Bryan, you may be thinking, "No Contest! The Bull has it in the bag!" And it seemed – for a time – that you might have been right as Jay from Content was easily vanquished by the ravenous AB from Fashion. But the competition was not without its drama! Oh, no, my
friends. There was a dark horse looming on the horizon (or more accurately,
just to Bryan's right). Amanda from Customer Loyalty surprised the capacity crowd and brought fear to the eyes of even Bryan himself!

As the final buzzer rang, the judges announced the unthinkable! WE HAVE A TIE! Bryan and Amanda had each put down ten cupcakes in the three minute round! The results announced, the crowd shouted its anger! "SUDDEN DEATH" was the chant that echoed throughout the halls (actually, I think I was the only one that said it).

And in a One Minute Sudden Death Overtime, Bryan was able to silence his critics as the underdog Amanda fell behind due to an unexpected improvement in judgment! No such improvement on Bryan’s end, I’m proud to report.

14 and a half cupcakes consumed Merchandising favorite son! That’s 13 and a half more than is legal in most states!

Congratulation to all involved, and THANK YOU to the Bridge the Gap Project,
proving that we’re all on equal ground when it comes to our desires to see people makes fools of themselves!

Here's Erika (in front of very tall Fred) and Rena forming the front of our symbolic bridge. The smaller but equally important faces in the back are Terry, Dave, Valencia, Andrea and Latrira, the program committee contact.

Being able to handle the rapid growth at Zappos but still preserve our close, “small company” culture is a constant challenge. Another promising step that has just been taken today is the new Bridge the Gap program. Basically people can apply with a brief essay to participate in an overview program of either the Merchandising or newly renamed Content groups. The plan is to eventually have all the departments offering overview programs that give people from other areas a strong sense of what that group does. This not only helps our culture but it also gives a big picture perspective on how Zappos runs and how actions by other groups can keep things in sync vs disarray.

At today’s kickoff event in the lunch room, there were reps of the program explaining the details and also offering “decorate your own” cupcakes. Naturally I showed up soon (but how often?) and made a rather peculiar cupcake. And there was a spectacular closing event – there was a cup cake eating contest with the surviving cakelets. Graham has the video of this “neck to neck” frosting packed contest! Over to you Graham!

Lots a great comments to me personally (though none posted) about Andrea's Winged Sunglasses art project from Happy Hour last Thursday. Here's a few more! Steve, Andy, Chris Jerry, Brian, Meg, Brett, Richard, Thad and Tony himself! You're all ready for Bingo Night at the Trop!

So, Andrea.... what will you be doing for the next happy hour?

Andrea C. brought these spiffy sunglasses to the last Zappos Happy Hour and managed to get shots of many interesting people wearing them. This series is of members of Merchandising's Casual Lifestyle time (C-Life). At the happy hour there were many things to celebrate, one of which being Shyloh's promotion to Buyer. Another one: Galen, Mr. Capital G himself, was promoted to Senior Director of both Casual Lifestyle and Performance! Way to go, boss!

More sunglasses photos will follow! I understand there's one or two of our VP of Merch as well as our Senior Corporate Counsel. Great job, Andrea!

Every quarter our Merchandising Group holds an Awards night at a local sports pub. It’s a lot of fun and we really, um, let our hair down, especially after several trips to the bar. The evening starts with general mixing, mingling and munching on hors d'oeuvres. Then around 5:30 we have the themed awards ceremony. The theme this time was “gangsters” and as people received their awards, pictures of their faces overlaid on gangster pictures were displayed on big flat panels. And we all cheer and clap like crazy! People are recognized for promotions, meeting and exceeding their sales plans, submitting suggestions and being superior contributors in other ways.

Next we have skits put on by the new people who have joined Merchandising in the last 3 months. The opening number was based on the story “Three Little Pigs.” Chanele, Jannel and Matt T. are huddling in their little huts (symbolizing 2 other online shoe companies and Zappos) bracing themselves for the arrival of the big bad Bling Gangsta wolf (symbolizing an online retail company that shares the name of a river and rain forest.)



That’s Matt W. our ace video guy on the right covering the events so there may be some video for you to see soon if our Legal dept gives the thumbs up. Still pics just don’t do the evening justice. The other 2 skits were video parodies done earlier and then replayed but with the cast members in costume to receive their deserved applause and cheers. The first was titled “Zappranos” complete with cheesy New Yawk accents. The second was a parody of a late night talk show intern interviewing people on the street. But this time the street was the Las Vegas strip and they were asked questions about Fashion icons who resemble people who work at Zappos. Both videos were brilliantly done with Flip! Video cameras. Winky wink.

