Las Vegas-based apparel retailer Zappos rolled out an update to its iOS app today that saw the company fold some neat new features into the mix. Strictly speaking though , it’s no drastic overhaul — the Zappos mobile team instead focused largely on improving the fit and finish of their iOS-centric mobile experience.
There are a few new graphical flourishes here and there (users can now change… → Read More
A double-dose of details today about the normally secretive e-commerce startups incubated by the Samwer bothers-backed Rocket Internet. Silvio Berlusconi was outed as one of the key investors in Square clone Payleven; and Zalando, inspired by Zappos in the U.S., is reporting 2012 net sales of €1.15 billion and reaching breakeven in its core markets of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. → Read More
In this new episode of my Foundation video series, I talk with Zappos founder Tony Hsieh about entrepreneurship, fostering corporate culture, and his latest project to fuel a thriving tech community in Las Vegas. → Read More
Hold on to your pants: the rush to fund innovative fashion companies that are building out their businesses online continues apace. Flint and Tinder, a maker of premium, made-in-the-USA men’s underwear that first had its debut on Kickstarter, has now raised a seed round of $850,000 from an impressive list of investors, including Tony Hseih and Fred Mossler from Zappos; Lerer Ventures; and David… → Read More
Zappos has teamed up with social fashion site Chicisimo to launch a microsite for social commerce. Chicisimo is a social media site for fashionistas to post and vote on pictures of their latest looks, and then buy the look for themselves. The joint collaboration with Zappos is meant to encourage fashionistas to share pictures of their latest looks and inspire others.
Users can upload pictures… → Read More
Most sports fans get plenty of enjoyment out of going to see their favorite team play live, maybe even with a little tailgating before the game, and if they’re lucky, watching court, field, or rink-side seats. Yet, for the average sports fan (and even the diehard), the access tends to end there. Fandeavor wants to change that.
The Las Vegas-based startup is launching today to give sports fans… → Read More
It appears that Zappos was the victim of a cyber attack today from a hacker who gained access to the company’s internal network through the company’s servers in Kentucky. While specifics of the attack were not revealed, Zappos says that credit card and payments data were not accessed or affected by the criminal.
CEO Tony Hsieh writes to employees, The most important focus for us right now is… → Read More
If you read the comments on any our recent stories about the Airbnb controversies, you’ll see plenty of people saying that Airbnb needs to take a page out of the Zappos playbook. It turns out, they tried. → Read More
This is a guest post from Ali Partovi, angel investor, startup advisor and serial entrepreneur. He co-founded iLike, acquired by Myspace in 2009, and LinkExchange, acquired by Microsoft for $265 million in 1998. His portfolio has included successes as far-ranging as Zappos, Facebook, DropBox and OPOWER.
Around Earth Day, we’re reminded about global warming and pollution, as well as the… → Read More
There is no doubt that mobile commerce is heating up. The market is expected to be a multi-billion dollar sector in 2011 and eBay, Amazon and many other online retailers are launching designated apps for smartphone platforms. Zappos has furthered its footprint in m-commerce with the launch of an Android app.
Similar to the online retailer’s iPhone and iPad apps, you can search, browse, read… → Read More
Online shoes and accessories retailer Zappos announced an expansion and a move to San Francisco on its employee blog this morning, in a post called “Zappos IP, Inc. Is Looking For ‘A Few Good Developers’”
“We are very excited to be opening up a small San Francisco office. We’re jazzed to go back to the Zappos Family’s Bay Area roots and surround ourselves by the many amazing people and… → Read More
We finagled our way on board the Zappos “Happiness Bus” at Web 2.0 Summit and spoke with CEO Tony Hsieh about why Zappos is such happy place to work, why the company is hiring another 2000 people in 2011, and how it’s positioned itself brand-wise to give Virgin a run for its money. → Read More
Here at Web 2.0 Summit Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh has just made an unlikely revelation for the chief executive of an online shoe company, that he only own three pairs of shoes (!) “not counting flip flops.”
Hsieh also revealed during the talk that Zappos will be hiring 2000 people in 2011 and that the company pays people $3000 to quit, with 3% of people taking the offer. “It is harder to get into… → Read More
Online footwear store Sapato.ru, which is essentially a Zappos clone, has raised $5m in a second round of funding from eVenture Capital Partners, Kinnevik and Fast Lane Ventures, all three of whom are previous backers.
The Russian startup, which was launched only as far back as June 2010, intends to use the funds to “increase assortment” and to improve its customer service in a bid to emulate… → Read More
Two former senior executives form eBay Europe have joined forces to secure a significant angel round for their online shoe store which hopes to become the ‘Zappos of Switzerland’.
