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Zappos.com follows the Golden Rule. Do you?
Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh’s first book, Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose, hits bookstores today.
For those who don’t know, Zappos.com is a mega-successful online shoe retailer. It’s also been named to Forbes list of top companies to work for. If you had the chance to watch CBS’s Sunday Morning yesterday, you would have learned from employees what makes Zappos.com a great place to work. If you read the excerpt from the book that appeared in Hsieh’s Harvard Business Review (HBR) post on Saturday you would have learned how Zappos.com has built extraordinary relationships with its vendors.
In the blog post, Hsieh describes how Zappos.com built these relationships using the Golden Rule - treat others as you would like to be treated. Having decided not to view vendors as adversaries, the company opened up its tracking system so suppliers could monitor what shoes were selling and make suggestions about new products. They are also treated well when they visit Zappos headquarters. The net result is better business and profits—for everyone.
Similarly, the employees interviewed for the Sunday Morning piece were uniformly enthusiastic about the company. One thing became clear as I watched: The Zappos employees felt valued and were engaged in their work and with the company. This engagement leads to great customer service, which in turn leads to happy customers and more sales and profits.
In following the Golden Rule, Hsieh and his team at Zappos.com have created a business model built on respect and engagement rather than top-down compliance. I’m sure Hsieh has more insights into successful retailing so I’ll be stopping at the bookstore on my way home from work. Passion, profits and purpose—who wouldn’t want to read more?
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Lori Smith, , Editor-in-Chief
Lori Smith is the editor of Gifts and Tablewares, Canada's premiere gifts and tablewares magazine. Written for retailers of gifts, tablewares, housewares, stationery and home furnishing accessories, its objective is to help readers increase their sales and run their businesses more profitably by providing information on new products, merchandising, small business management, customer service, consumer behavior and industry news. The magazine is published six times a year by BIG Magazines, LP, a leading Canadian information company.
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This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on June 6, 2010 1:21 PM.
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