Product details

Since Zappos was founded in 1999 as an on-line shoe retailer, the brand had been synonymous with WOW customer service and a unique corporate culture. In just ten years, the company had grown to achieve more than USD1 billion in gross sales. More recently, it had expanded beyond selling shoes into clothes and other categories, such as kitchen items and housewares. On 22 July 2010, one year after announcing that Zappos would be sold to Amazon - in a deal that eventually closed in November 2009 at USD1.2 billion - Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos.com, reassured employees and stakeholders that it was business as usual - Zappos was continuing to operate as an independent entity with its brand and unique culture intact. The questions this case raises include: Would Zappos be able to continue to preserve its unique culture now that it was owned by Amazon? And, given its aggressive growth objectives, was the WOW factor scalable?