I got an email today from the folks over at Amazon telling me about their newest stand alone site, Endless.com. Within ten minutes, I had purchased a pair of black patent leather Steve Madden 3 inch heels (thank you Madden for offering a pair of patent leather heels that doesn’t force me to wear “fuck me” heels that are a literal pain to wear any longer than four hours).
There were several reasons I was impressed with Endless.com. Now, let’s forget that they offer free overnight shipping for a minute. Wait, let’s not forget that “What? They pay you for overnight shipping???” to quote a friend. Free overnight shipping alone is enough to get any woman’s fashion spidey senses tingling (total credit to the spidey sensing whore for that line). But, you’ll even give me a discount? Now you have my undivided attention.
In addition to offering me a clear cut and “insane” offer, they’re also owned by Amazon, which gives them a quick sense of trust in my mind as a long time Amazon customer. So, armed with a great offer and a sense of trust, I clicked through to the site from the ad to see what I’d find. and I was surprised to find a product line I wouldn’t expect from Amazon.com.
The labels included Steve Madden, Nine West, Kenneth Cole, Hilfiger… brands you’d be likely to find in a department store, though missing the more severe higher end ones (like Dolce, Coach, Dooney and Bourke, Louis Vuitton, etc). I was actually kind of shocked to see the offerings were of such great “brands”. Think Zappos level brands.
Of course, Zappos main draw is their service. Like Zappos, Endless.com has a 365 day return policy and offers free shipping on returns. Both sites offer 24/7 customer service via telephone. And both sites are offering a 110% price guarantee.
The interesting thing to note about the price guarantees is that Zappos only offers the guarantee on finding the lower price on another website or retail store and limits the price guarantee to ten days after you’ve made your purchase. Endless.com has the same policy, but the price guarantee is good for 14 days and will be honored if Endless.com themselves lowers the price of the shoe within 14 days of your purchase.
After seeing all the comparisons, the reasoning for the five dollars credit for overnight shipping becomes clear. They’ll not only match the competition’s (Zappos) free offer, but they’ll give you an extra five dollars to switch to them (Endless).
What I was most impressed with at Endless though was their search function. Most fashion sites have clunky search functions. Until I saw the search over at Endless, I definitely would have said Zappos has the market cornered on usable shoe and handbag search. Not anymore. Endless gets rid of the clunky drop downs and replaces it with Ajax and allows you to search multiple scenarios at once.
For instance. If I’m at Zappos and want to search only Steve Madden and Nine West shoes, I’d have to do so by searching each category seperately. Same for shoe colors. If I want to limit my search to red and black shoes, I first have to do a search for red shoes and then a search for black shoes. Same for shoe styles. But not at Endless.
I can choose to “Narrow by” for Steve Madden and Nine West shoes, in black and red, in multiple sizes (sometimes shoes run small or large and there is nothing worse than falling in love with shoes you can’t have), that are pumps, with a heel size of less than four inches with one search. I cannot even begin to tell you the sheer and utter joy this causes to wash over me.
Add to it that the entire time I’m shopping, I see: “Order in the next 2 hours 29 minutes – get it Tue. Apr. 10″ running in the top right hand corner gives me that sense of urgency that I only have two hours to order the shoes I didn’t know I wanted, nor do I need by April 10th. It’s amazing the way certain website features can make you feel.
After I made my purchase, I did a bit of research on the “buzz” for the site and found this article over at Techcrunch. In it, Steve Poland asks: “The question is — did Amazon really need to launch an entirely new brand for this new shoes/handbags shopping experience?”.
Well, yes, I think they really did. Why? Because I don’t associate Amazon with Steve Madden or Nine West. To me, Amazon is not synonymous with fashion or middle to higher end fashion brands. By seeing Endless, the seperate site, I associated Amazon’s trust after learning who they were owned by, but not their “mass retailer” image that I have in my head.
The only complaints about the site is that some of the shoe categories can be a bit confusing and if you don’t have javascript enabled, you’re pretty much out of luck.
Additionally, if you’re a fashion affiliate, it appears you won’t be changing your links anytime soon. Endless doesn’t offer an affiliate program as of yet and I don’t see any way to “link into it” in the Amazon affiliate backend. Additionally, Zappos offers 12% commission on affiliate sales, where as, even if it were available via the Amazon linking system, the usual commission rates there are about 10% or below (Last I checked and for regular affiliates, anyway. I am not now, nor have I ever been a heavy Amazon affiliate).
So, I was impressed with Endless and I also think Zappos should take this is a message to up their game, get a little bit web 2.0 and a little less clunky and not assume they can stop striving to be the best simply because they are used to having already achieved that title. Because, for now, Endless.com will be getting my frequent and impulsive shoe buying interest because they make it the easiest for me to self indulge. ;-)
About the Author
Rae Hoffman-Dolan aka "Sugarrae" is an affiliate marketing veteran and an (extremely) occasional Houston SEO consultant specializing in SEO audits and link building strategies. She is also the author of the often controversial Sugarrae blog and the SVP of Marketing for Speedy Incorporation Services. You can connect with Rae via Twitter and Facebook.
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