The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon

by Brad Stone

The site finally launched in December as Endless.com. On its first day, Endless offered free overnight shipping and free returns. The deal ensured Amazon would lose money on each sale. But it would clearly apply pressure to a certain company in Las Vegas. The Zappos board members considered Amazon’s opening maneuver, gritted their teeth, and a week later matched it with free overnight shipping. The difference was that the new Endless.com, unlike its rival, enjoyed almost no traffic or sales volume and so lost little with its overnight-shipping offer; Zappos’ profit margins took a direct hit. Over the next year, Endless made little progress as an independent retail destination. The site attracted brands like Kenneth Cole and Nine West and developed features such as a more flexible search engine and product photos that expanded when customers hovered over them with their cursors. But Amazon was walking an almost impossible precarious tightrope, trying to assuage the fears of brand-name companies with industry-standard pricing while also using Endless as a way to undercut Zappos on price. In early 2007, with apparel brands watching closely for any signs of discounting, Amazon added a five-dollar bonus to its free overnight shipping. In other words, a customer was given five dollars just to buy something on the site. It was a clever but transparent ploy, an effort to inflict further pain on Zappos. Employees who worked on Endless say that, naturally, this was Jeff Bezos’s idea...