The year was 1999. Founder, Nick Swinmurn, was walking around a mall in San Francisco,  looking for a pair of shoes.

One store had the right style, but not the right color. Another store had the right color, but not the right size. Nick spent the next hour in the mall, walking from store to store, and finally went home empty-handed and frustrated.

At home, Nick tried looking for his shoes online, and was again unsuccessful. Although there were a lot of "mom and pop" stores selling shoes online, what was interesting to Nick was that there was no major online retailer that specialized in shoes.

So, since it was 1999, and anything seemed possible at the time, Nick decided to quit his day job and start an online shoe retailer... and Zappos.com was born!

In 2004, the Nevada Development Authority (NDA) assisted Zappos as it moved its corporate offices from California to Las Vegas, Nevada.  Included in that move was assistance from the Nevada Commission on Economic Development (CED) in the areas of sales and property tax abatements.  Also, at the July 2004 Commission on Economic Development meeting, Zappos with the help of the NDA and Nevada Industry Excellence received the first of its three Train Employees Now (TEN) Training Grants.  These grants have played a significant role in assisting in the training and growth of Zappos and its employees.  All new employees hired in the call center and corporate office are required to go through four weeks of ‘Customer Loyalty’ training before starting their jobs and moving into their career path.  The assistance provided by the CED grants and Nevada Industry Excellence has helped a trained workforce to grow a gross merchandise sales market of $184 million in 2004 to a projected $600 million in 2006.  The TEN training grants have provided Zappos over $329,000 dollars to train its workforce.  Nevada Industry Excellence and the Community College of Southern Nevada (CCSN) partnered to provide the training including customer service, computer usage, supervisory training and a variety of other programs to meet the specific needs of the Zappos employees.

The Zappos.com currently has a staff of over 600 people. The vast majority of employees work on the front lines taking care of customers or shipping shoes out of the distribution center.  In addition to the Nevada call center, Zappos staffs another 500 or so employees at their distribution center in Kentucky.  Zappos believes that the most important key to growing and maintaining their online sales success will be their service-oriented culture.  Zappos invests time, money and effort to constantly improve their corporate culture. Nevada Industry Excellence has been a partner in assisting Zappos develop this culture, and has been instrumental in assisting Zappos.com develop a well-trained workforce providing the best service and the absolute best shopping experience to its online customers.