Zappos moves warehouse to Kentucky 2002 #186

Z a p p o s m o v e s w a r e h o u s e t o K e n t u c k y 2 0 0 2 # 1 8 6

April 27, 2021

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Blog, Zappos

Blog #185 I talked about how Zappos provides its own selection. In this blog I want to talk about Zappos moves warehouse to Kentucky 2002

Through word of mouth advertising and creating a wow experience in fast shipping Zappos reaches a return customer rate of 25%. As you may recall Zappos would advertise 3-5 day shipping but would ship 2^ndday air at no additional charge to create a “Wow that arrived fast” experience. This was proving successful by the increasing return customer rate.

In years past Zappos dabbled in advertising at Professional sports venues such as the S.F. Giants Candlestick Park ,which also got attention, but it was the “wow experience” that kept customers coming back. In addition to the “wow experience” we focused heavily on having the best selection. Our goal was to represent the brand in the best possible way.

With all of this, our warehouse quickly reached capacity in June. We decided to move our fulfillment center to Elizabethtown, Kentucky and outsource our fulfillment to UPS. After moving the warehouse, we moved our retail location into the old warehouse spot.

Later that year, Zappos moves to 271 Omega Parkway, Shepardsville, Kentucky and takes over warehouse operations once again. Keith moves out there to oversee the implementation of the warehouse and ends up staying there for several months. To this day, Fred likes to joke about that. They set up a location system that utilized “License plates” to find the merch quickly. This was very similar to what Target used.

This was about the same time I had my second interaction with Fred and Zappos. I was growing very discontent with Target and was itching to get back into the footwear world. I was at the “Fuck it” level too, so more willing to take a chance on a “start-up” company.

When Fred called me in 2002, he said they were doubling their business every year and were expecting to do even better this year. He was right, Zappos reached $32 million in sales to end the year more than doubling the previous year of $8.6 million. I was close to making my “Leap of Faith”