Amazon's New Shoez

July 22, 2009 | 4 Comments

amazon_logozappos_logo

Amazon just announced that it was acquiring Zappos, one of my favorite companies, for $807 million in Amazon stock, and about $40 million in cash and restricted stock.

Here are 5 reasons everyone wins in this deal:

1) Culture
Amazon gets to learn directly from Zappos, the company that wrote the book on culture as the DNA of success.

2) Leadership
Amazon gets Tony Hsieh, Fred Mossler, and Alfred Lin, three leaders who understand the new business paradigm as well as anyone.

3) Vision
See #2. Imagine sitting in “future of the company” brainstorms with Jeff, Tony, Fred and Alfred.

4) (Repeat) Customers
Here is Zappos’ repeat customer data from March 2001 – March 2007. (click to see larger)
Zappos_Repeat

5) Transparency
From living his life publicly on Twitter to the heartfelt letter Tony Hsieh wrote to Zappos employees, Zappos bleeds honesty and transparency. I love Amazon but I’ve always felt like I’m dealing with a website. With Zappos, I know there are humans behind the curtain.

The transparency seems to be rubbing off already. Here is Jeff’s video:

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go buy some AMZN.

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  • http://www.jondale.com Jonathan Dale

    Great post. And a long but worthwhile video from Jeff. Thanks for the post.

  • http://www.jondale.com Jon

    What, comment moderation. You need to read this :-) http://www.jondale.com/blog/2008/10/why-i-dont-mo…

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/clayhebert clayhebert

    It's really just for spam, not negative comments. Even with Akismet installed, IntenseDebate catches a lot of spam comments that I just don't want showing up. If I find a way to block 99% of spam (like GMail), then I would open it up completely.

  • http://ItsGreatToBeAlive.com Ozzybeef

    Nice analysis on this one Clay. Is the last line your "full disclosure" statement?!?