Instead, he started by running an experiment. His hypothesis was that customers were ready and willing to buy shoes online. To test it, he began by asking local shoe stores if he could take pictures of their inventory. In exchange for permission to take the pictures, he would post the pictures online and come back to buy the shoes at full price if a customer bought them online. Zappos began with a tiny, simple product. It was designed to answer one question above all: is there already sufficient demand for a superior online shopping experience for shoes?
