Zappos Labs
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
Some sections are still being researched2 / 4
Sections to complete：02 · 05
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Zappos Labs was the innovation lab of online retailer Zappos, tasked with building experimental consumer products outside the core shoe business. Its experiments included ZN, an interactive iPad fashion magazine, and Glance, a curated social e-commerce site designed to show shoppers a handful of products they should care about rather than thousands of search results.
02 / FAILURE REASONS
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03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- ZN killed after five attempts
Zappos Labs shut down ZN, its interactive iPad fashion magazine, after five iterations failed to find traction; the team admitted the data showed they should have quit after the second or third attempt.
- Glance launched
A year after ZN was killed, Zappos Labs launched Glance, a curated social e-commerce site that drew twenty times the first-week traffic ZN had managed.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
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Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN / AFTERMATH
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