Zappos and Amazon Sitting in a Tree…

Amazon is acquiring the unique company – Zappos: we have written about Zappos previously: Paying New Employees to Quit. Jeff Bezos uses the webcast above to talk to the employees of Zappos. Excellent job. The letter from Tony Hsieh, the Zappo’s CEO, to employees is fantastic. This is a CEO that respects employees. These are leaders I would follow and invest in (and in fact I am glad I do own Amazon stock).

First, I want to apologize for the suddenness of this announcement. As you know, one of our core values is to Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication, and if I could have it my way, I would have shared much earlier that we were in discussions with Amazon so that all employees could be involved in the decision process that we went through along the way. Unfortunately, because Amazon is a public company, there are securities laws that prevented us from talking about this to most of our employees until today.

Several months ago, they reached out to us and said they wanted to join forces with us so that we could accelerate the growth of our business, our brand, and our culture. When they said they wanted us to continue to build the Zappos brand (as opposed to folding us into Amazon), we decided it was worth exploring what a partnership would look like.

We learned that they truly wanted us to continue to build the Zappos brand and continue to build the Zappos culture in our own unique way. I think “unique” was their way of saying “fun and a little weird.” 🙂

Over the past several months, as we got to know each other better, both sides became more and more excited about the possibilities for leveraging each other’s strengths. We realized that we are both very customer-focused companies — we just focus on different ways of making our customers happy.

Amazon focuses on low prices, vast selection and convenience to make their customers happy, while Zappos does it through developing relationships, creating personal emotional connections, and delivering high touch (“WOW”) customer service.


Related: Jeff Bezos Spends a Week Working in Amazon’s Kentucky Distribution CenterAmazon InnovationAmazon’s Amazing Achievement

Jeff Bezos highlighted what he knows in the webcast: Obsess over customersInventThink long term – It’s always day 1

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7 Responses to Zappos and Amazon Sitting in a Tree…

  1. Dragan says:

    I’m very curious and excited about what the cutomer experience could became from the fusion of these two companies. They are both known for dealing REALLY WELL their customers, in different ways, and the fusion of it could become a benchmark for everyone to follow. Way to go for two LEAN companies!

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  4. Great video John. Jeff shares 3 simple things, but so few can pull them off.

    It will be interesting to check back in on Zappos in about a year or so from now and see how things are going.

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