One nice touch that was new last night, we had a caricature artist doing free drawings during the evening.
Here’s Team Comfort looking rather comfortable!

We had buckets of promotions today – just now in fact. Bells ringing, people clapping and cheering as the names of 4 new buyers were announced - David C, Jim C, Kevin W, and Shyloh C. It was kind of tight timing as we are having our quarterly Merchandising Awards Night (blog post on this tomorrow!) and lots of people were finishing last minute preparations or heading over. (Me too wink wink)

I’ll start off with Shyloh. (Ladies first and heck, she has a gianourmous card! David, Jim and Kevin, watch your backs, my new nanostealth belt buckle cam just arrived) Shyloh is with our new housewares team and she’s been with Zappos for just over a year. She’s a recent East Coast transplant and has been loving both Las Vegas and Zappos. Her kids had a swell time today too. Rumor is she is a fabulous fencer!

Here’s Shyloh and some of her team mates!



Congratulations Shyloh, David, Jim and Kevin!

There are countless reasons why people move to Las Vegas and, while each of our justifications are wildly different, here are my top five:

1) Zappos.com

2) The weather from October thru May

3) 24/7 partying

4) The Shopping

5) You can get a direct flight to almost any location from
here and vice versa.

My top two reasons for living in Las Vegas came into perfect harmony on Sunday afternoon at a Kids’ team tailgate prior to the Las Vegas 51's game. Members of the Kids team and their families came together to eat, drink, and be merry while cheering on our local team.

Zappos has made community involvement a huge priority, and in
the small realm of baseball, we not only sponsor the 51’s, but we are also active
sponsors of the Henderson Little League program! Moreover, we have a team of Zappos folks that get together weekly for a softball league.

We sure serve up a fine balance of work and play around
here! Everyone had a great time at the tailgate
and at the game (the proof is in the pictures ).

BEFORE

AFTER

Thank you to everyone involved in this great event!

Today we handed out our 2008 Zappos.com Print Ad Creative postcards
to Vegas employees! They are a sampling of some of the visuals being
used in our print ad campaign, which hit the newsstands this week!

All employees received five cards to send anywhere to anyone in the world! (I suggested we send them all to Val Kilmer. I don't really know why. First person that popped in my head.)In true creative service/marketing style, we just wheeled them around the office in a wagon and dove headlong into the seas of madness that are the CLT and Merchandising Floors.

Our Creative Service and Marketing crazies filled the aisles in a very non-disruptive.....well, ok, rather disruptive manner to hand bundles of postcards to the un-suspecting masses. Every employee has been given free reign to do what they want with them...who knows, you may be receiving one yourself!
These cards are a part of the 2008 Zappos.com Print Ad Creative, which is also coming along the same time as our brand spankin' new television commercial that began airing a few weeks ago. It is airing on multiple networks throughout the U.S. T.V.-O-Sphere, maybe you've seen one....if not, and if you're nice, I'll post it right below. I'm considering it......I'm considering it.....alright, you won me over. But barely. : )
It's a great new direction for us and we are very excited about it!
Anyway, back to filling out postcards, I'm sending one to my favorite
New Kid on the Block! (I won't say who)

In the spirit of Zappos Core Value #5, Pursue Growth and Learning, Jeanne and I took a group of Assistant Buyers, Merchandising Assistants and members of our Product Information team from Casual Lifestyle on a one-day, turn-around round trip to Southern California to tour the Magdesians shoe factory. One of only a few left in California, the Magdesian family was gracious enough to open their doors to us.

They have an incredible laser cutting machine that eliminates the need for costly dies and is also 30% more efficient in terms of raw materials. For those of you who don't know, a die is, in essence, a metal "cookie cutter" traditionally used to cut the upper pattern from a sheet of leather or other material. As each size and width combination required a separate die, this is one of the highest costs to a manufacturer in production. By using this new technology, Magdesians can keep the costs, and in turn, the retail prices of their U.S. made shoes significantly more affordable.

Thank you VERY much, Magdesians! It was a great trip and very educational for all!

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!

Last week, the Fashion Team put on an expo for CLT and I was lucky enough to get one of their runway shows on the Flip! The expo consisted of leaders in fashion, from salon to designer to couture footwear, highlighting spring 2008 designs as well as previewing fall 2008. Participating brands included Christian Lacroix, Kate Spade, Vince Camuto, Ted Baker, Taryn Rose, Stuart Weitzman, Givenchy, Emilio Pucci, Celine, Juicy Couture, Lacoste, Marc by Marc Jacobs, Mark Nason, Donna Karan, and Cole Haan.

Free gifts were handed out at the door and as well as drawings totaling over 30 pairs of shoes from the participating vendors.

Great job, Fashion!