This study is being undertaken to determine the significance of Amazon Kindle on American online book industry as a whole but mainly targeting its customers/clients i.e. American e-book publishers. Moreover, the success of every business/industry is highly linked with its customers who either relates with the business directly or indirectly but are still the business customers so in this regard customer acquisition, retention and satisfaction are extremely important points to be noted here. Moreover, some relevant factors such as customer relationship management, scanning the internal with external environment and evaluating the attractiveness of Kindle for its customers will also be the part of this study. However, putting some light on book retailing will be imperative that has led towards the discovery of E-Book industry. The significance of this study will be self explanatory because of enriching and enlarging the scope of any already conducted research on a similar topic.
1.3 BOOK RETAILING IN UNITED STATES:
Geographically the American top ten markets of books were New York, Washington D.C, Chicago, Boston, Seattle, San Francisco, San Diego, and Los Angles etc. According to the book industry experts there are various factors that have been accelerating the book sales (Jaworski et al., 2001). Most prominently a large number of books are being sold on stand-alone superstores at fully discounted prices such as Borders, Bookstar, Barnes & Nobles etc. An imperative need for the establishment of superstores was actually realized in the 1970s when some bookstores such as Tattered Cover in Denver started to develop the gathering places in their neighbourhood (Rangaswamy et al., 2004). Moreover, there are also plenty of major bo...
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...ormation assistance to the American book publishing industry emphasizing on the need to know the characteristics of customers. In 2009, they carried out a research to collect the answers given by the 36000 book buyers who were selected on the basis of their gender, income, age, location and living patterns etc. The results showed that 54.8% of the readers relief on internet to find the books but 24.8% readers rely on the e-mails of booksellers. Whereas, 48% readers prefer to read ebooks on their computers and the sale of e-books have increased by 183% among the seniors aged between 65-70 years and the same has increased by 174% among the readers aged between 55-65 years. However, the biggest followers of Amazon Kindle are aged 50 years. Moreover, a reader on average spends 5.2 hours on reading during a week and the average price of a book is $10.08. (Abbott, 2009).
Almost twenty years later, contemplating the contemporary American publishing scene, I feel a Bealean rage coming on (and with it a vague longing for one of his fits).While three percent of the American population in 1976 would have been a little over six million readers, recent surveys suggest that the consistent buyers of books in this country now total no more than half that number, and may even be as few as one million.[1]
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
This source considers the issue of converting to digital books, specifically as it pertains to the effect that this change would have on the global environment. Although the research does recognize that there are disadvantages to not having a physical copy of a book and to abandoning certain platforms that do not transfer well to a digital form, overall, these researchers conclude that publishers should move towards digital products not only for the sake of cheaper long-run costs, but also for the good that going paperless can do for the environment. By displaying a series of graphs, as well as including multiple data sets, the text explains how e-books compare with printed texts; then, analysis of these facts is also included to show the reader the authors’ point.
Moreover, despite the presence of some large chains, specialty retail markets are highly fragmented. Barnes & Noble, for example, with over 900 stores, is the largest US bookseller but has a market share of only 15 percent. With increasing transportation costs and tighter margins, there is a possibility that some large specialty retail players will consolidate assets, knowledge and outsourcing capabilities in order to generate economies of scale and scope. Key Opportunities High-end and niche merchandise: With rising disposable incomes, the demand for high-end goods is increasing, which can best be catered by specialty retail stores.
Amazon is best 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. Professionalism: Amazon has grown to become the largest internet-based retailer in the world by total sales. It began as primarily an online bookstore and soon began to sell more and more electronics and then over time began to sell pretty much anything. In 1998, Amazon earned about $0.6 billion, which held steady growth from 1998-2006 (“Amazon.com”).
Amazon.com operates in the Online Retail Industry. The sector is one of the fastest growing globally and is outperforming the ordinary retail marketplace. It was created after 1995 and it was only the Internet that made it possible for such an industry not only to be established but to become one of the most flourishing sectors in the business environment. What is interesting is that Amazon.com, together with eBay is the pioneer in the field. Both companies were launched in 1995 and are still extremely successful. The creation of e-mail in 1996 had a huge impact on the development of online retail by introducing a fast and easy way to communicate with customers. For this two-year period Internet usage doubled annually, thus, allowing for the expansion of the industry. Google is launched a year later, in 1998, only to become the most used search engine in the world and an essential partner for the online retailers by helping them tailor their websites to customer’s personal preferences and by advertising. After that, more and more people see the opportunity in the growing industry and enter it. By 2001 there are more than 513 million Internet users globally, which calls for action in terms of creating regulations and laws to protect the users and personal property. In 2003, Apple launches iTunes, and provides a platform for low-cost digital downloads. Another major change is the appearance of social media from 2004, which is one of the biggest influencer on the state of the industry. With the launch of iPhone in 2007, this trend strengthens as people get to enjoy the Internet anywhere they want to. From then on, technological advancements have made it extremely easy and fun to shop online, making it ...
