As a marketer, I can write (or at least identify) good copy. I like to think I have a grasp on what works and what doesn't. You can make a website that's both aesthetically pleasing AND converts well. Insane, right?

I get where Andrew is coming from here. Zappos' website feels insanely old and I'm sure many people get turned away because of the design and never get a chance to know how awesome zappos as a company really is.

ie. My mom would sign up for Facebook.com before she touched MySpace, even if she didn't know the difference between them, just because of the better facebook design and execution on the sign-up page.

On the other hand, they're really well known and continue to grow and what the majority of you are arguing is 'why touch it if it works?' Which is the wrong way to look at it. You should be asking 'how can I make this a better experience for my customers?'

The two aren't mutually exclusive. Apple does both, why can't Zappos?

Apple's site doesn't have to focus on discoverability. Compare for example, Apple's store section vs. their actual product pages - the former is a lot busier and "harder to navigate" than the latter. When you get into the business of selling a bunch of stuff in a discoverable way, your design needs change.

Keep in mind also that the Apple Store sucks at discoverability for non-Apple products - Apple does a marvellous job funnelling you towards the MacBooks and iPods, but a poor job exposing, say, third-party accessories. This works great for Apple, but would be instant death for a company whose entire bread and butter is selling third party goods.

Now consider that Apple has how many core products? What you see on the root store page is it. Everything Apple makes and sells is right there. Now compare with how many products Zappos is in charge of selling and you start seeing the scale difference.

You are comparing apples (no pun intended) and oranges.

Because according to Andrew, they make $1 billion in sales. The site is making a lot of money with the existing design. I can see why they don't want to fix what is not broken.