Got Any Questions for Zappos' Tony Hsieh?
By Harry McCracken | Monday, September 20, 2010 at 10:48 am
I’m not a customer of shoe/fashion/housewares superstore Zappos, but I’ve never met anyone who was and didn’t rave about the site. So I’m pleased to have been invited to guest-tweet a live Webcast with Zappos founder/CEO Tony Hsieh this Friday, September 24, at 2pm PT. I’ll watch, listen, and tweet some thoughts as I do.
The topic of the Webcast is “Service and the Evolution of the New Customer,” and I doubt that there’s a merchant on the Web who knows more about the subject than Hsieh. (He recently wrote a New York Times bestseller about it.)
You can participate (and share your own questions and impressions via Twitter) by joining us here on Friday. In the meantime, if you’ve got any questions for Hsieh, feel free to share them as a comment on this post–we’ll round ’em up for the Webcast.
(Full disclosure: Like other Webcasts I’ve observed and tweeted, this one is sponsored by HP and hosted at one of its sites. The hashtag for the event is #hpio.)
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September 20th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
What areas does he see online retailing *not* displacing brick-and-mortar, or at the very least, what sorts of technological advances need to take place before more things can be reliably, easily, and safely (we've pretty much got the 'safely' part down already, I know) be bought with low transaction costs (including not just money, but other non-monetary costs).
Simplistic example: my wife was looking for a backpack the other day. Knowing how particular she is, I suggested she go around to actually look at bags and feel the weight/texture/etc., instead of purchasing one online. She just couldn't get enough of a 'feel' for the item w/o seeing more of it than a couple of pictures.
I'm not one of those Luddites who's foolish enough to say "_____ will never happen with technology," but there does seem to be some limitations as to how far tech can go in retailing. I'm sure Hsieh has considered some of them, and I'm equally sure that he's looking for ways to push those limitations. Win for everyone.