Amazon acquired the online shoe retailer Zappos in 2009. Amazon announced the deal on July 22, 2009, and the transaction officially closed later that year.
Zappos had been founded in 1999 by Nick Swinmurn as an online shoe retailer originally called ShoeSite.com. The company became known for its large footwear selection, free shipping, free returns, and customer-service culture. Tony Hsieh, who joined as an investor and later became CEO, helped shape that identity and scale the business.
The acquisition is sometimes described using different dollar figures because the proposed value and the final value changed with Amazon’s stock price and deal structure. Amazon initially announced a stock-and-cash transaction valued at roughly $940 million; by the time it closed, reports commonly put the value near $1.2 billion. Those valuation differences do not change the acquisition year: 2009.