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Amazon has recorded a magnificent success in its business throughout the years that it has been in operation. It has attracted almost all people to use it when necessary. Amazon has built its success in business methodically and slowly. Amazon has made much success because of its ability to read market trends and diversify its operations. It started as an online book selling company. However, it changed its operations and started selling other products. Currently, many large retail shops use Amazon to host and power their websites, for instance, sears and virgin megastores. Amazon now attracts over fifty million visitors in a period of one month. Amazon has tried to make their services fit each individual user. It has based its services on the end user. It has shipping discounts, customer product reviews and a credit card with bonuses. It also has prime membership, product forums and 1-click ordering system among other services. The company has tried to make a remarkable experience for customers and visitors (Thomas, 2006).
Amazon Kindle is one of Amazon’s recent remarkable products. Kindle is a portable device which allows user to read, download, and store e-books due to its wireless connection and internal memory (Amazon, 2009). The first version was originally launched in US market in 2007 and achieved success as sold out in five and a half hours (Patel, 2007). Later, Kindle has been through several upgraded versions; Kindle original, Kindle 2, Kindle DX, Kindle DX Graphite, and the most recent version Kindle 3 with improvements mostly on the shape, contrast, memory capacity, and operating system. Earlier versions of Kindle had been criticized for its aesthetic and user interface issues. Reviews from customers and gadget experts motivated Amazon to further improve the product.
Growth strategy is the main means through which any organization plans to achieve its set objective to grow in level of income and capacity of its sales. The main strategies include the development of their product, diversifying, the development of market and its penetration. Amazon.com, an online retail company that provides a variety of unique products and services to its customers at cheap prices via the internet, for the past five years have tripled its sales to more than $60 billion a year. The company’s willingness to take a large hit on its margins has contributed significantly to its 35% to 40% revenue growth in past quarters. To increase the company’s income and sales, it has utilized a number of strategies (Form 10-K, 2014). This includes; investing in the growth of its digital services. This strategy is seeing strong growth and segment. Analysis shows that Amazon Web Services has operated up to annual revenue rate of over $2 billion over the past years. The introduction of new tablets such as Apple’s iPad mini and Microsoft’s surface tablet pose greater competition for the tablet market. Amazon has been able to compete in the tablet market in the past because of its Kindle e-readers that have been priced lower than the iPad. The company is investing in the online video industry. It has entered into several and expensive contracts with the aim of building digital media correction. The company has recently entered into a multiyear agreement with Viacom to license television shows, including children’s shows like “Dora the Explorer” and “BobSponge Square Pants.” (Tsukayama, 2013)
Amazon’s customer philosophy can be traced from a letter extracted to the 1997 Annual Report that stated their focal points by offering customers products that they think is worth buying. Amazon tries to set apart their operations by suggesting extraordinary way in doing transaction and start by offering online books whereby they can get access to it anytime they want. Other value-added offers include 1-ClickSM shopping, customer’s gift certificates and immensely reviews, browsing options, content and suggested features. Amazon strategy focuses on reducing the price. Thus, increase the customer value. Amazon became the market online bookselling leader by encouraging customers repeating purchases through the advertising strategy that is proven effective which was word of mouth approach.
During the past few years, the publishing and reading world has been facing a veritable digital book onslaught. E-books have been outselling print books on Amazon since 2011 (Polanka, 7). While digital book sales skyrocketed, print book sales, especially those of mass marked paperbacks, diminished. Even the fact that e-books are not much cheaper than print books does not seem to interfere with the former’s popularity. It would seem that the age of print books is about to end, and quite soon.
Some years ago, with the arrival of digital technology, the process of reading has been changed to make it easier for everybody; therefore digital books are replacing the actual physical books. In spite of the fact that paper books and digital books are very similar in some ways, such as tittle pages, copyright page, covers, chapters or tables of contents; they present a visual and a sensory difference. In fact, they have a similar action that gives benefits but drawbacks at the same time. Paper books are tangible, accomplishment, easy to share; they have a unique aroma, and a sensitive side. But people should take in consideration that digital books are the better choice, because they are portable, convenient, cheap in price, and easy to manipulate, not to mention that anybody is able to have an bunch of them in only one file, either their phones or