Big buy for Amazon.com

Article Excerpt

AMAZON.COM $83 (Nasdaq symbol AMZN; SI Rating: Extra Risk) (206-266-1000; www.amazon.com; Shares outstanding: 431.8 million; Market cap: $35.8 billion) plans to buy privately held Zappos.com for $807 million in common stock. Zappos is an online seller of shoes, clothing and accessories. Zappos posted roughly $1 billion in sales last year (Amazon.com had $19.2 billion). Zappos was launched in 1999, and was one of the first companies to succeed in selling footwear on the Internet. It stocks a range of styles, and lets customers order and return multiple pairs without paying extra shipping. Zappos’s management will remain in place, and the company will still be headquartered in Las Vegas. Amazon.com is a buy. buy…