Innovating E-Commerce in Times of Change

Will Young has been working as the Director of Zappos Labs for three and a half years. Zappos Labs is a San Francisco-based team that experiments, tests out and explores new ways people can shop Zappos. The team is inspired by the start-up culture in San Francisco, which made the city a perfect place for the team to foster their innovation. Zappos is constantly innovating and undergoing both small and large experiments to take their company to the next level, remaining a leader in innovation.

3 Questions with Will Young

1. Has there ever been an instance where another industry has influenced an innovation at your company?

We have a 3D printer in our office, and although we are not sure what it means for us yet, we have access to explore and see what it could do for Zappos in the future. There are many interesting things coming out of the “Maker Movement," such as personalized clothing, that is certainly influencing what we do here. Crowdsourcing also influences us, as retail brands like ‘Betabrand’ are now allowing you pre-order items online. We wonder what this could mean for our own brand.

2. Do you have specific rituals for re-setting your team to be creative?

There are a couple of things that we do in order to re-set to be creative. One of the ways is getting together product managers, developers and product owners, to brainstorm and open up to new ideas. We ask ourselves questions like what is shopping with your friends online? We also take part in a “Hackathon,” and are given one week to do a proof of concept, which is later shared with the team.

3. How do you identify trends? What resources does your team use to spot trends and consumer insights?

For a lot of the technical stuff, we use trend services, especially for our tech and fashion trends. Although, we are always keeping a close eye on the small start-ups concerning fashion and tech. We see what they are doing and think, what would this mean for Zappos?