Thursday, June 12, 2008

An example of an E-commerce success and its causes


With the changing trends of globalization and the advancement of modern technology, the development of e-commerce has boomed in the past few years. There are several examples which using e-commerce to do their business successfully such as eBay, Amazon.com and others.
I would like to talk about example of Amazon.com and its causes to success. Amazon.com, one of the pioneers of e-commerce, was launched by Jeff Bezos in 1994. Bezos initial plan for Amazon.com entailed a service that provided customers with access to an extensive selection of books, while eliminating the hassles for Amazon.com, associated with the time and expense required to build physical stores and warehouses, to purchase and house inventory.
Amazon.com is a very successful example of e-commerce business because of several reasons. Basically, there are three strategies that have helped Amazon.com to enhance its competitive advantage, including cost-leadership, customer differentiation and focus strategies. The first strategy, cost-leadership is pursued by Amazon.com by differentiating itself primarily on the basis of price. Due to this strategy, Amazon.com always makes sure that it offers the same quality products as other companies for a considerably less price. Their second strategy is customer diffentiation. Amazon.com provides current and prospective customers with differentiation though design, quality or convenience and Amazon.com always selects a differentiator that is different among the competitor. So, Amazon.com consumers can recognise and differentiate its product from competitors. The last strategy that it uses, is a focus strategy. This strategy takes one of the two earlier strategies and applies it to a niche within the market. Amazon.com fouses on outstanding customer service as a niche but not the whole market because each niche has its own demand and requirement.
Amazon.com strives to be Earth's most customer-centric company where people can find and discover virtually anything they want to buy online. By giving customers more of what they want which include low prices, vast selection, and convenience, Amazon.com continues to grow and evolve as a world-class e-commerce platform.

No comments: