哈佛商学院案例材料.pdf

N99 -610-015 O C TT OO B E R 2 0 , 2 0 0 9 F R A N C E S X . F R E I R O B I N J . E L Y L A U R A W I N I G Z 2009: C: Clothing, Customer Servicece and Company Culture On July 17, 2009, Zm (Zappos), a privately-held online retailer of shoeoes, clothing, handbags and accessories, learnedd that A, Inc. (Amazon) a $19 billion mmultinational online retailer of books, electronics,cs, toys and other merchandise, had won its Board o of Directors’ approval to offer to merge the twoo companies (see Exhibits 1, 2, 3 and 4 for selected fin financials for both companies). “As someone whoho was at the Board meeting, I don’t think they had tod t ‘win’ our approval—Zappos spoke for itself,” said Michael Deal, vice president of legal at Amazon. Amazon had been courting Zappppos since 2005, hoping a merger would enable Amazonzon to expand and strengthen its market share in sn soft line retail categories, such as shoes and apparel——categories the company considered strategicalcally important to its future business growth. 1 Whileile Amazon’s interest intrigued Zappos’ senior exeexecutives, Tony Hsieh, CEO, and Alfred Lin, Chairmanan, COO and CFO, they had not felt the time wawas right, until now. Amazon’s offer—10 million sharhares of stock a (valued at $807 million ), $40 millionion in cash and restricted stock units for Zappos’ emploployees and a promise that Zappos could operatrate as an independent subsidia