Viva Los Zappos

"You have as much power to help a customer as Tony does himself," says a Zappos employee — or Zapponian — in the Economist (4/18/09). Tony is Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos.com, the dot-com shoe store whose list of ten cultural values includes delivering "WOW through service." It also includes creating "fun and a little weirdness." Perhaps that’s why the Zappos headquarters, near Las Vegas, is festooned with "jungle creepers that hang from the ceiling and a menagerie of toy monkeys and other creatures."

In that spirit, employees are known to "rattle cowbells, shake pompoms and bellow greetings as visitors pass their desks." There’s also plenty of free food and "a visiting masseuse" — as well as $2,000 for any employee (including those paid just $11 an hour to answer phones) who decides this craziness isn’t for them and quits within their first few weeks at the company. So far, only three employees have taken the cash. In any case, Tony’s cultural focus is all part of his vision of Zappos as "a service company that just happens to sell shoes."

Tony hopes to turn that vision into a brand platform for a whole bunch of product and services beyond just shoes. Already, Zappos "has expanded into selling clothes, consumer electronics and other items." Tony "muses out loud about the possibility that Zappos might one day enter the hotel or airline industry, perhaps in the offline world." His growth model, he says, is the Virgin Group. Zappos is not without its hurdles, though — last fall it had to lay off 124 employees and its sales have slowed. But it did ring "up a record $1 billion in sales" last year, and is profitable.