Pointing and Clicking Your Way to the Perfect Shoes at Zappos

While many of the brick and mortar stores we patronize every day carry shoes, due to space limitations, they often don't carry the widest selection of sizes and styles.

Perhaps this is one reason that shopping for shoes online is becoming more popular every day -- despite the fact that you can't try the shoes on before you buy.

Zappos.com is one of the web's most popular online shoe stores, and is helping many consumers change the way they think about shopping for shoes.



By far, my favorite feature of Zappos is the ease with which you can find a pair (or one hundred pairs) of shoes that are exactly what you're looking for.

When starting at the Zappos homepage, you can browse through various categories, as narrowly or as broadly as you desire.

For example, you might click on "Women's Shoes" and be taken to a page where you can choose from "Dress," "Casual," or "Athletic." But at Zappos, the options don't end there. In the "Dress Flats" category alone, you can choose from 11 sub-categories, such as "Sling-Backs," "Loafers" or "Mary Janes."

When you've made your selection, you can then choose to display shoes in a certain size, color, width, heel height, or price.

Zappos User Feedback Helps with Tough Decisions

Another great feature that sets Zappos apart from the crowd is their user surveys and reviews.

When you find a shoe you're considering purchasing, it certainly helps to know that 85% of the people surveyed believed it to "feel a half size smaller than marked," or whether or not it felt "true to width," and Zappos provides this information through their user surveys.

Zappos' user reviews are also a huge help. Knowing before you order how other people feel about their purchase can help make your decision a lot simpler.