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Courtesy photo
Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh poses with some of his company’s merchandise.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009 | 2:12 p.m.
Sun archives
- Business executives hope to find shoe that fits at Zappos seminars (7-15-2009)
- From upstart to $1 billion behemoth, Zappos marks 10 years (6-16-2009)
- Zappos’ shy CEO has the company running on happiness (6-16-2009
- Henderson-based Zappos earns honors for ethics (4-13-2009)
- Zappos CEO appears on ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ (3-9-2009)
- Henderson recognizes business achievements (2-4-2009)
- Workplace fun is the shoe that fits at Zappos (1-26-2009)
- Fortune list drops Station Casinos, adds Zappos.com (1-22-2009)
- Zappos.com laying off 8 percent of workers (11-6-2008)
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Zappos.com, an online retailer based in Henderson with annual sales exceeding $1 billion, announced today that it is being acquired by Amazon.com.
Amazon will pay about $847 million in stock and cash to acquire the 10-year-old company, which employs about 1,200 people at its headquarters in Henderson and a shipping facility in Kentucky.
“We are joining forces with Amazon because there is a huge opportunity to utilize each other’s strengths and move even faster towards our vision of delivering happiness to customers, employees and vendors,” Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh said in a statement. “We will continue to build the Zappos brand and culture in our own unique way, and we believe Amazon is the best partner to help us do this over the long term.”
In a letter sent to company employees today, Hsieh wrote that the change in ownership would have little or no impact on the day-to-day operations at Zappos and its personnel.
“Over the next few days, you will probably read headlines that say ‘Amazon acquires Zappos’ or ‘Zappos sells to Amazon,’” Hsieh wrote. “While those headlines are technically correct, they don’t really properly convey the spirit of the transaction. (I personally would prefer the headline ‘Zappos and Amazon sitting in a tree.’). We plan to continue to run Zappos the way we have always run Zappos -- continuing to do what we believe is best for our brand, our culture, and our business.”
Since its founding in 1999, Zappos has emerged as one of the more successful ventures of the dot-com era. In addition to topping the $1 billion mark in annual sales in 2008, Zappos has become known for its work atmosphere, which encourages employees to be creative through means such decorating their offices and joining in company parades. Employees also receive a free meal every day at work. Zappos has been recognized by Fortune Magazine on its Best Companies to Work For list.
The company’s culture has also become somewhat of a case study in the corporate world. Zappos regularly hosts representatives of other companies for tours of its headquarters, and earlier this month held a two-day boot camp for business professionals from other companies to show how Zappos does business.
In a statement, Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos hinted that tapping into the Zappos culture was one of the motivations for the purchase.
“Zappos is a customer focused company,” Bezos said. “We see great opportunities for both companies to learn from each other and create even better experiences for our customers.”
I wish Tony would go into the casino industry with his profits, but he is not that stupid.
good for him.
bad for his employees.
amazon will dump them like last year's flip-flops.
This looks like a great fit for both companies!
It is possible that this acquisition was set up as a partnerhip and Zappos is able to run itself without having to fire anyone. I have set up mergers/acqusition agreements similar to that.
Lot's of good comments from the seller, but now the buyer is in charge. How long do you think those jobs will stay in Nevada before economies of scale force them consolidated at Amazon.
How about Tony buy the Golden Nugget
any time a larger company buys a smaller company, jobs are lost at the smaller company.
it's how the larger company gets the economies of scale and is why they bought the company in the first place.
why have a customer service rep for amazon and another customer service rep for zappos?
you can have the amazon employee do both jobs.
remember, zappos DID lay off some people about 8 months ago.
There is probably more to this than what is being said. This Tony seems like a smart guy; I'm sure there were checks and balances written into the contract so all the employees here in Henderson were protected.
Katie, I have some swampland in Florida to sell you.
How about the guys at Zappos straightening out:
(1) City Center
(2) Fontainebleau
(3) Tropicana
(4) Rhodes Homes
(5) Lake Las Vegas
It seems like treating employees decently does pay off. Too bad so many employers in Las Vegas haven't figured that out.
Congratulations! This will bring great opportunities for both Zappos and Amazon!
I like it. I like it a lot. I have not done business with Zappos, but from all indications they are a good company. Amazon is also a very solid, customer oriented business. I have always enjoyed doing business with them. Their respective cultures should be very compatible. If this was eBay instead of Amazon, a whole other story.
This guy's friends in the east are going to quit buying from this fallacy of a company.
I mean get real... JCPenney or FootLocker couldn't figure out how to get customers online but this company magically could... right up until they sell out for a billion dollars...
Amazon got duped.
And yeah, he followed the model of Lake Las Vegas, Rhodes Homes, and the others that ignited you with hype, cashed out, and left a mess...
CityCenter, Fontainbleau, Tropicana are in a different boat.
Amazon will soon realize the customer base is disappearing and they will lay off basically the whole company and be left with a stupid domain name. You'll pick up zappos.com on Network Solutions for free basically in 5 years. Idiots.
Your fake comments supporting this mess will be remembered.
I'm off to track down the swan swine sing song...
Has anyone ever been into one of these stores. I went with my girlfriend to the one off of Dean Martin. My girlfriend loves shoes. She found one pair that she liked. When she saw they were 400 dollars she didn't like them no more. They had some very generic mens shoes, tons of Fila. FILA!!! I didn't even know they were around. I asked about Nike, the lady said they will be getting them in 3 months.
Zappos had a party at the casino I work at. I won't say the name of the place, however, it was on the 106th floor and I am the STRATboy. Most of them had rooms there and came out the next morning. I asked 8 of them, all seperate times, how business was, they all sad "Unbelievable." I can understand one person, or two giving that response, but every person gave that response. Seems like that are instructed what to say when asked about this company. I agree with the other posters, this is a sham company without a solid customer base.
it's all those girls that got laid off that became strippers. they all had to buy stripper heels.
Many don't know much about Zappos and unfortunately the 3 outlet stores that used to be open in Vegas did not represent the company very well (which was one of the reasons they were closed). Sales at Zappos continue to grow (albeit at a slower pace than in year's past), but nonetheless still a growing e-tailer posting year over year profit. The customer base at Zappos is also growing. Currently 70% percent of their sales are from repeat customers, which speaks volumes of their customer service & means there's a lot of untapped potential. Both Amazon and Zappos are still actively hiring and this acquisition will definitely turn out to be a positive for both companies and hopefully for Vegas. Folks in Las Vegas should be ecstatic to have an industry other than casinos/hotels and construction supporting the local econonmy.
very good point Gordon. I agree. Expand in NV Amazon, it's good for business!
There goes Zappos blue-ribbon customer service record.
Zappos isn't exactly actively hiring. They are keeping their eye out for some eyecandy candidates (top recruits if anything). The success or failure of this acquisition will depend on how Amazon looks at it. do they want to squeeze more profits from Zappos (which would cause Zappos to go down in quality as their profit margins is extimated to be < 2%). As long as Amazon keeps the company focus on customer service instead of profit margin, the company will do fine.
These type of "situations" never work out well for the regular employees in the end.