Blog # 232 I talked about Another tour group for China departs in April.  In this blog I want to talk about Zappos reaches over 804 brands on the site.

A few months go by and after Richard negotiated with the Chinese government, we finally get our permit to open our China office. With that Richard decided to hire Taylor as our first China Zappos employee. He would be responsible for coordinating with the US headquarters and QC duties for the factories we used. We also had plans to transition some of the imaging duties to this office. I was happy he got the job, I really liked him and thought he’d be a good fit.

Zappos held its annual Vendor party at the Hard Rock pool area. This year we featured frozen vodka infused popsicles which were dangerously good. It was weird for me as this was the first year attending as a single person. I took a date who was really impressed by the turn out of the event.  All in all it was a lot of fun as usual hanging out with vendor friends and enjoying the moment before the big shoe show. Most brands the next day had plenty of water and aspirin lol.

We also hit a milestone of reaching 804 brands on the site. In two years we brought on over 600 new brands in different categories. With the brand count increase our style count reached 96,644 different styles as well. I was amazed by our growth which was no surprise because we continued to double our business every year.

We decided to get creative and publish a “Mag-Log” which was basically a coffee table magazine which featured all our best items. The brands pitched in with co-op and we included a Mag-Log with every purchase in the box. It turned out really nice and the plan was to do  more of these  frequently.

I mentioned earlier we were deciding to change the slogan of “The Webs most popular shoe store” to reflect the other items we were now showing on the site. After a few surveys of all employees, we decided to to change it to “We are a Service Company that happens to sell…” Service & Culture were our main focuses right now whereas when I started in 2003 it was all about having the best selection.

With all the growth our warehouse had to open to a new location that would support our massive growth. We moved to a facility virtually across the street and with the move, we implemented the worlds largest carousel system. When I went to Kentucky for a tour it was breath taking. It was definitely a cool factor. Along with the Carousel system we utilized KIVA robots that would move pallets for the workers.  It was a lot to take in but a very proud moment to see how far we have come in two years