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"Zappos and Gilt Groupe are two of the hottest e-commerce companies around, but each attributes different factors to their success.\nZappos CEO Tony Hsieh and Gilt Groupe Chairman Susan Lyne described the \"hypergrowth\" of their e-commerce companies during a panel at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco.  It was an interesting comparison of two different types of business models that are making major waves in the world of online commerce.\nLyne revealed that Gilt Groupe is on track to bring in $400 million to $500 million in revenue in 2010, up from $170 million in 2009.  She says that the company now has more than 500 employees and has launched a suite of new products, including Gilt City and Jetsetter.  The core thread between all of these products is the power of daily deals; exclusivity is a draw for membership.  \nThe rapid growth has presented the company with some major technical challenges, most surrounding the rush of traffic that hits the website at noon every day.  As the company has grown, Gilt Groupe has also had trouble attracting entrepreneurial engineering talent.  That's why Jetsetter and Gilt City are run like their own independent startups, despite being part of the Gilt Groupe empire.\nTony Hsieh and Zappos have had a different path than Gilt; a year ago, the company was acquired by Amazon for more than $900 million.  Since then, Hsieh says that Amazon has fulfilled its promise to keep its hands off of Zappos and its legendary culture. \nThe result has been a 50% increase in Q1 net sales year-over-year, according to Hsieh.  Not only that, but in 2011 the company is going to hire 2,000 employees (seasonal and full-time), up from the 2,800 people it employs currently.  The company shouldn't have any trouble finding people to fill those positions, though.  It has received 25,000 job applications in the past year.  During that time frame, the company only hired 250 people, an impressively low 1% acceptance rate.\nBoth companies seem to be on track to continue their high-paced growth for the foreseeable future.  The fate of Zappos has already been determined (acquisition by Amazon).  As for Gilt Groupe, all Lyne would say is that there will not be an IPO within the next year."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2010/11/16/zappos-to-hire-2000-people-in-2011/>