AMAZON.COM
“An extraordinary company doing business on the web in a real
customer-oriented way”: this is the sentence through which Martin
Tanner “Time” journalist used to describe Amazon.com.
Amazon.com is the leading online retailer of products that inform,
educate, entertain and inspire.
Our web site became famous for selling books but now it is selling
millions of other products too (from cameras to coffee machines,
exercise videos to Elvis CDs): there’s something for everyone!
It also enables private sellers to place new and second hand items
on its site. (like e-bay)
In addiction it gives you a variety of resources to help you
choose, including customer reviews (feedbacks) and personal
recommendations.
Looking at amazon.com website, it feels
earth’s most customer-centric company.
Here we have the
achieve its goal:
principles
under
which
its
our
mission
site
is
to
be
operates
to

COSTUMER FOCUSED – Amazon, according to what I have
aforesaid, is a place where people can find and discover
anything they might want to buy online, relentlessly focused
on offering a unique service for each of its customer.

INNOVATION – Previous point requires to constantly innovate
by building superior technology.

OWNERSHIP – Amazon employees also have a stake in the success
of the business ‘cause restricted stock stock units are
awarded to everyone it hires.

CARE – Amazon tries not to spend money on things don’t matter
to its customers.
Amazon’s working philosophy (work hard making history) is quite
revealing running through the site.
In fact its employees care about what they do as they know
customers are counting on them.
Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com claimed that at Amazon, employees
are divided into small working teams invested in their part of the
business but a cross-functional team work is promoted in order to
encourage creativity, and open exchange of ideas across group and
a respect for the challenges and tradeoffs present.
Now I’m going to deal with each single feature of amazon.com in
details.
Branding
Amazon's name recognition in part reflects the site's popularity
because it has more than 1.5 million customers, making it the
Web's busiest retail location. This is because the many consumers
have developed brand loyalty, which can be defined as a preference
for a particular brand that results in its repeated purchase,
towards Amazon.com. Amazon.com strives to develop and maintain
brand loyalty among consumers because Amazon.com has created a
successful system of one-to-one marketing.
Bezos knows that a brand is a trusted promise of quality, service,
and value, established over time and proven by the test of
repeated use and satisfaction: he chose to name his site as Amazon
after the world’s largest river because he promised that his site
will become the biggest bookstore in the world.
Previous logo was changed to communicate the company’s mission of
being the most customer-centric company in the world, most
notably by depicting the ultimate expression of customer
satisfaction: a smile. On the old logo, there was a downward
curve underlining the company’s name; the new line curves upward
to a dimple, forming a happy face. In doing so, it also sends
another message about Amazon. The line goes from the A in Amazon
to the Z in the word, thereby sending the message that the store
carries
everything
from
A
to
Z.
Online advertising and promotion
In 2004, amazon.com spent just under than $50 million on its TV
campaign: Bezos, said that the television campaign increased
sales, but not enough to justify the spending. Therefore,
Amazon.com has canceled almost television and print advertising
but it has decided to concentrate on lowering prices, mainly in
the form of free shipping for orders over $25. Its quarterly net
profit soared by 28.9%.
Since Amazon.com is a online retailer, it also rely on online
advertising to promote its product and services through internet.
In 1997, Yahoo and Amazon.com announced an agreement under which
Amazon.com would be the premier bookseller featured on Yahoo.
Afterwards, it partnered with Google too.
Business Strategy
There are three operational strategies that have helped Amazon.com
to enhance its competitive advantage, including cost-leadership,
customer differentiation and focus strategies.
The first strategy, cost-leadership is pursued by Amazon.com by
differentiating itself primarily on the basis of price. Due to
this strategy, Amazon.com always makes sure that it offers the
same quality products as other companies for a considerably less
price.
Their second strategy is customer diffentiation. Amazon.com
provideed current and prospective customers with differentiation
through design, quality or convenience.
The last strategy that it uses, is a focus strategy. This strategy
takes one of the two previous strategies and applies it to a
market niche (a specialised area within a particular group of
customers
identified
through
market
research).
Customer Review Program
All products on Amazon.com can be reviewed. In the case of books,
editorial reviews by leading magazines are provided by Amazon.com.
A rating figure is placed against each review so that customers
can decide whether to read it or not based on that.
Customer review is an important and essential part at Amazon.com
because it helps customers choose.