Amazon's Acquisition Of Whole Foods

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.

As of January 2010, Amazon.com has three times the Internet sales revenue of the runner up, Staples. By offering a large amount of varied categories through its website and other international ones (Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.co.fr, and so on), it has managed to grow to a customer based company with over 30 million people. In addition, the online retail format enables the company to reduce costs of managing inventory (Amazon.com; online bookstore, 2008).

Globalization is a growing part of everyday businesses. This is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments of different nations. With the world of online retail, the buying and selling to one person to another has grown drastically. There has also been a substantial change in technology and what we as people can do in today’s time rather than in the past. Amazon is a huge retail giant and buying and selling items is one of their key functions. The impact made on Amazon is nothing but an advantage. Amazon currently is the 56th largest company in America by market capitalization. Being one the largest retailer around, 15th in the nation at that, Amazon has made a name for themselves. Amazon has made some very substantial growths and with these opportunities they face they can make even more advances in the future. (Globalization 101, 2016)

Amazon’s fulfillment centers are valuable, rare, costly to imitate, and organized to captured value. Thus, they attribute to Amazon’s competitive advantage. Amazon Prime and 1-Click are also valuable to the organization. However, they can be replicated. Walmart launched a membership program to compete with Amazon’s Prime Service. With Walmart’s membership program customers receive free two-day shipping when they spend $35 or more on orders. Amazon Web Services is valuable, rare, costly to imitate and the organization has capture the value of it. Therefore, AWS has contributed to Amazon’s sustainable advantage. Amazon’s brand name and reputation have also given the company sustainable advantage. Amazon acquired enormous brand valuation in a short period of time. It is

[6] See Appendix B for more about the Whole Foods Foundation. As a result of the green movement, Whole Foods has added the 3R’s to their green mission: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.[7] See Appendix C for more about the Whole Foods green movement.

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.

Amazon has been able to maintain sustainable competitive advantage because the company has adopted cost leadership, differentiation and growth strategies.

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).

The case study of Amazon shows how the company grew from a humble beginning to become the world’s leading retailer operating virtually. The paper analyses the competitive advantage gained by the company through product and service diversification. The evolution of the company over time is its major strength and this agility has made it sustainable and successful.

Amazon managed to go from online bookseller to the largest retailer in the United States. Today, there's almost nothing Amazon doesn't sell. Today, online commerce saves customers money, and precious time, Bezos knows that by personalization it would create real value for its customers and, by doing so; I feel each of the efforts he selected were successful because his hopes to build an enduring franchise worked, even in established and large markets. Bezos has inspired a willingness to continually learn and adjust, which has helped Amazon rise to the top. There were risk factors identified in the report and suggested a long-term strategic solution to help mitigate it. Success doesn't happen overnight. Bezos original 1997 letter to shareholders provides a glimpse into the extraordinary focus the famous founder has maintained through the years, along with some excellent lessons for all who reads it He stresses those to keep moving forward look to the future and look for the long term. He believes that a fundamental measure of success will be the shareholder value we create over the long-term (Quittner, J. 2008). He understands the stronger the market leadership is; the more powerful our economic model

Retailers have adapted to the online marketplace out of necessity and opportunity. The great recession placed many retail companies in financial hardship and while some failed, others innovated and became some of the largest companies in America such as Amazon. A recent trend is consumers are buying more products online than ever before. As a consumer, I enjoy shopping in the convenience of my home and having the items delivered to my doorstep in 48 hours or less. Global internet access continues to increase, with mobile devices and affordable internet for the home, consumers will continue to shift and buy products online rather than in retail brick and mortar locations. Online sales in the United States have increased over 250% in the last ten years, accomplishing $250.0 billion in 2012 (Tehrani, 2014). Therefore, Amazon is in a solid market position to capitalize on the future trends and booming ecommerce

The first recommended strategic action is to focus on increasing Amazon’s brand products. The company can gradually start offering its customers more of their brand products. Amazon has already built a loyal customer base from all over the world and they must take advantage of this. According to Statista (2016), the company had over 31

Beyond the highly anticipated package delivery drones and the cashier-free grocery stores of Amazon, there are numerous business segments that help Amazon remain as one of the largest online e-commerce marketplaces. Amazon has set up an empire that has enabled it to continue with highly lucrative strategies and business opportunities that continually push it forward. “Amazon is at the beginning of an investment cycle,” one of Morgan Stanley’s financial analysts remarked and also stated “unclear how long this cycle is expected to last.”

Amazon.com opened for business in July 1995, nobody in that time was optimistic for this brand new business model. People still enjoy the physical store, and skeptical on online shopping. However, with more than a decade efforts, Amazon was named the world’s top brand ahead of common names like Coca-Cola, Microsoft, and so on. Amazon and its online business model had creased more than $34 billion revenue, and equally 80 million people visit Amazon.com every month. In order to achieve greater success, Amazon need to overcome the challengeable external environment, strengthen organization structure, fulfill the product line, and leverage its brand strategy.

The one constant worldwide activity is the buying and selling of goods and services. One of the leaders in retail is Amazon.com. A company that started in the infancy of the Internet as an on-line bookstore has grown to global market dominance from selling a large range of products with its Amazon Marketplace. As the company’s logo suggests, Amazon sells everything from A to Z. Amazon has used technology and innovation to change how the world shops and established the e-commerce industry as the growing trend for all retail business.