“This already exceeds that of Amazon, to our understanding, and it is far greater than large established retailers, such as Home Depot (with roughly 150 buyers).” “Zulily has more than 300 buyers today and plans to have 500 by the end of 2014,” it reported. In the meantime, customers continue to return for the selection and prices.Īccording to analysts at William Blair & Company, Zulily is special because of its daily assortment of items, which recreates the window-shopping experience online.

It appears that Zulily has been able to train mothers to expect to pay for shipping, much how they can manage to live off very limited sleep after awhile. And if you’re coming in to look for a particular item for tomorrow, our customers generally don’t think of us that way, and so we see good volume out of that, but it’s still tiny,” he said. “What we’ve found is our customer doesn’t come to us for that. On each product page, Zulily provides an estimate for how long the item will take to ship, so customers know what they are signing up for (if they’re paying attention, and not shopping on their phone while rocking a newborn to sleep). The company has also experimented with various shipping programs, such as charging $49 a year for unlimited purchases, much like Amazon’s Prime program - although I’m told that deal was only offered to only a small number of customers.ĭuring the company’s last earnings call, in which analysts raved over Father’s Day deals and drooled over Under Armour discounts, Zulily President and CEO Darrell Cavens said it has a “ready to ship” category on its site, but interestingly, it’s not as popular as you might expect.

Zulily reports that it shuffles the deck 45 times on an annualized basis, whereas an average retailer may accomplish the same thing four times a year.īut all of its shipping woes aside, it doesn’t seem to be affecting sales, at least not in the way one might think. One way to quantify how much inventory is coming and going from Zulily is something it tracks called “inventory turn,” which is the number of times it completely sells through everything in stock over a year. When it focused on inventoried items at Zulily, StellaService said shipping times dramatically improved to 3.7 days, even though it was still slower than all of its competitors. For instance, Gilt ships in 2.9 days Rue La La in 2.3 days Hautelook in 2.1 days and Ideeli in 1.4 days, according to StellaService, which evaluated shipping times of the major sites. Other flash sales sites that are focused on selling clothes at a discount, experience faster shipping times because they do tend to keep items in stock. Any unsold inventory would then be a liability, and collect dust on warehouse shelves until it could unload it through another sale. In order to speed up the process, it would have to buy inventory from vendors in advance. Vendors then ship the merchandise in bulk to one of Zulily’s warehouses, where the products are sent to the consumer. Instead, it orders the items from vendors after the sales end. That’s because Zulily doesn’t order most of the products it offers in advance. The company is quick to admit that it still has a long way to go before it gets the formula right on shipping, and it says things are improving, especially since I bought the dress last year. It also plans to open a third distribution center next year to relieve additional pressure on its systems.īut because of the way Zulily operates, it is unlikely that same-day shipping will ever be a goal. Shipping has been a frequent topic on the company’s conference calls since Zulily went public last year. In recent months, the Seattle-based company said orders have taken an average of 12 or 13 days to leave its warehouse. Tack on another three-to-five days to get to your house, and customers don’t see their maternity clothes or cute newborn swaddles for weeks - which if you don’t know, is long enough for a pregnant woman to gain 10 pounds, or a baby to grow out of a sleep sack. Zulily seems to be operating on the better-late-than-never theory for shipping. Google, Amazon, eBay, and even traditional retailers, like Nordstrom, are investing heavily in ways to make deliveries show up on the same day you ordered them.Īnd then there’s Zulily, the fast-growing flash sales site that features an ever-changing selection of items for moms and kids. More than ever, speed is being viewed as a competitive advantage among e-commerce companies.

In a second case, which occurred years earlier, I ordered a pair of shoes via Zulily, which were so delayed, I had completely forgotten I had bought them. Last year, a maternity dress I bought missed two weddings that I planned to attend while pregnant. Finally, I canceled the order because customer service had no estimate for when it might arrive - and pregnancy only lasts so long.

Zulily orders