How Amazon's Complex Website Keeps the Company Up and Running

Amazon is a Fortune 500 e-commerce company based in Seattle, WA. It is one of the top companies that sells the most goods over the internet.

Amazon understood firsthand that the competitive advantage of a company originates immediately from how distinctive the organization's resources and competencies are. Amazon is able to both engage in production at a lower cost and generate a superior product at a standard cost. This is accomplished mostly via Amazon's strategy of having a wide variety of goods and competitive pricing. Customers know they can find basic products at slashed prices or high quality goods at standard prices and this is all achieved via the enormous range of products and product brands and types available on their massive marketplace. For example, the depiction displayed in the case study which shows how growth was related directly to: lower cost structure- lower prices customer experience traffic sellers -selection and convenience. While this is a grave oversimplification of the Amazon business model, it demonstrates how many aspects of the strategy reinforced one another.

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

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

One of the companies that exploits opportunities and business ventures to create growth and sustainability is Amazon, Inc. Amazon was founded in 1994 and since then it has opted to take its business online and thus develop a global strategy that has paid off and turned the company into a technological business hub that serves consumers by offering an assortment of products and services in a noteworthy customer service. These strategies have made Amazon one of the leading online retailers with a revenue of US$ 88.988 billion as of 2014. This paper thus seeks to describe Amazon’s grand strategies of product development, market development, and concentration as part of its long-term growth strategy.

The Computer Hardware consists of dozens or more computers linked together by data communications hardware (Kroenke 11). Software roles would consist of hundreds of different programs that coordinate communications among the computers, along with other programs that help to streamline the process of picking, packing, and shipping products from the warehouse (Kroenke11). The system may store Data relating to customers’ orders, customers profiles from previous orders, product information along with inventory, among other facts relating to the shipping process. Hundreds of different Procedures are followed by customers, warehouse employees along with the shipping companies (Kroenke 11).The roles played by People include not only the users of the systems, but also those who operate and service the computers, also those who maintain the data along with those who support the networks of computers (Kroenke 11).

Amazon Web Services is a cloud computing platform which was to provide online services to websites (Rouse, 2014). Amazon is comprised of software development and customer service centers around the world (Rouse, 2014). At Amazon, workers are encouraged to tear apart one another’s ideas in meetings, toil long and late and held to unreasonably high standards (Kantor & Streitfeld, 2015).

Amazon focuses on global reach, putting customer first,, and extensive selection of products through its vision which is “To be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online” (Gregory 2016).

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

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,

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.

Given the lack of ability to inspect merchandise before purchase, consumers are at higher risk of fraud than face-to-face transactions. Merchants also risk fraudulent purchases using stolen credit cards or fraudulent repudiation of the online purchase. However, merchants face less risk from physical theft by using a warehouse instead of a retail storefront. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption has generally solved the problem of credit card numbers being intercepted in transit between the consumer and the merchant. However, one must still trust the merchant and employees not to use the credit card information subsequently for their own purchases, and not to pass the information to others. Also, hackers might break into a merchant's web site and steal names, addresses and credit card numbers, although the Payment Card

Amazon operates using a web-based platform to sell books.  The web-based model targets a global market, has reduced overhead costs and a shorter operating cycle as compared to brick and mortar businesses such as Barnes & Noble and Borders. Amazon’s online model has a superior inventory

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 Incorporated is company whose retail business is done exclusively online, formally known as electronic commerce or e-commerce. It was the book category that first caught the attention of founder Jeff Bezos, who realized that a Web store could offer more book inventory than an actual shop could offer (Cuneo, 2000). The idea was born and Amazon, a customer-centric company was created. Customer-centric is an approach that allows businesses to drive profits and gain competitive advantage by providing a positive customer experience not only at the point of sale, but also, after the sale (What is customer-centric, n.d.).