My tennis shoes that I bought on Zappos.com arrived today, one day early. The Wikipedia entry for Zappos makes for interesting reading. Zappos comes from zapatos, Spanish for shoes. Seems I had the same reason for ordering them on-line than founder Nick Swinmurn had in 1999 : couldn’t find my favorite tennis shoe at the mall (in his case it was a pair of brown Airwalks). Footwear in the US is a 40 billion dollar market, and Zappos sells about 1 billion dollars worth of shoes every year. That is a lot of shoes! The company is now owned by Amazon but still abides by these ten core values :
- Deliver ‘wow! through Service .. an anecdote has it that after a late night of bar-hopping, CEO Tony Hsieh (picture from Wikipedia) bet a Skechers rep that if he called the Zappos hotline, the employee would be able to locate the nearest late-night pizza delivery. The call center employee, although initially confused, returned two minutes later with a list of the five closest late night pizza restaurants.
- Embrace and Drive Change
- Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
- Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
- Pursue Growth and Learning
- Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
- Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
- Do More With Less
- Be Passionate and Determined
- Be Humble
