Amazon launches Zappos competitor
Amazon.com recently launched their Zappos competitor called endless.com. Endless sells shoes and handbags at competitive pricing. The site is well designed and it’s easy to find what your looking for. The have some nice search features that allow you to drill down by brand, size and color. The only downside that I see so far is that they have a limited brand selection, compared to Zappos. However, I’m sure that’ll get better over time. As a part of their launch promotion, they’re giving away next day shipping and give you $5 off your order. Not a bad deal. I’m a big fan of Zappos and it’ll be interesting to see if Endless can take a significant portion of their market share.
Technorati Tags: shoes, shopping, amazon, endless.com
I work for one of the brands that Endless features on their site. Since it is amazon, and they buy so much product, They get a great discount. They then sell the shoes at cost, or even below cost. They also give a 5 dollar discount on the free shipping. So they are actually dicounting the shoes another 5 dollars. It makes no sense unless they are only in business to put other shoe etailers, like zappos and shoebuy, out of business. I know that this drastic discounting of new merchandise is making us and many other large shoe brands very angry. It really hurts our brand image to sell our new styles at cost or below cost. Some of the larger brands have even stopped selling to Endless.com and we are considering the same. It will be interesting to see how this strategy affects Zappos and Shoebuy.
Interesting. That’s probably one of the reasons they don’t have as many brands as Zappos or the others. I know that it’s usually pretty difficult as an upstart company to get Shoe mfg to even sell to you. Especially in specialty shoe markets like skateboarding. So, I guess it says something for the power of money. And Amazon has the money. For consumers, I guess if you need some shoes, then now would be the time to get some from Endless.