Zappos Headquarters Tour

Zappos.com is an online shoe and clothing shop currently based here in Las Vegas.

I had the opportunity to take an amazing tour at Zappos corporate headquarters, which is located downtown. I wanted to learn about the Zappos Family culture.

The 60-minute excursion offers a glimpse into the Zappos culture and a walk in a Zapponian’s shoes. I met some of the amazing people in such culture-filled departments as merchandising, human resources, and the Customer Loyalty Team (customer service). I was a little disappointed because I wanted to meet Tony Hsieh, Zappo’s CEO.

They offer an incredible free cafeteria, and employees can personalize their work space (floor, ceiling, desks, etc.), which are just cubicles (no offices, only cubes, even for the CEO).

Every employee gets a license plate to hang above their desk with their name on it. For the first year you’re at Zappos, you get a “temporary license plate,” where it’s hand written on paper. After your first year, you get a real Zappos license plate with your name embossed on it.

Zappos.com doesn’t just offer fabulous deals and products, but the work environment looks like absolute fun.

On average, Zappos employees answer 5,000 calls a day, and 1,200 e-mails a week (except in the holiday season, when call frequency increases significantly).

Zappos.com is one of the biggest shoe stores online, and offers over 1,000 brands in all the latest women’s styles, as well as a huge selection of men’s and kid’s shoes.

I was excited to go and see what a billion dollar company looks like from the inside, and also to know that I helped play a (small) role in getting them there.

They must be doing something right because they are extremely successful.

Zappos has been named to the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For 5 years in a row!

The throne room is best explained as an office where visitors on tour are offered the opportunity to pick a symbol of royalty like a crown or tiara, and get your picture taken. It is a memorable part of the Zappos tour experience.

Since the Zappos Family provides free food and vending for its employees, it makes sense that they’d have an entire department to keep up with the demand!

If you want to see something different and unusual this is the place to go. Besides, you get popcorn, water or soft drink free as you tour the Zappos Headquarters.

We learned that the culture of the company is a reflection, in large part, of the personality of the leaders of the company. The leaders are hard working, fun, and happy people and that trickles down to everyone in the company.

At Zappos, they believe that work should be fun and their employees can wear any kind of clothes or style they want.

They are open 24 hours a day, 5 days a week, so they work on shifts. The Company does a lot of charity work also and all the employees participate.

This tour was amazing! Truly great to see how a work place can create such an environment to motivate their employees to perform at the highest level of customer service!!

The Zappos Family loves Core Value #5 “Pursue Growth and Learning.” They believe in it so much, that they have a dedicated a library for team members to check out books that have been deemed preferred readings.

Our guide for this free tour was an enthusiastic promoter of the company. He explains how Zappos got started, how they got their name, and what their philosophy is.

At the end of the tour my guide from Brazil gave me a copy of the 2012-2013 Zappos Culture Book. Every year, each employee contributes a short essay on what the Zappos culture means to them.