Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh

It's been more than four months since Amazon.com completed its acquisition of online shoe retailer Zappos.com in a $1 billion-plus deal. Now Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh — who continues to run his company under new owner Amazon — is talking about Zappos' strategy going forward, including its expansion into new product categories. Hsieh says Amazon is taking a hands-off approach to Zappos, letting the quirky retailer do its own thing, but also reveals how life is changing under Amazon.

Hsieh, in an message posted to a Zappos blog, says his company is "making a big push into apparel (which is 4 times the size of the footwear market) as well as other product categories including bags, accessories, and housewares," adding, "We think we're just at the tip of the iceberg of what's possible as we continue to build the Zappos brand."

While Zappos' push beyond shoes started before the Amazon acquisition, it closely mirrors Amazon's strategy of expanding beyond books and CDs to a much broader product selection.

Interestingly, Hsieh said 6pm.com, a website that Zappos acquired in 2007, is "growing even faster" than the flagship Zappos site and has become "a great way to clear out the older and discontinued inventory that we didn't sell through on Zappos.com." That's like the strategy that brick-and-mortar retailer Nordstrom is pursuing with its discount Rack stores — using them to move excess inventory.

Addressing life under Amazon, Hsieh says the online retail giant "has continued to allow us to run Zappos independently, with our own unique culture, brand, and way of doing business." (One sign of that: Zappos just launched a new ad campaign featuring puppets reenacting customer service calls.)

But, Hsieh added:

We're now part of a public company, so moving forward, we aren't able to disclose our financial numbers as freely as we were able to do before (but that would have happened anyway had we gone public on our own). We also have more travel restrictions for various legal and tax reasons.

I wonder if Amazon's famously secretive and frugal ways had anything to do with those changes?

Hsieh takes some time to plug his new book, "Delivering Happiness, A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose," scheduled for release later this year. The book seems to be taking up a lot of his time lately.

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