Amazon.Com – from Start-Up to 2004 - Business Strategy

Ebay, as a company itself, fits more in the category of an oligopoly, which is actually pretty common in any market. Other alternative websites include Yahoo!, Amazon, and Quibids, but there are only a small number of them, certainly not hundreds as in monopolistic competition. Also, eBay is interdependent on the few other auction website companies, competing with the fees they charge, as well as quality of customer support, and buyer/seller reliability. Another characteristic of eBay that coincides with it being considered an oligopoly is the fact that it has numerous entry barriers. It’s such a large company with many restrictions, and it would be hard for an up and coming substitute auction website to break into the market and compete with eBay or the other top companies in the industry. (6)

There are many major competitors for EBay. Of the many companies that are in the same industry which are at the top of the Hoovers in depth list is Amazon, Google, Overstock.com, Walmart.com, HSN and the list goes on. The industry that these companies are in is a multibillion dollar industry. All these companies know that the consumer is their main concern. The consumer will always have a these companies doing all they can so that they stay on top.[6]

Amazon and Ebay are two well-known brands of online shopping sites. They have evolved and grown from small firms to the giants of e-commerce today. In this essay, a comparison would be made between the two firms.

Amazon.com has successfully managed to make its customers to feel that anything they could possibly want could be found on their website. Additionally, its products are marketed at a competitive price. Another important factor is their speedy delivery with their usage of UPS and FedEx (United States) and Royal Mail (United Kingdom). The company also caters for people that prefer online shopping with extra services such as Amazon Prime - a service with a yearly payment, customers are eligible for free next day delivery. Even though Amazon.com is known to be an online seller of most things, it still excels in its original market of book selling. Evidence of such is

eBay has a choice preferred standpoint. Regularly contributed similar to the world 's greatest store, and have a bigger number of things available to be purchased than anyplace else. However its maintainability props on patch up unstable ground as omnichannel world envision, for arranging purposes, that everything is available to be purchased in each commercial center, each methods, and each channel. Partaking connected shoppers may never get to that world, yet it 's a helpful arranging presumption.

Ebay is primarily service providers who connect the sellers and buyers by providing platform to sell and buy any goods.

Due to the growing competition and diminishing market share, companies are opting for different strategies to achieve their survival objectives as well as growth. Companies are thus executing grand strategies to provide their businesses with a clear direction for its strategic actions. These strategies, therefore, aim at both short term and long term sustainability and growth, and they include innovation, market development, product development, and concentration.

Amazon.com is a customer centric company. They put more effort in improving their system to make the experience of customer more comfortable so that he keeps on returning to the website. Jeffery Bezos who is the founder of the Amazon.com started this company after seeing the use of internet increasing rapidly.

It provides a structure to capture the linkage of organizational activities that create value for the customer and profit for the organisation. It is particularly useful to get across the notion that operations and the other activities must work cross functionally for optimal organization performance(Chase et al. 2007).

There are mainly 4 priorities of Amazon when they established their online venture. The four priorities are convenience, selection, price, and customer service. E-business gave the Amazon a major advantage i.e it opens for 24 hrs or anyone can buy anything 24hrs a day. Various functions such as reviews, e-mail notifications , product recommendations, etc are given by Amazon in their website. Wide range of products are also provided by Amazon. They have an inventory of millions of products at a time.

Amazon’s competitors include Apple Inc., Barnes & Noble, Inc. and Wal-Mart.com USA, LLC (Hoovers, 2014). For the purpose of this financial analysis we will be comparing Amazon to the SIC Code: 5961, CATALOG AND MAIL-ORDER HOUSES, industry average. The financial analysis will take into consideration the balance sheet, income statement and ratios for the past 5 years, 2009 to 2013.

With the advent of the information technology, specifically the internet, it is said that more and more companies are existing in the online world. The changes in the business market also allows customers to change and become more dependent on online stores and online shopping than go and find something in shopping malls or retail store. One of the existing and considered as the largest and competitive online shopping in the world is Amazon. In this report, the goal is to analyse Amazon based on the case study provided. The analysis includes the discussion of Amazon’s s strategic intent, main resources and capabilities. In addition, this will also include analysis of the resources and capabilities that give

The threat of substitutes for Amazon is high. With the exception of its patented technology, there are quite a lot of alternatives to Amazon’s products and services. In addition to physical presence, most companies have an online store as well. Amazon’s products can be purchased all over the internet and they are just spread out among different web sites. The companies operate in brick-and-click mode providing the similar product categories and competitive prices have become the biggest threat for Amazon. However it is extremely difficult for Amazon to establish physical stores or launch price

* The strong presence of Taobao and its parent company Alibaba is still hard to compete with. eBay lacks both customer base and customer faith compared to Taobao and thus might suffer the pain in terms of lost sales to Taobao in m-commerce sector as well.

With the proliferation of communication and information technology, particularly the Internet, most business organizations have been at the forefront to join the e-commerce platform. Amazon is considered as one of the existing and largest e-business platform in the world. This report outlines Amazon’s strategic intent and key resources and capabilities. In addition, the report will also include an analysis of the company 's assets and capabilities that have provided it a sustainable competitive edge as well as, the recommended future strategy of the giant online organization. Amazon defines its line of business operations based on product and service sales, fulfillment, digital content subscriptions, publishing, and co-branded cards. The company 's line of business is defined as an online store, Internet service provision, and the Kindle ecosystem. This project will explore the truth that has made the online company to be considered as the top online retailer, which mainly focuses on strategy. This report also outlines how inventories play a fundamental role in the organization 's business or corporate strategy. The other issues covered in the report include the approach used by the online company deal with the supply chain and the reason behind fast shipping fast. The paper will outline the finance statute of the company and whether the finance effect will bar the organization from developing in future. In order to achieve the answer to the questions