The Ecomom story is pretty mind boggling from a sound business perspective, but then so is Zappos. And look how celebrated Tony Hsieh is. And guess who was also an investor in Ecomom?
As Hsieh wrote:
"Zappos sells shoes and apparel online, but what distinguished us from our competitors was that we'd put our company culture above all else. We'd bet that by being good to our employees -- for instance, by paying for 100 percent of health care premiums, spending heavily on personal development, and giving customer service reps more freedom than at a typical call center -- we would be able to offer better service than our competitors. Better service would translate into lots of repeat customers, which would mean low marketing expenses, long-term profits, and fast growth. Amazingly, it all seemed to be working. By 2005, gross merchandise sales were $370 million, and we made the Inc. 500. We weren't profitable yet, but we were close to breaking even, and our revenue was growing quickly."
http://www.inc.com/magazine/20100601/why-i-sold-zappos.html
Seems pretty similar to me. The only difference is that Zappos went after a much larger market.