Let’s see “Internet” is something between networks. “Intranet” is something inside a network. (never understood “intramural” though – who else thinks “inside a painting” instead of casual college sports? It seem the Latin word "murus" for wall is the link. And that leaves “extranet” as external access to a network. In this case, it is our vendors accessing our network and inhouse sales ordering system so we can have the best selection of products for you. Here’s how our intranet wiki page for extranet sums it up:
“We don’t hide any information from our vendors! We have given you access to the backdoor of our site because the more you know about our business, the more you can help us grow it!”
So once a month, representatives from new vendors (1175 brands and growing!) or new reps from existing vendors, come to Zappos for a half day extranet training class. They receive their own account login and then go through all of the reports and graphs for real-time inventory, sales, trends/history, costs and purchase orders. The name of one report caught my eye - “fill it or kill it” – it reminds me of how I felt when I filled up a car with gas this weekend. (Hey save gas, and shop online with Zappos!) This report is about filling orders/POs or canceling them by the way.
Some of our vendor reps can’t believe the Extranet is for real but they soon come around. At Zappos, we try to WOW everyone – not just you, our customers. This philosophy seems to be working out quite well for us and we’ll continue to refine and expand the extranet.