Valentin Cogels (previously Senior Manager Europe International Expansion at eBay) and Matthias Fröhlicher (previously Advertising Revenue Optimization Manager Europe also at eBay) raised 460,000 Swiss Francs in a… → Read More
Just when the tech community wet its rap pallette with MC Hammer (backed by the notorious dance moves of TechCrunch editor Erick Schonfeld), Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh follows up with a ditty of his own (featuring the talents of Laura Lombardi). Hsieh has been on a nation-wide bus tour promoting new book, ‘Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose,’ with a team of over ten happiness… → Read More
Zalando, the Zappos clone started by the Samwer brothers through their investment vehicle Rocket Internet, has closed a new round of funding. The amount remains undisclosed but according to multiple sources it’s designed to supercharge the German e-commerce behemoth to the next level. Although speculative, when looking at the site’s traffic and data from similar sized companies, the… → Read More
There’s an interesting article up on Inc.com that reveals interesting tidbits about the backstory to the 2009 acquisition of online shoes and clothing retailer Zappos by Amazon for roughly $1.2 billion in stock. The article is actually adapted from Zappos co-founder and CEO Tony Hsieh‘s new book, Delivering Happiness, while Purpose. Inc. senior writer Max Chafkin contributed additional… → Read More
Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh sent an email to all Zappos employees today after the announcement of Alfred Lin’s resignation. He reassures everyone that he and Fred Mossler, the no. 3 executive, would not be leaving the company. And he also hints at a new project they’re working on:
PS: Fred and I are also working on a secret long-term project together which, if everything works out, will be really… → Read More
Spartoo.com, the European version of Zappos.com, has closed a €12 million Series B round of funding round led by Highland Capital Partners and Endeavour Vision with A Plus Finance and CM-CIC Capital Privé participating. This brings the online shoe retailer’s total funding to €17.5 million.
Launched in 2006, Spartoo claims over 4 million unique visitors per month (Nielsen, November 2009) and… → Read More
We track a lot of acquisitions on CrunchBase. At the beginning of 2009, acquisitions were at a standstill. But as the economy begrudgingly roused itself from recession, the deal flow started to pick up in the summer, and then rebounded more in the third quarter. There are still a couple weeks left in the year, and a lot can still happen, such as Google buying Yelp for more than $500… → Read More
Amazon earlier this morning announced the official closing of the acquisition of Zappos, a deal which we broke the news about back in July. Turns out the valuation of the online footwear and clothing retailer went up from the reported $928 million over the past few months too – thank you, stock market – and Zappos turns out to have been deemed worth a solid $1.2 billion by Jeff Bezos & co… → Read More
A video took the web by storm today entitled “Incredible, amazing, awesome Apple.” Basically, it boils down Apple’s latest event into a series of superlatives. It’s a funny video because Apple really does have a pattern of using these types of words over and over again in its demonstrations. Cynics will say this is how Apple brainwashes the masses into buying their products, and gets people jazzed… → Read More
Soft-spoken Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh had some surprisingly harsh criticism for the TC50 companies he saw today: Why aren’t you trying to change the world? I asked him more about that in our backstage sidestage interview during the TC50 cocktail party. “To be fair, is selling shoes changing the world?” I asked. Watch the clip after the jump to hear his answer.
I pressed Hsieh on details about his… → Read More
When Amazon paid $928 million for Zappos in July, it got a little something extra in the box: the Clothes.com domain. It turns out that Zappos bought the domain last year from Idealab for $4.9 million (Bill Gross strikes again).
The detail is tucked away in Amazon’s SEC filing about its acquisition of Zappos: → Read More
If you’ve got a company and you want a big acquisition in a year or two, you may want to consider hiring Alfred Lin, currently the COO/CFO of just-acquired Zappos. Every company he’s worked for has been acquired, and the smallest deal was $265 million.
Lin dropped out of a PhD program at Stanford to join LinkExchange in 1996 as acting CFO. Two years later the company was acquired by Microsoft for… → Read More
The Zappos deal is widely viewed as a win-win-win. Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh gets to stay in charge with deeper pockets to keep building the company for the long term. Amazon expands its ecommerce dominance by snapping up the one company online shoppers may love more than Amazon itself. And Sequoia Capital gets to lock in a near-$1 billion win at a time when the rest of the venture industry is on the… → Read More
News has just broken that Amazon.com has purchased hot ecommerce up-and-comer Zappos for 10 million Amazon shares or $880 million. (The Amazon release said it was $807 million, but that was based on a trailing 45-day estimate of its share price. Closing price today bumps the deal up to $880 $888 million.) Zappos employees also will get $40 million in cash and restricted stock. In other words the… → Read More
A study commissioned by NeoEdge Networks, a Mountain View, CA-based casual gaming advertising network, says (surprise, surprise) that video advertising within online games is more effective than TV advertising. Preliminary results of the study, which will conclude at the end of this month, seem to indicate online gaming audiences are more inclined to remember and positively percieve brands who… → Read More
Online footware and apparel retailer Zappos.com is partnering with video hosting and sharing platform Magnify.net to launch a “BoxBreak” campaign to engage the retailer’s customers into building a video community around Zappos. BoxBreak will encourage customers to first capture their experience (via video) of opening a Zappos box when it arrives and then upload the video to Zappo’s Magnify.net… → Read More
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