Zappos is famous for its attentive customer service, but how would that translate to real life? Customers will have the opportunity to find out from this weekend until December 31, as Zappos opens a 20,000 square foot holiday pop-up store in downtown Las Vegas. Since it’s Vegas, the store will be open 24/7 the whole time (except for Thanksgiving and Christmas) and offer an integrated retail and online shopping experience, especially to customers who download the app before they shop.

The app? The retail venture isn’t all Zappos: their partner is ShopWithMe, a company seeking to provide integrated online and in-store inventory services for small retailers. The idea for the pop-up store (and for retailers that sign on with the service later on) is that customers can fondle and try on merchandise, then use handy kiosks or their smartphones to order items that aren’t in stock.

While most people refer to this as a Zappos project because they’ve actually heard of Zappos, ShopWithMe is behind the endeavor. Selling Zappos products during the holiday season seems sort of incidental to the whole project. Their goal is to show off their services, using Zappos’ vast inventory of online items to show off their own services.

ShopWithMe is a venture of OrderWithMe, a company that in turn is also based in Las Vegas. One of its investors is Zappos founder Tony Hsieh’s Downtown Fund.

Preview the Zappos Pop-Up Shop in Downtown Las Vegas [Tech.co]
Zappos opens first freestanding store [Chain Store Age]
JOIN THE PARTY [ShopWithMe]

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