Rest In Peace Tony

We know well about Zappos. However, we don't know the former CEO is Tony Hsieh from China.

I read his book after I know him from the below news.

He was driven by the mission of delivering happiness & brought joy to all who knew him.

From Harvard Student to "Billions of Shoes King"

Tony Hsieh is a successful entrepreneur who became famous when he was young. After graduating from Harvard University, he worked for Oracle for a short time, and started his entrepreneurial journey after leaving. In 1995, Tony Hsieh founded LinkExchange at the age of 23 for US$20,000, and then sold it to Microsoft for US$265 million before the dot-com bubble burst, earning his first pot of gold.

In 1999, after smelling the entrepreneurial opportunity of selling shoes on the Internet, 24-year-old Tony Hsieh and his entrepreneurial partner Alfred Lin and others co-founded the shoe e-commerce website Zappos. Although e-commerce has broken the time and space constraints of the offline system, and realized purchase anytime, anywhere, its inability to experience it in person is its Achilles heel. Footwear e-commerce is no exception. The biggest problem is that you can’t try on them. You can experience the comfort and size of shoes.

In order to solve these pain points, Tony Hsieh thought of many ways.

Zappos will take photos of each pair of shoes from 8 angles to reduce the cost of consumers’ decision-making. And make them more daring to buy shoes online; Zappos allows users to buy three pairs of shoes each time, send them home and try them on. The other two pairs are suitable to be sent back, providing the return "free shipping" policy, and allowing consumers to pay 90 days after receiving the goods, and free return and exchange for 365 days; focus on customer service, provide detailed online answers to solve Consumers’ inquiries; in addition, the warehouse is located near the UPS airport, and express delivery operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to ensure delivery speed. The order is promised to be delivered within 4 days, but users often receive it the next day; provide " "Perverted service", if you encounter a "perverted" customer who does not buy shoes, calls customer service to chat, and does emotional consultation, they have never been hung up, the longest one even talked for 6 hours. Therefore, Zappos in the United States, which has a relatively high level of universal service, is also called "Shoes Haidilao".

"Wear the shoes if they fit, and change them if they don't fit." This initiative is not Zappos's first initiative, but it has done the most thorough, and thus captured the hearts of consumers. Although the return rate is as high as one-quarter, the average order value is $90, and Zappos' gross profit can still reach 35%. In 2000, Zappos sales totaled US$1.6 million, which has increased to more than US$1 billion eight years later.

The unique and innovative sales method made Zappos an instant hit, making Zappos a pioneer in the U.S. e-commerce model in many ways. In 2008, its turnover exceeded $1 billion and was acquired by Amazon in 2009.

Tony Hsieh once described the methodology of Zappos e-commerce selling shoes in the book "Three Pairs of Shoes", as well as his experience and lessons learned in shopping malls and life. His understanding of footwear e-commerce has also had a profound impact on later e-commerce entrepreneurs, including China, and has set standards and models for the industry.

It is worth mentioning that this method was also written into the Harvard Business School and became a classic lesson plan.

Matt Mullenweg, the co-founder of the blog building platform WordPress, commented, “Tony (Xie Jiahua) left an indelible impression on everyone he met in his life. He was customer-centric and questioned Business assumptions and the establishment of a goal-driven cultural approach have had a profound impact on me. He left early, and I hope that the memory of him will continue to inspire us to discover the magic outside our comfort zone."