Case Study: Fast, Simple Open-Source IT - ' Howdy, Partner '
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Howdy, Partner

The world of retailing can be a secretive place. Even the most powerful consumer goods manufacturers can still find it difficult to get real-time feedback from retailers about which products are selling. Not so with Zappos. Through an extranet, Zappos' suppliers can view pretty much anything Zappos' internal team can see: inventory; sales over the past 24 hours, week, or month; what's on sale; and what is or isn't selling well at that exact instant. It's not just trivia we're talking about: With Zappos representing about 1 percent of all footwear sales, a look at how a new line of shoes is selling on the site can be a proxy for the entire market, giving shoe companies invaluable information for product planning. That's especially true because Zappos' seasons start earlier and end later than in the bricks-and-mortar realm, and trends can show up earlier on the company's site.

Tom Austin, the Zappos account manager for Clarks (the popular brand from $1.2 billion, U.K.-based C&J Clark International Ltd.), says Zappos provides far more dynamic and comprehensive access to how his company's shoes are selling than any retailer he's dealt with in the past. "The most useful thing is that I can use real-time data to write suggested orders down to specific sizes and widths of shoes," he says. Even better, he adds, Zappos has built an algorithm that uses past and predicted sales trends to help him order appropriately. "I don't know of anybody else that comes close to what they do," Austin says.

Using a Web-based interface, vendors such as Austin can log into Zappos' site and find an array of reports available to analyze how their products are selling. Zappos utilizes standard protocols such as XML and EDI for information exchange with vendors, and the company is prepared to adapt to whatever particular set-up a vendor may already have. "When we start negotiations, we ask them how they want to do it," says Field. "XML, FTP, whatever. We will pretty much work with whatever they want. It eases the transition when you decide up-front."

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