According to an article written by Theo Miller from Forbes Magazine titled “ The Amazon And The UX Of Advanced Targeting”, the author states that “price discrimination is a crime… and It's a violation of someone's privacy to change a price based on their profile”. Throughout this paper, I will examine this new “advanced Targeting” that is being done by Amazon and other companies alike and prove that price discrimination can be legal, and how vital it is for firms to differentiate between their customers. Through this analysis, the effect of price discrimination on consumers and producers will be apparent, as well as its effect on the demand and supply in the market. The Forbes news article titled “The Amazon and The UX Of Advanced Targeting” was inspired by an incident that occurred with Amazon in September of 2000. Seventeen years ago, the company Amazon, which is a large online shopping website, was caught in a bit of a scandal while it was practicing dynamic pricing. In this case, Amazon used website cookies to gather information about their customers, such as how often they visit and item, if they are a new customer or not. The company used this information, and enforced their dynamic pricing methods by charging their customers prices that are dependent on their past actions. Their practice was brought to life when a customer described his experience with Amazon’s change of prices on a popular website called “DVDTalk.com”. “[The] buyer visited Amazon to purchase a DVD.
Those consumers that have flexibility to choose when they demand a product will benefit from price discrimination. An example of this would be workers that have the ability to take a holiday at short notice might be able to benefit from a heavily discounted price. This is second-degree price discrimination and it can be shown below on the diagram.
Jerry Useem has indited, “How Online Shopping Makes Suckers of Us All” to show the online shoppers and readers of “The Atlantic” how price discrimination occurs. He has decided to verbalize about the quandary with online prices since there has been a elevate in the number of online shoppers. In the article, “How Online Shopping Makes Suckers of Us All,” Jerry Useem commences off by expounding how the prices of certain products vary depending on when the customer optically canvasses the product. To integrate on, he goes on to apprise the audience that in the past, buyers and sellers would have to go through haggling in order to get the best deal possible, he then compares the haggling to how people get the best deals now. Furthermore,
Amazon stated its marketing approach in its 2011 annual report as “we direct customers to our websites primarily through a number of targeted online marketing channels, such as our associated program, sponsored search, portal advertising, email marketing campaigns, and other initiatives.”(Petro, 2017). Being the leader of the ecommerce industry, Amazon maintains that
The development of the Internet and more specifically the business website has seen brand recognition by consumers escalate to never before seen heights. Because of this brand recognition, it has become important for businesses to design their websites to reflect their overall marketing strategies. This is especially important in the retail world. All retail businesses have a similar overall marketing strategy of generating sales and retaining the customer for future sales. Most of the retail giants still greatly rely on the success of their brick and mortar stores to turn a profit. However, internet sales for these brick and mortar stores have increasingly risen over the last few years to compete with the retail stores like Amazon that are strictly internet based businesses. Brick and mortar retail stores, such as Walmart, Target, Kmart, and Nordstrom, have each designed their websites to reflect the overall retail marketing strategy as well as the individual marketing strategies that have made their brick and mortar businesses successful.
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.
In 1999, Amazon became a merchant platform by introducing zShop, “a new service that allows anyone to sell merchandise through its website”. (Moore, 1999) It not only creates extra revenue from the $9.99 monthly subscription fee from sellers but also “60 cents per transaction for payments made with 1-Click, as well as 4.75 percent of the final sale”. (Moore, 1999)
As discussed in the case study, the advertising and marketing strategy of Amazon have been focusing on how the products would gain interest from their target market and how they can be able to generate sales with their products. This is Amazon’s stronghold where it continues to yield strong sales revenue by leveraging off its excellent online shop in different locations, such as in UK and other country, strong brand name and excellent reputation among customers. Amazon has also been continuing to create affiliate websites to expand their business market among various consumers.
Amazon strives to provide customers with the best possible online shopping experience by leveraging their powerful and innovative technologies. Part of the company’s competitiveness lies in their proprietary technology, which is licensed to companies like Target to run their e-commerce site. Its patented portal technology allows the customer to customize their on-line experience with personalized home page,
Many consumers go for what appears to be cheapest and most convenient. The reality is, Amazon’s increasing dominance comes with high costs. “These consequences have gone largely unnoticed thanks to Amazon’s remarkable invisibility and the way its tentacles have quietly extended their reach” (LaVecchia, 2016). It is vital that consumers are aware of this superpower that is taking over.
Amazon faces threats that the company cannot ignore. First, the company has competition from various rivals, which include Salesforce.com, eBay, Wal-Mart stores, Best Buy, Apple, Netflix, International Business Machines, Barnes and Nobles, among many others. For example, Wal-Mart introduced a shipping policy to compete with Amazon’s Prime membership service. With this new policy, customers receive free two-day shipping on all orders of $35 or more. Second, cybercrime is present and Amazon should find ways to ensure that it always guarantees that customer privacy and security are protected.
A large online retailer, like Amazon, can price discriminate to maximise its profits. This pricing policy is used because ‘some customers will value your product or service while others will value it less’ (Smith, 2004). Price discrimination is where a firm sells the same product at different prices to different consumers. My job, as a high powered consultant, is to analyse and discuss the possible benefits and costs of using price discrimination in Amazon.
In my opinion, the best online retailer is Amazon. They easily have the best customer service and product fulfillment when compared to other online retailers. The inventory in the USA is over 200 million products, making such a feat impossible for a physical retail store to compete (Export, 2013). The following essay will discuss Amazon’s pricing and retail strategy. Both are key factors of their marketing that allow Amazon to sustain their market dominance and retain their loyal customers.
Price discrimination can be defined as when the same good or service is sold at different prices to different consumers. If we look at this definition of price discrimination, for an example, we can show that price discrimination can be seen in the entrance tickets of parks such as Universal studios; this is due to the fact that there are discounts for children and senior citizens. (Phlips L. , 1983) However, this can be seen as not being discriminative at all due to the fact that if the price difference full reflects the difference in the cost of carrying the good from the seller’s location to the buyers’ location.
The reaction to Amazon’s marketplace initiative in the financial markets had been generally positive. Indeed, Amazon’s stock was up 52% for the year (as of mid-September 2002) versus a 35% drop in the NASDAQ index. Still, doubts clearly remained in some observers’ minds. For example, Holly Becker, an equity analyst at Lehman Brothers, had reservations about Amazon’s model. In a report issued in February 2002 she said, in part: The used business appears to be an excellent complement to Amazon’s core retail offering. The used business allows Amazon to participate in a growing market that leverages all of the inherent benefits of the Internet . . . a truly virtual model, used eliminates a large portion of fulfillment costs and inventory risk, and therefore provides higher margins . . . but . . . we believe used is detrimental to Amazon’s franchise in the long term. The company’s point of difference, market share, and service capabilities are far greater in new products than used . . . we believe cannibalization is likely in the longer term.1 While the company had made dramatic strides in expanding the range of products it offered, there were still many categories in which it participated little or not at all. Thus, a key element of enhancing selection was to constantly expand the range of
Online commerce was introduced to consumers in the mid-1990’s, and in the years since, it has grown exponentially. It started out virtually nonexistent and has become a multi-billion dollar industry. Nearly every retail sector has entered online commerce; clothing, electronics, home, health and grooming items, even food and groceries are starting to gain traction online. Online commerce sites rival traditional brick and mortar stores such as Walmart and Target, as well as other big-box stores. As online retailers such as Amazon continue to expand, many brick and mortar stores have been making their way online, indicative of an increasing movement towards online commerce. With more than 80% of the online population having made an online