The thing that has made Amazon unique contender in the retail marketplace is its methodology. Amazon has expanded to include many different aspects of the market and many of their products are delivered digitally, thereby eliminating the need for physical shipping. When the company started it opened two distribution centers that were strategically located on the two coasts of the United States, one in Seattle and the other in Delaware. By 1999 the company had opened more centers around the US and began to expand into the international market with fulfillment center openings in Germany and the United Kingdom. By 2012 the company was operating 89 fulfillment centers throughout North America, Europe and Asia.
The company has had some setbacks after reporting millions in losses around the turn of the century. This caused the retail mogul to restructure some of its facilities in order to more efficiently run their company. One attribute of Amazon’s distribution strategy is that the location of its fulfillment centers does not exactly correspond with the general population. Amazon had issues in the past with States such as Texas about taxing procedures and this is reflected in the location of its distribution centers. They have fewer centers in the states that have the highest populations such as Texas, California and New York to avoid harassment through state tax laws. Using this to their advantage, Amazon has expanded within states that offer tax incentives in exchange for the creation of jobs within their state. However this company knows when it is time to change gears. Now with most states implementing online taxing legislation, Amazon has realized that the days of tax-free purchases are coming to an end. The company has already b...
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...site. This is great for the company because in this circumstance they act only as the store and once the sale is complete they are no longer responsible for getting the product to the consumer.
Amazon’s unique logistical strategies have allowed to company to see incredible growth since the start of the business in 1995. The company has been very thorough in creating and placing distribution centers in order to increase profitability of the company. As the company continues to expand around the world and into once unexplored niches of the market, it will continue to implement the same logistical strategies that have been so successful in the past. With many companies around the world using Amazon’s model in their own businesses, it is evident that Amazon’s strategy is successful and capable of growing with the ever-changing culture of running an online marketplace.
History”, n.d.). But the unbelievable pace at which Amazon added new products and new customers proved to be a formidable barrier for any competitors. Within the first 10 years Amazon accomplished an unbelievable feat; it had 49 million customers and 6.9 billion dollars in revenue, and it had done so by selling some products at a loss to build market share (Rivlin, 2005). At times it was difficult leveraging so much capital to grow market share, but Jeff Bezos’ focus on the customer and long term growth of the company proved to be the real reason Amazon didn’t fall prey to the .com bust like so many other internet
Amazon.com’s US operation business model is based on “sell all, carry few”. Amazon offers consumers a wide selection of products while keeping inventories at low levels. A major interest for Amazon in the US is optimization of netwo...
For our business profile project, we focused on Amazon. Amazon.com Inc. was founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994. Amazon was first started in Bezos ' garage and has turned into a billion dollar operation over the course of 22 years (Smith). Amazon is currently headquartered in Seattle, Washington and has branch locations all over the world. Amazon is most known for their kindle, fast shipping, and selling various products (Smith). With Amazon being such a large corporation professionalism, academics, character, and engagement are crucial parts of the success of the company.
Jeff Bezo’s began Amazon in his garage in July 1995 with three Sun workstations setting on wooden doors for tables and extension cords running from everywhere (Academy of Achievement, 2010). Right from the beginning he was a visionary leaving his well paying job as a senior vice president with D. E. Shaw to begin Amazon.com (Academy of Achievement, 2010). Being the visionary that he is he saw an opportunity prompted by the huge growth rate of internet use in a single year and ran with it never looking back. Jeff realized that the internet had “no real commerce to speak of” so he began researching possible businesses (Academy of Achievement, 2010). “After reviewing 20 mail order businesses and deciding which could be conducted more efficiently over the internet than by traditional means he decided on books” (Academy of Achievement, 2010). He thought books were perfect because attempting to send huge catalogs for all the available books would be expensive and cumbersome, but an online resource database that was easy to navigate would provide customers with easy access and a single point from which to shop. “In 30 days, with no press, Amazon had sold books in all 50 states and 45 foreign countries, obviously by the success of Amazon he was right (Academy of Achievement, 2010). In a case study written by Javad Kargar called “Amazon.com in 2003” he stated that “Amazon's online store was a big hit, with about $5 million in the first year of operations” (2004). This huge success so quickly would have confirmed for Jeff that his idea was viable and drove him to continue to strive for more. Jeff Bezo’s charismatic-visionary leadership is the key to his and Amazon’s success.
