Amazon.com announced on Wednesday that it has reached an agreement to acquire Zappos.com in a stock deal equal to approximately $807 million with an additional $40 million in cash and restricted stock units for Zappos employees. Zappos is an online seller of apparel and footwear known for its extreme customer service and its high level of participation in social networking sites such as Twitter. The Zappos management team will remain intact, and Zappos will operate independently of Amazon.
Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh posted a letter on the company blog with a message for Zappos employees informing them of the deal and embedding a video of Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. In his message to Zappos employees, Bezos said he was super-excited about the deal and valued the Zappos culture and brand very much.
Amazon.com has a website devoted to selling shoes and handbags called Endless.com. The New York Times pointed out that while Zappos received 4.5 million visitors in June, Endless.com received 777,000 visitors, citing comScore.
Rob Hof wrote on the BusinessWeek blog, "Amazon tells me it's not going to shut down any of its stores and will continue to invest in Endless, which also sells handbags."
The Amazon deal may be why Zappos abandoned its launch of a liquidation brand on eBay - see the AuctionBytes Blog for details.
Amazon.com is set to release second-quarter financials on Thursday and will hold an earnings call with analysts at 5 pm Eastern. Amazon said the Zappos acquisition is expected to close this fall, subject to conditions.
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Amazon.com announced on Wednesday that it has reached an agreement to acquire Zappos.com in a stock deal equal to approximately $807 million with an additional $40 million in cash and restricted stock units for Zappos employees. Zappos is an online seller of apparel and footwear known for its extreme customer service and its high level of participation in social networking sites such as Twitter. The Zappos management team will remain intact, and Zappos will operate independently of Amazon. 