Zappos has decided to make life easier for those who have challenges getting dressed, launching Zappos Adaptive, a curated collection of functional and fashionable products.
Adaptive clothing is apparel designed for people that have difficulty dressing themselves due to an inability to use closures — such as buttons and zippers — or because they lack the full range of motion required for self-dressing.Zappos designs the garments to benefit anyone who feels limited by traditional clothing, whether it is children or adults with sensitivity issues, physical disabilities, special needs or those who simply have pain putting on clothes or shoes.
The Zappos Adaptive collection launched on April 19, and includes:
Advertisement
-
Four-way reversible clothing;
-
Tear-away tags;
-
Elastic waist and pull-on pants;
-
Sensory friendly clothing;
-
Slip-on shoes;
-
Diabetic-approved shoes; and
-
Orthotic friendly and bump-toe shoes.
Zappos has partnered with various apparel brands including 4Ward (a Zappos-exclusive brand), Independence Day Clothing and Jeremiah to manufacture and design clothes within the collection. Additionally, Zappos partnered with brands such as Nike, Vans, Keen and Propet to manufacture the collection of shoes.
“We went into our existing brands and looked for anything with adaptive features, whether it’s tagless, reversible or has very soft material, etc.,” said Saul Dave, Director of Enterprise Systems at Zappos in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. “We contacted the brands and told them what we were doing, and asked if they were fine with us featuring their products on the Adaptive page, and they were. As this has launched, we’ve been contacted by vendors in the space that are looking to possibly bring their adaptive products to the Zappos site.”
The Phone Call That Started It All
The road to creating Zappos Adaptive started with a single phone call from a concerned consumer.
“About three years ago, when I was going through my new hire training, I’d taken a call from a customer who we had sent the wrong size pair of Velcro shoes,” Dave said. “We weren’t able to replace the shoes, and she was pretty frustrated. As we were chatting, she told me about her grandson who has autism and couldn’t tie his shoelaces. As he’s getting older, and his foot’s getting bigger, it gets more challenging for him to find Velcro shoes that fit him. After the call ended, I started doing research and found that there was no one in the space that was catering to these customers.”
Holacracy Fosters Adaptive Thinking
Dave credits the flat organizational “holacratic” structure at Zappos, which it enables more employees to share concepts that they are passionate about, for being able to pitch the idea in the first place. With this structure in place, Dave received approved funding and formed a core team of six members, including a product manager and multiple merchandisers. Additionally, the team worked with approximately 40 to 50 employees within marketing, analytics and UX design to power the program.
“When I first thought of the idea three years ago, it was difficult to get it off the ground, and I had to rely on others to say, ’Yes, go for it. Here’s some funding,’” Dave stated. “Within holacracy, all I had to do was find people in the company that believed in this idea to fund it. I didn’t ask permission to do anything, so Zappos set up a structure to continue with projects like these. I’m not saying that without that structure we couldn’t have done it, but it certainly would have been very challenging.”
The core group also trained nearly 30 customer loyalty employeesto create a dedicated team to assist customers shopping for the Adaptive products, so that they could help answer any questions regarding the merchandise. Additionally, customers can enter their phone number into the Adaptive page and an in-house specialist will call them.
Customers, Expert Communities Determine Merchandise
The customers play a major part in the direction of the Adaptive clothing. Shoppers can fill out a survey to reveal the types of products they are looking for, which Zappos showcases to potential vendors and uses to support ideas for the 4ward brand.
“We aren’t the experts in this space, and we rely heavily on those experts,” Dave said. “For example, we’ve spoken to autism communities and we ask what they need. They’ve given us the ideas and then we go in and start finding the product. Once we do find the product, we send it to a few people to assess whether the product works. We’re really relying on the customer to let us know if the products we’ve got are working or not. They ultimately are going to drive exactly what we’re selling.”