In the article “Inside Amazon: Wrestling Ideas in a Bruising Workplace” by Jodi Kantor and David Streitfeld, both authors noted Amazon’s business and work strategy as harsh and strict but rewarding and life-changing at the same time. Apparently, Amazon’s business model focuses on harsh and strict regulations to keep employees more motivated, productive, and innovative. In comparison to other companies who values benefits and positive reinforcement for their workers, Amazon values constant productivity for improvement and growth and compensation as a competitive aspect in workplace. Many people may see this business strategy and the company as harsh and a horrifying experience; however, I believe and agree that this strategy
Although Amazon has been active trying to find the perfect strategy to make profits, the numbers in its financial statements had not shown the most optimal results. We have discuss that even though its strategies have been right according to supply chain and logistics methodologies and theory, something had been missing to represent this successful strategies into financial results. It is seen that Amazon had spent too long time finding the right strategy which the last might be the one because in the financial statements profits started to come up. Amazon still have a long way to go to mature its strategy and represents it into profits for its shareholders.
Amazon’s macro-environment is made up of six external factors: political, economic, environmental, technological, social, and legal conditions. These factors are important because they shape how the company operates and you must know each piece to be able to compete within the retail and eCommerce industry. An evolving political factor are the efforts the government has made toward punishing offenders of cyber-crime. This kind of thief wasn’t walking into your store, but hacking into your computer. This type of crime wasn’t possible before the internet. The government has started to take these crimes more serious as technology evolves. Technology is a factor that Amazon.com must invest heavily in. They are reliant on having top of the line technology to survive against cyber-crime and to stay relevant in the tech world. ECommerce is everywhere now and competition is very high. This brings in legal conditions; Amazon must know what laws exist in which countries because they are a
Also, Amazon sells many products from many different brands and companies. The customers are most important to Amazon and Amazon knows that the delivery service is one thing that customers want the most. The way that Amazon fulfills the customer’s satisfaction of its delivery service is by having 55 fulfillment centers located in North America. Because fulfillment centers are not retail stores, Amazon products aren’t required to charge sale taxes. Along with the 53 fulfillment centers that Amazon has in North America, Amazon also has 53 distribution centers in Europe, Japan, Asia and India. Since Amazon has a lot of warehouses in many different locations, it can reach to its customers more conveniently. Amazon has been growing throughout the years has allowed its company to be able to reduce its costs. Besides being one of the top online shopping sites, Amazon has also developed the Kindle, which is now one of the most popular e-reader tablets out
Amazon.com, Inc Company started in 1994 and featured online in 1995. The company has done extremely well in the market achieving remarkable success. Initially, Amazon was known as Cadabra. Inc. however, the name of the company changes when the owners of the company knew that people confused the name for cadaver. Jeff Bezos is credited for founding the company. The company has its base in the United States of America as a multinational e-commerce company. Its headquarters are in Seattle, Washington. It has been rated as the largest online retailing company, in the entire world. It has close to three times the sales revenue that staples, Inc made as a runner up, in January 2010 (Shire, 2008).
Amazon.com was a venture into an emerging market of internet and had to face hidden and unexpected hurdles in order to survive and excel in the market. Therefore, Amazon.com kept modifying its strategies with their focus on enhancing customer experience of online shopping and to delivery exceptional services with complete convenience to their customers. One of the major strategic decisions was to compromise on cost saving stragegy when Amazon.com started to maintain its own warehouses in different countries in order to ensure timely and accurate delivery to their customers
Amazon is the world’s largest retailer online. Founded in 1994 it has started as an online bookstore but soon expends its catalog with software, video games, electronics, furniture, food, toys etc.
Eule, A. (2013). It’s time for Amazon to open its black box. Barron’s, 93(42), 37.
When Amazon.com first began in 1995, as strictly a book retailer, Bezos knew he had discovered an excellent company. After all, a physical bookstore cannot stock anywhere close to the number of books Amazon can offer online. Within a year, the company had a customer base of approximately 340,000 consumers and daily site visits were huge as well. But Bezos wanted to expand the company to offer music and DVDs, because he realized there was little or no barrier of entry. In the next years Amazon would emerge as a marketplace, expanding the company globally offering products from toys to kitchenware. Because of the relatively cheap prices Amazon was offering and also the growing number of online shoppers, the company was doing tremendous amounts of sales and creating profits.
Another part of Amazon’s retail strategy is to serve as the channel for other retailers to sell their products and take a percentage of cut of every purchase. Amazon does not have to maintain inventory on slower-selling products. This strategy has made Amazon a ‘long tail’ leading retailer, expanding its available selection without a corresponding increase in overhead costs.
Amazon’s also tried to spearhead the industry by introducing the customer-pleasing traits in terms of the technology, order fulfillment and retailing strategies categori...