Ethical way to do Business

Jeff Hoffman (Founder and Partner, Colorjar) on Ethics and Business...

Ethics is about always doing the right thing. It means making long-term decisions. Lets take an example. Say the customer is mad about a wrong delivery even though it was his mistake. Some people would say, let us not return the money because it was the customer's mistake. That is a short-term decision. The long-term decision says that you can have your money back because we want you to be our customer.
A great example is Zappos. They do this amazing thing. If you don't know what your shoe size is, they will ship you two pairs. Why? Because they trust you as a customer. A lot of people said that they would lose all these shoes because people won't return them. But that did not happen at all. What the customer said wad, "Ethically I feel so honored that you trust me. I will ship the shoes back." So instead of the company saying, "I am going to charge you for two and refund the money," they took the approach of "I trust you and I want you to be happy." And their business won.

Reference: In Conversation, Entrepreneur magazine, February 2014 issue