Talk about one of the little guys (and I don’t mean by volume) hitting a payday…. The venerable giant, Amazon, just ponied up 10 million shares worth $880 million to buy shoes.
Make that a lot of shoes.
Tony Hsieh, CEO and founder of Zappos, is one of those guys that in spite of turning a crazy idea about shipping shoeboxes all over tarnation, is about as low key as they come. Rather than snag a big corner office, he works from a cubicle in the middle of the room, surrounded by employees and a big, fake tree. He doesn’t own a suit, but instead shares one with his brother (which, to date, has only caused a problem once, when they were invited to the same wedding). He doesn’t enjoy interviews, but instead prefers to hang with the people he works with.
In short, Tony is one very rich guy who thinks and lives like a startup retailer.
Normally, I don’t feel compelled to give a high five to internet retailers, but this is one time I think the right guy got to cash the check. Now, that said…
…I hate what Zappos competition has done to brick and mortar shoe stores. Since the deal is structured in a way that has Zappos operating as a wholly separate subsidiary of Amazon (read: Amazon may own them, but they don’t run them), there shouldn’t be any appreciable changes in the impact on storefronts, with the exception of added publicity during this initial announcement period. After the dust settles, odds are it will be business as usual again.
There’s no turning back online shoe sales. They’re here to stay. But hey, if an online retailer is going to make money off Amazon, it might as well be someone you wouldn’t mind sitting down over a beer with.
Although something tells me I’d have to buy the beer.
Read up on the purchase details here; check out Tony’s letter to Zappo employees here.
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