So in 1925, the company opened a brick-and-mortar store in Chicago. It was called the Sears, Roebuck and Co. Retail Store, and it was built inside the massive warehouse where Sears processed its catalog orders.” This shows that Sears was a brick-and- mortar store that only went out of business a few years ago; this is still happening today. Another example of this is in the article “The Rise of Amazon” on page 25 when Carro states “Today, many brick-and-mortar businesses are having trouble surviving in the world of online shopping. Over the past decade, many companies have struggled to stay afloat—or have gone out of business entirely.
The opinion piece published by the Los Angeles Times, “Amazon.com Is a 21st Century Deal with the Devil,” by Amy Koss states her central argument that Amazon is destroying jobs, malls, and stores in the outside world. I strongly disagree with the statement that Amazon is destroying jobs and stores because I believe Amazon brings convenience by allowing people to sell things they might not need that others do. According to Koss,” I also think that it is at the convenience of consumers who have a difficult time going outside because of a medical issue or if they’re just lazy because of the fact that they can order something and have it delivered to them in less than a few days with an even cheaper price tag. Online shopping on Amazon allows others to earn jobs as well because they might work from home and work for Amazon or they might deliver items to the consumer. Some people may even start their own online selling business on Amazon.
As a matter of fact, in 2015, CNN said, “Amazon is now the most valuable retailer in the world and its market value is about five times higher than Target’s”.(COME BACK TO THIS/Quote/Cited). In other words, Amazon is not only recognize as an online retailer but a store considered to be a replacement
Mistakes can often lead to large fines and loss of image in the customer's eyes. By complying with rules, this will lead Amazon to have long term e-commerce success. Technology also plays a big factor in whether or not Amazon will have success.
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.
We will also look at how Amazon builds trust with their customers to keep them coming back to shop. Additionally, this paper will analyze the internal strengths and weaknesses of each company and their strategies used to increase profitability and efficiency. By using each companies balance sheet, income statements, and financial ratio we will be able to see how each company is performing and if they are staying ahead of the competition. After looking at all aspects of both companies functionalities, we can the make recommendations of ways to improve their competitive advantage so that the companies continue to be front runners in their competitive markets. Mid-Term Exam Industry Overview
Amazon is number one in competing Walmart especially in online retailer and now opining fiscal stores starting with Amazon Campus store in 2015, available at several college campuses in US the Amazon Campus stores serve as a central hub where student retrieve deliveries from lockers and drop off returns, all free of charge. Over the past three years, while Walmart’s sales grew by 8.6 %, revenue at Amazon has nearly doubled. Then, Costco is also major competitor to Walmart, particularly to Sam’s because of its low price.
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.
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).
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).
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.
But the huge investments for it can be risky, due to low profit margins and sales reduction can cause effects on cash flow or new technology investments. Conclusion Amazon.com has been strong and steady since its foundation. Jeff Bezos openly claimed the mission statement to be the guiding force behind his decisions. It can be believed that the success of Amazon.com has been due to mostly, if not totally, their unwavering commitment to its mission and its implementation.
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).
Due to this, the portal is known to have specific days where they give massive discounts to their buyers. Competitors The giant companies that want to disrupt Amazon Amazon isn’t under attack from just start-ups, though. There are big companies with deep
Amazon It can be clearly seen that Amazon is the biggest, most influential online firm in this world today. Employing just over 154,000 employees it is easy to see how it is one of the most sought after firms that many people dream of becoming employed at. Or is it? Recently, questions have been circling the business world about Amazon and their treatment towards employees however this is only a one sided argument and if this was the case Amazon would not be the leading tech company it is today. It is constantly known for seeking only the highest skilled people but for a specific reason.
