Recommended: Growth and diversification of amazon
Transportation costs are significant and have kept some merchants from getting into Canadian e-commerce market. However, increasing number of Canadian and U.S.-based retailers are taking on the challenge, establishing and investing in their e-commerce capabilities in the country. U.S.-based retailers including Amazon.com Inc., Best Buy Co. Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. BMO Capital Markets, in a research note that estimated Canadian web sales of retailers, ranked Amazon.com Inc. as the No. 1 e-retailer, and Amazon.ca (Amazon’s site for Canadian consumers) as the
Many states within the United States have passed online shopping sales tax laws which have been designed to compel Amazon and other e-commerce retailers to collect both state and local sales taxes from their customers. In 2011, it was noted that Amazon only collected sales tax from five states, however in April of 2017, it was said that the company must collect sales tax from consumers in all states that currently have sales taxes. ANALYSIS OF STRATEGIC FACTORS In a December 2011 article written by Forbes contributor, Venkatesh Rao, he states that “the company [Amazon] is nothing if not deliberate and systematic in everything it does.” Rao goes on to say, unlike the other big companies that symbolize our times – Google, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft, Amazon did not rise to power by inventing a new product or service.
Walmart has succeeded in achieving the leading position in the retail industry. Walmart now stands as the biggest retailer in the world. However, the external factors constitute pressure on the company that must be address carefully. By analyzing the five forces of external factors we will define the nature and power of our rival power in the market. The five factors are competitors from rival, potential new entrants, substitute products, supplier bargaining power and customer bargaining power all of these competitive forces affecting Walmart position.
‘Is Wal-Mart Good for America?’ On PBS Frontline, May 11, 2015 ‘Is Wal-Mart Good for America?’ is a documentary that examines the relationship between Wal-Mart’s rapid growth and its impact on the US economy ever since it blossomed in trade productivity in the mid 20th century. The documentary, published on February 2014 by PBS Frontline, conveys a deep understanding of how Wal-Mart changed the living standards of many Americans and took consumerism and retail logistics in the U.S. to another level; by cutting costs through offshore outsourcing to China and employing cheap Chinese labor. The documentary focuses on the changing relationship between big retailers and manufacturers and the transition in pricing and decision-making.
Walmart, Amazon, and EBay 1. Analyse each of these companies using the value chain and competitive forces models. The value chain model of Amazon in itself is internally and operationally the best that adds value and maintains competitive advantage. The primary activities include Inbound logistics for example quality control, receiving, raw materials, control and supply schedules; Operations for example packaging , maintenance, quality control; Outbound Logistics for example
In the ever changing business environment, there are both internal and external influences which affect the operations and management of a business. It is up to the business on how they deal with the effects of each influence and this will ultimately determine the success of the company. The internal influences are factors which the business has direct control over, one of these being the location. The location refers to the geographical situation of the business and has a high level of impact over how the business will function. It can become a make or break factor, depending on how well the business utilises and addresses the visibility, cost and their proximity to suppliers, customers and to support services.
Amazon’s competitive strategy is cost leadership. Amazon has achieved a lot on a great scale that it gets the best prices from its vendors so they can operate in very flexible and thin margins and sell their items easily at retail prices and make money. They also provide shipping products for a reasonable cheap price. They also have improved their warehouses by giving some space to other sellers who want to sell their items through Amazon. They differentiate and provide better quality than their competitors across the industry.
Analyze Amazon.com using the competitive forces and value chain models. How has it responded to pressures from its competitive environment? How does it provide value to its customers? a) Competitive forces analysis i) Entry of competitors It is easy for competitors to enter the market by establishing an e-shop and Amazon laid the groundwork for competitors (Flat World Business, n.d).
5 – Main risks going forward for Amazon.com are to loose its competitive advantage because of opportunities that Internet offered to its competitor : low prices, deliver, costumer’s service, etc. Moreover, if the business develops, it may encounter logistical problems and limits : geographical and logistical constraints (energy, delivery and connection and some contries) and legislative constraints (censorship, taxes and state agreement : Corea, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, etc). Founded in 1994, Amazon started as an online bookstore and quickly became popular as it received high marks on several Internet rankings. Today, Amazon.com, Inc. is the world's largest online retailing company headquartered in Seattle, WA
They are the prominent general retail stores with a physical presence. Both of these retailers have emerged as e-commerce centric due to the early adoption of e-commerce strategies. However, even those retail chains proved to be of no use to generate a tight competition with Amazon. In the long run, the growth of the e-commerce versions of these supply chains can pose a threat to Amazon. (Wahba, Phil) Advantages for an Amazon Customer Amazon adds value for money for the customer.
Amazon has achieved many milestones from starting in the founder’s garage in 1994 to the growth in revenue to US$147.8 million in 1997 and then to the revenue growth of US$177.866 billion in 2017 (Amazon, 2018a, Amazon, 2018b and Jurevicius, 2018). These milestones were achieved through tenacious focused strategies of meeting their customers’ needs and wants. These strategies have maintained and expanded their customer base locally and internationally and have increased its market shares and profit over the last two decades. In addition, projection for the company’s growth and expansion for the next three to five years looks positive as it predicted to grow at the same rate with its expansion internationally and continued focused in satisfying consumers’ wants (Amazon, 2018a). Although, some factors such as governmental policies, legal issues and natural disasters could pose a threat to Amazon’s growth plans, the management team led by the founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) are working on mitigating the risk (Amazon, 2018a).
3.3 Customers and Competitors Customers Amazon customers consist of upper & middle class social groups who have inclination towards using E-commerce portals and are comfortable with online shopping. Majority of the customers are professionals or businessmen who are busy with their business/Job & find it convenient to purchase anything online rather than visiting the physical outlet in order to save time & money. Furthermore, the customers might also be the ones who are searching for deals.
Today, many people prefer to order products from Amazon instead of going to stores or malls. c. DESCRIPTION OF MY SUBJECT (AMAZON.COM): Amazon (Amazon.com) is the world’s largest online retailer and a prominent cloud services provider. The company was initially a book seller, then later it expanded to sell a wide variety of consumer goods and digital media as well as its own electronic devices, such as the Kindle e-book reader, Kindle Fire tablet and Fire TV, a streaming media adapter (Rouse, 2018).
Not only this, great offers and discount coupons are available while shopping on these online retail markets. VARIETY OF PRODUCTS Get all sorts of national and international products without even moving an inch. This is great! Isn’t it? A Chanel’s perfume bottle which is made in Europe will be easily available in any part of India.
Because a shopper has thousands of online stores to choose from, larger shipping stores compile products from smaller sites to make it more accessible for the buyers. Although online stores—like Amazon— have many benefits, they are altering the culture to be fast paced and impatient. The largest online site, Amazon, ships 1.6 million packages daily to destinations all around the world (Weller). It is estimated that one in four Americans have an Amazon Prime account (Weller).
