Something that happened to me that really singled zappos as  a cool company.  My brother Nick was talking on Seesmic, a video blog site,  about company culture. During that conversation he was contacted by a guy called Tony who offered to send a copy of his companies culture statement to see if it would help.

Two days later all the way from the states arrived a really cool 200+ page book signed by Tony Hsieh of Zappos featuring each and every one of the employees at the company, telling the readers what they thought of it. Nick wasn’t going to buy anything from them in the states, it was just a really cool thing to receive.

zappos-culture-video

Zappos has just sold to Amazon for a staggering $900 million.

Some cool zappos facts:

  • Zappos.com has more than 10 million customers.
  • 75% of business is repeat customers
  • They uniquely offer free shipping both ways (if something goes wrong, dont worry we’ll pick it up)
  • CEO Tony Hsieh receives about 2,000 e-mails a day.
  • Tony now has 1,039,695 followers on twitter

The things I find interesting are:

  • The site isn’t “flashy” but “functional”
  • Everything is geared around exceptional service, nothing to do with the web
  • The zappos culture is right in front, its preached on every page
  • They have made a point of being open, embracing social media like twitter and facebook.

And why did amazon buy them?

  • Zappos is growing quickly and shows no signs of stopping
  • Zappos culture that has been fundamental in its  success. Amazon will love learning from this
  • Zappos has great customer service.  Associating with this is great.
  • Zappos has grown a group of amazing people. From its leaders to the post guy they are unified.

One Response to “Why Zappos was purchased by Amazon”

  1. Nick 01. Aug, 2009 at 10:28 pm #

    I recently helped out at a Networking event for a collegue. Everything about these events is based on three things;

    1)Clear definition and understanding of each others business.
    2)Clear intent to help each other be the best they can.
    3)Clear capability to deliver a stunning job for the referer.

    Every company goes big on one, or maybe two of these areas. Zappos goes BIG on all three by getting all it’s values clearly defined. The ‘Zappos Culture’ is one of thier tools they used to grab $900m swag.

    Nice.