Cases Chapter 1 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce

The article, “Amazon.com Is a 21st Century Deal with the Devil” from Amy Koss, published by Los Angeles Times on June 4, 2017. The death of the American mall is avoidable. It is avoidable by promoting it on the Amazon website, or it is also avoidable by closing down the website. Even if none of this happens, there will always be people who are not lazy enough to get up and go to the mall. There are also a lot of people in the world who do not know about the website amazon.com. For those who do not, it means they go to the mall instead of shopping online.

Both Amazon and Walmart are seeking to accomplish the same goal, to become the world’s largest retailer by providing customers with a seamless shopping experience. Both companies have their own strengths, with Amazon being the leader in the online retail space, while Walmart is the clear leader in the brick-and-mortar arena. As more online and brick-and-mortar retailers are eating into the market, both Amazon and Walmart must content with other companies as well as each other. Amazon and Walmart were both created and detonated extraordinary growth due to an innovative push unlike any other in their own respective arenas. “If either Amazon or Walmart is destined to come out on top, it must come from a massive innovation push, a willingness to

Amazon.com Inc. was initiated by Jeff Bezos in 1994 after realizing the rapid rate at which the internet and websites were growing in popularity among business organizations and individuals. In 1995, the company started operating its website for selling books, videos, compact discs, computer software and computer hardware before being incorporated in1996 as an e-commerce company (Reuters, 2015). Apparently, the company offers may products and services for sale; these products include merchandise for resale products offered by third parties. In this regard the

The company hired a law firm named Kirkland and Ellis to handle their case because they have expertise in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. The company will be reorganizing its $400 million-dollar debt. (Wahba p. 1) Toy R Us was involved in an antitrust settle with attorney generals from 43 different states. The company conspired with a couple of toy manufacturers to restrict the supply of desirable toys to warehouses and price clubs. Toys R Us was aiming to put these other warehouses at a competitive disadvantage (Mikhiber, p. 29). According to the Federal Trade Commission “the company had monopoly power in many local markets and used its dominant position as a toy distributor to extract agreements from and among toy manufactures to stop selling to warehouse clubs the same toys that they sold to other toy distributors” (Investor’s Business Daily, p. 1)

Amazon should continue to operate and give its services because of a number of reasons. The first is that it is trusted by its customers from across the world and they are satisfied by its service. A company should be shut down when it is going in loss or is unable to satisfy its customers. Both of these things are not applicable to amazon. Amazon has been providing retail services to many local American and international customers as well.

I think that MSL did breach the contract with Macy’s. First, their contract was an exclusive agreement, which implies that only Macy’s had tot sole obligation to sell those products apart from MSL and its related conglomerate. This means that at no one time, as long as the contract held, would MSL engage another party in partnership or joint venture, to sell products prescribed under the contract. When MSL decided to get into another contract with JC Penney (JCP) it would be expected that the agreement would diverge from what the other contract had exclusive rights. In the case study, out of the 2500 designs presented to JCP, about 900 fell into categories restricted under the Macy’s exclusive agreement. Hence, MSL was in breach of Macy’s

2. Trace the evolution of the Amazon.com business from the company’s launch in 1995 to the dot-com collapse in 2000. How did the company’s strategy change over time? How did capabilities evolve? What value did the company deliver to all stakeholders?

Neil Irwin of The New York Times writes of Amazon: “The online retailer is on a collision course with Walmart to try to be the predominant seller of pretty much everything you buy. Each one is trying to become more like the other — Walmart by investing heavily in technology, Amazon by opening physical bookstores and now buying physical supermarkets.” Something similar, says Irwin, is happening in “nearly every major industry,” benefiting “the biggest and best-run organizations, to the detriment of upstarts and second-fiddle players.”

In the last decade, Amazon has grown exponentially. Many people believe the seven hundred and thirty-nine billion dollar company controls America. The definition of a monopoly is “the exclusive possession or control of the supply or trade in a commodity or service.” If Amazon falls under the category of a monopoly, then Amazon would control America, therefore proving the company has too much power. If Amazon is not considered a monopoly, then this does not disprove the power of Amazon; It just means that the power that Amazon holds is legal. E-commerce has also become popular in today’s world, and Amazon dominates it. No one comes close to catching up with the company, as it will most likely always be owned by Amazon. The closest competitors Walmart, Ebay, and Apple combined do not even compete with the revenue that Amazon brings in through e-commerce. Amazon has destroyed more jobs in the United States than they have created. They also destroyed more jobs than China has in the United States, which is a problem. One company has a lot of control in creating or losing jobs to the U.S economy, and that is a scary

Now we will continue our E*Trade review with a few areas of concern when it comes to some of their business practices. And this is where you really need to pay attention and consider the facts, the good and bad, before making any final decisions as to whether or not they are the right choice for your online trading needs.

E-commerce (electronic commerce or EC) is the buying and selling of goods and services, or the transmitting of funds or data, over an electronic network, primarily the Internet. These business transactions occur either business-to-business, business-to-consumer, consumer-to-consumer or consumer-to-business. The terms e-commerceand e-business are often used interchangeably. The term e-tail is also sometimes used in reference to transactional processes around online retail, (SearchCIO, 2015). In other words e-commerce is the buying and selling of goods and services online.

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.

Fourth, it should improve its technological measures to prevent counterfeit sales. One of the issues affecting the company is the sale of counterfeit items. The company has filed lawsuits against ToysNet and Joana Ferreira in 2016 for selling counterfeit items (Rao, 2016). Lastly, Amazon should roll out its own online payment system to counteract the security and privacy concerns of its many customers.

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

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