From a recent post / tweet from the CEO of Zappos, Amazon has purchased all the share of Zappos:

http://blogs.zappos.com/ceoletter

 This morning, our board approved and we signed what’s known as a “definitive agreement”, in which all of the existing shareholders and investors of Zappos (there are over 100) will be exchanging their Zappos stock for Amazon stock. Once the exchange is done, Amazon will become the only shareholder of Zappos stock.

Over the next few days, you will probably read headlines that say “Amazon acquires Zappos” or “Zappos sells to Amazon”. While those headlines are technically correct, they don’t really properly convey the spirit of the transaction. (I personally would prefer the headline “Zappos and Amazon sitting in a tree…”)

I’m a huge fan of Amazon & Zappos, but if this is a trend for Amazon it could be dangerous for the world of small business e-commerce. Amazon holds a lot of power in e-commerce and it doesn’t help that it just purchased one of the largest e-commerce sites out there. I’m noticing more and more Amazon is floating to the top of search results in Google (which controls over 60% of search queries). The monopoly police should be on alert.