Assignment 2 BUS 500
Assignment 2: Management at a Company
By
JACK PENDERGAST
Dr. Jean Gordon
Strayer University
02/22/2015
Zappos Company
(2) key changes Zappos.com is an online clothing and shoe company or shop that is currently based in Nevada, Las Vegas. The company was founded in the year 1999 by Nick Swinmurn. The company’s initial inspiration came after he was not able to find one of his favorite pair of shoes, the air walks, at the local mall. The same year, he approached Alfred Lin and Tony Hseih with an idea of selling different types of shoes online. However, Hsieh was skeptical at first and went to the extent of deleting voice mails sent by Swinmurn (Harnish, 2012). After Swinmurn stated that the footwear in United States is a forty billion dollar market and five per cent of the market is already being sold by the paper mail order catalogs form, Lin and Hseih decided that they would invest two million dollars through their firm venture Frogs. This company was launched officially in the year 1999 in the month of June under “ShoeSite.com” as its original domain name. After some months after the company had been launched, the name of the company was then changed to Zappos from Shoe Site. The name “Zappos” means a variation of “Zapatos” which is a Spanish word meaning shoes. This was a strategy that would not limit the company to selling footwear only. In the year 2000, Venture Frogs made and addition capital investment and then allowed Zappos to relocate to its own office space (Harnish, 2012). At this time, Hsieh found out that he was having the most fun with the company and decided to come on board as the top most CEO with Nick Swinmurn. The sales of the company improved as it continued gaining market. More and more consumers were gaining interest to the company’s products which improved its sales drastically. After a minimal gross sale in the year 1999, the company brought in one and a half million dollars in revenue in the year 2000. In the
By
JACK PENDERGAST
Dr. Jean Gordon
Strayer University
02/22/2015
Zappos Company
(2) key changes Zappos.com is an online clothing and shoe company or shop that is currently based in Nevada, Las Vegas. The company was founded in the year 1999 by Nick Swinmurn. The company’s initial inspiration came after he was not able to find one of his favorite pair of shoes, the air walks, at the local mall. The same year, he approached Alfred Lin and Tony Hseih with an idea of selling different types of shoes online. However, Hsieh was skeptical at first and went to the extent of deleting voice mails sent by Swinmurn (Harnish, 2012). After Swinmurn stated that the footwear in United States is a forty billion dollar market and five per cent of the market is already being sold by the paper mail order catalogs form, Lin and Hseih decided that they would invest two million dollars through their firm venture Frogs. This company was launched officially in the year 1999 in the month of June under “ShoeSite.com” as its original domain name. After some months after the company had been launched, the name of the company was then changed to Zappos from Shoe Site. The name “Zappos” means a variation of “Zapatos” which is a Spanish word meaning shoes. This was a strategy that would not limit the company to selling footwear only. In the year 2000, Venture Frogs made and addition capital investment and then allowed Zappos to relocate to its own office space (Harnish, 2012). At this time, Hsieh found out that he was having the most fun with the company and decided to come on board as the top most CEO with Nick Swinmurn. The sales of the company improved as it continued gaining market. More and more consumers were gaining interest to the company’s products which improved its sales drastically. After a minimal gross sale in the year 1999, the company brought in one and a half million dollars in revenue in the year 2000. In the
References: Harnish, V. (2012). The greatest business decisions of all time: How Apple, Ford, IBM, Zappos, and others made radical choices that changed the course of business. New York, N.Y: Fortune Books. Lessons from top-tier companies: Apple, Google, Starbucks, Zappos. (2013). Michelli, J. A. (2012). The Zappos experience: 5 principles to inspire, engage, and wow. New York: McGraw-Hill. Staley, E. (2014). Nick Swinmurn and Tony Hsieh and Zappos.