Amazon : An Overview Of Amazon And Its Stakeholders

➢ Mission: Amazon’s mission is to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible price[1].

The company I have chosen for the purpose of this case study is Amazon. The reason for this is because Amazon has seemingly taken the retail market by storm since its establishment in 1994. The company originally started off as an online bookstore, but quickly diversified into selling multiple forms of electronic products. Amazon is different than the traditional retail store that rely heavily on their brick and mortar stores. It has developed a business model that relies heavily on internet based marketing and sales. Amazon`s market power has allowed them to be very competitive with its pricing strategy. This has helped increased their market shares to point that has surpassed brick and mortar stores like Wal-Mart. Amazon continues to change the market by offer customers two-day shipping, streaming service, discounted products and a multitude of other products and services. As the market continues to grow the stock price have steadily increased and the current market shares for Amazon stock is over six hundred dollars. Economics plays a key part in Amazons business practices and the products they offer their customers. The purpose of economics activities is so defined because of the peculiar characteristics of human wants, which are unlimited and the resources to satisfy the wants, which are limited (Bhat & Rau, 2008).

Headquartered in Settle, Washington DC, Amazon.com is a cloud computing electronic and commerce company (Amazon, 2016). The company is one of the largest internet based retailers both in the US and globally based on total sales and market capitalization. The company does a majority of its business through online retail websites throughout the United States and with more that ten countries throughout World. In 2015, Amazon overtook Wal-Mart to become the most valuable retailer by market capitalization.

Amazon is an incredible company that has shaken the world, starting out being the largest book store they have become the largest everything store. They started in 1994 by Jeff Bezos, he was also the founder of aerospace company Blue Origin. Jeff took advantage of the Internet’s enormous opportunities it presented, since then Amazon has risen to a $292.6 billion-dollar company and employs 230,800 people. (forbs.com)

Amazon is an online retailer focused on selection, price and convenience. Incorporated in May 1996, Amazon.com offers programs that allow sellers to sell products on the website and have the fulfillment performed by the seller. In addition to the online marketplace, Amazon also manufactures and sells Kindle devices. Through the different programs offered by Amazon, the company has the edge over their competitors. They are able to secure the lowest price, fastest shipping and offer incentives to the customer, such as Amazon Prime (Amazon, 2014).

Amazon is the largest internet-based retailer in the world. This American electronic commerce and cloud computing company. Amazon stock logged a massive gain of 118%, last year in the stock market. Amazon was able to post more than $100 billion in sales last year. The fact is that the company has major competitive

An effective supply chain strategy makes the company is able to respond high level of responsiveness. Amazon balances between cost of distributions

Amazon is always looking for a new opportunity, that’s why it just keeps on growing and growing and growing. Amazon believes that the company would be overtaken by competitors in different fields, if it doesn’t sustain the constant investment in its business avenues. Over the past three years, Amazon has simply participated in two acquisitions, however it has a record the only cpmany with the largest amount of acquisition in the 21st century. The most recent acquisition has been with the company’s Twitch for $970 million, and Kiva systems for $775 million. Since 1999 Twitch has been the largest acquired company for Amazon. the most current shares with Amazon developed from its partnership with Twitch, Quidsi and Exchange.com, all are which are e-commerce business with a video or retail platform. Therefore, Twitch acquisition is a massive move for Amazon, it’s only the second-largest single purchase for the retail giant, according to company data. (2014, smith).

Technology is a huge factor in modern day life - with 45% of the world having internet access to purchase goods and services, the e-commerce industry is ever growing. Therefore new technologies have a significant impact on the external environment as they guide the new direction of a market. Technological improvements generally coincide with technological advancements in a company’s products helping to gain more consumers and maintain competitive advantage over other companies. Amazons prime addition has between 50 and 70 million subscribers with an increase of 53% last year (Mac, 2015) therefore showing the success of the technological improvement and the ability to increase consumer base by a large amount. Other technological advancements that Amazon has invested in include Amazon video and Amazon music via mobile apps and webpages enabling Amazon to keep up with growing markets. Another form of Amazon using technology is to track and trace consumer patterns – technology has enabled Amazon to see there consumer loyalty rates (50% consumer loyalty in 2004) (Kimble & Bourdon, 2013). Similarly as technology is becoming such a large part of everyday life, e-commerce companies are able to gain considerable benefits as their target market grows – faster broadband as well as increased availability of internet helps to promote companies such as Amazon.

When it was started, Amazon was an online bookstore, however, nowadays it is diversified into selling a lot of products.

In addition, the Company empowers its customers by providing data on its products and services in order to make informed purchasing decisions. Reviews and feedbacks of ‘verified purchasers’ are placed on product pages. Indeed, Amazon is well known for being the first company to display such candid reviews. In its quest to gain customer loyalty and improve its relationships to its customers, Amazon focuses on one major factor in its customer service: helpfulness. The Company explores new ways to satisfy its customers by using satisfaction surveys and using

Amazon.com, Inc. is the leading online retailer of books. The ¡§Earth¡¦s Biggest Bookstore¡¨ opened its virtual doors in July 1995 with a mission to use the Internet to transform book buying into the fastest, easiest, and most enjoyable shopping experience possible1. Amazon still holds their commitment to customer satisfaction and the delivery of an educational and inspiring shopping experience in high regard today and it is now one of the most widely known, used and cited commerce sites on the World Wide Web (WWW).

Amazon.com, Inc. (Amazon.com), incorporated on May 28, 1996, is an American electronic commerce company with headquarters in Seattle, Washington and is the largest Internet-based retailer in the United States (Ungar, 2014). Amazon.com started as an online bookstore, but soon diversified, selling DVDs, Blu-rays, CDs, video downloads/ streaming, MP3 downloads/streaming, software, video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, toys and jewelry (Ungar, 2014). The company also produces consumer electronics—notably, Amazon Kindle e-book readers, Fire tablets, Fire TV and Fire Phone — and is a major provider of cloud computing services (Ungar, 2014).

In 2000, Amazon and Toys-R-Us entered into a symbiotic agreement that would benefit both corporate entities. Both companies had recently had unimpressive fiscal years due to differing issues. Toys “R” Us struggled with poor order fulfillment. Although they were equipped with enough merchandise, other issues kept them from being able to get orders to customers in a timely manner; especially during the busy holiday season. Conversely, Amazon was forced to write off $34 million because of a miscalculation in inventory and had orders that could not be honored (Ouchi, 2004). Following these debacles, both organizations felt that joining

Amazon has grown up from a normal online website to an ecommerce and broadcasting partner to development platform being driven by the spirit of innovation. Amazon is a service based company offering customers best services and providing more types of products, at lower prices and with proper reviews. Their innovations towards the technology increase the growth of Amazon. Since 1995, Amazon has significantly expanded international retail websites, its product selection, customer service centers and worldwide network (AmazonJobs).