Internet Technology, Marketing, and Security

Table of Contents

Introduction to Assignment3

Overview of Corporation Chosen: Zappos.com3

Product Information3

Corporation's Contact Information4

Customization of Products for customers4

Customer Information at purchase5

Internet marketing strategies and the competitive advantages of its Website5

Corporation's Privacy / Security Policy6

Corporation's Response to the Security Breach6

Conclusion, Recommendations and Rationale7

References8

Appendix9

Internet Technology, Marketing, and Security

Introduction to Assignment

This assignment seeks to develop an understanding of online security breach with respect to a specific corporation as an example. In this assignment the corporation will be evaluated for its online presence, emphasizing on its competitive advantages and marketing strategies; while discussing a case of security breach for the corporation. For this reason, we have chosen Zappos.com to be our online corporate example case. It is a renowned, online shop for apparels and shoes; found in the year 1999.

Overview of Corporation Chosen: Zappos.com

Zappos has earned the repute of being the largest, online shoe store. The online shop is currently headquartered at Henderson, Nevada, United States. The shop came to existence when Nick Swinmurn collaborated with Tony Hsieh and Alfred Lin in a joint venture to make it easy for customers to find their favorite colors, sizes and designs in shoes through an online shoe store. The name of the store was changes lately to Zappos from Shoe Site. This organization is our base case to analyze the issues of security breaches with respect to Zappos's 2012 hacking incident. A decade later from the time of its foundation, Zappos.com was acquired by online giant Amazon.com. It now operates as a subsidiary of Amazon.com (Ritter, 2012).

Product Information

The online shop Zappos.com stocks about three million shoes, apparels, handbags and accessories which are its major products. The products of the shops are unique and vast, claimant to the fact that there are products which you might not find easily at shopping malls and by other traditional means of shopping. Its website (and other 7,000 affiliate partners) engages in the business of distributing low-cost and stylish shoes to customers who are frustrated not to find their choice elsewhere. The major competitors include Foot Locker, J. C. Penney and Shoebuy.com.

Corporation's Contact Information

Address: 2280 Corporate Cir. Ste. 100, Henderson, NV 89074

Phone: 702-943-7777

Web Address: http://www.zappos.com

Fax: 702-943-7778

Customization of Products for customers

The primary offering of the company is shoes, which accounts for 70% of its selling base. The company utilizes its stock to distribute and sell hard-to-find shoes that are not/hardly found elsewhere. There are currently 50,000 varieties of shoes at Zappos.com which speaks of their uniqueness. The shop does not offer customized designs but have all major brands in almost all colors and sizes according to customer demand. The company also distributes shoes belonging to niche markets that include special widths, special sizes, vegan shoes and American shoes. In 2004, Zappos.com launched another line of high-end shoes called Zappos Couture. In addition to these products, the shop also sells eyewear, kid's items of clothing and accessories and watches. Its goal is to increase the size of the apparels stock by four times as the size ...