Success With An Online Shoe Store - 1785 Words

Nick Swinmurn struggled to find the perfect pair of shoes in his local mall. He browsed through many stores and failed to find the correct size shoe, in the right color, with the right style. This is when he thought to create an online shoe store that made shoe shopping easy. Every style, color, and size all on one site. At the time the internet was just starting to come alive and currently 5% of the shoe industry was being sold through mail in catalogs. This encouraged Swinmurn and lead him to believe there would be success with an online shoe store (Hsieh). He originally named the site, shoesite.com, and in 1999 he went on his way to find investors to jumpstart the website. He fell upon Venture Frogs, an early stage venture investments†¦show more content†¦In 2009, Zappos began exploring acquisition deals with Amazon. Hsieh was not entirely comfortable with this and did not want to lose the incredible company culture through the sale of Zappos to a bigger brand. He was afr aid Zappos would lose its identity and this is the base of the company’s success thus far. However, the other board of directors were only interested in making a profit off Zappos and loved the idea of the Amazon acquisition. Hsieh thought about buying out the board of directors since he was out numbered at the time but came to realize this would not be an option since it would cost 200 million dollars to do so. After hours of meeting with Amazon officials, they were able to come to an agreement that pleased all of the board of directors, including Hsieh. The acquisition consisted of a 1.2-billion-dollar stock and cash deal that allowed Zappos to continue to operate as its own entity (Hsieh). Zappos core businesses include shoes, clothing, handbags, and accessories. Shoes account for 80% of Zappos revenue leaving the other product lines accounting for 20%. Zappos offers over 50,000 different varieties of shoes including some niche markets, narrow, wide, hard to find sizes, and American made (Zappos.com). Another aspect of their core businesses is their company culture and customer service. Hsieh built the Zappos brand off ten company core values and they are used as a baseline for hiring and firingShow MoreRelatedEssay about Finish Line and Foot Locker1175 Words   |  5 Pages †¢ Company Description o Finish Line, Inc. is the second largest leader athletic based company in the United States. The company was founded in 1976 and now operates over 600 stores in 48 states. Finish Line is the franchise company of the Athlete’s Foot in Indianapolis, Indiana. By 1981, the company expanded beyond the 10 franchises they owned. 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Competition in the industry Demand for products in the shoe industry is largely reliant on disposable income and consumer confidence, and because of its strong reliance on consumer income, The Shoe Store industry was hit hard by the recession. During the recession, more price sensitive consumers sought out shoe deals from discount department stores and online shoe retailers. Now the economy is recovering and growing the Shoe Store Industry has done well. Since 2010, the industry has enjoyed