When we dive into the world of online shopping, one of the most popular names that come to our mind is Amazon. With an ambitious vision to be one of the most customer-obsessed companies in the world, Amazon strives to sell every authentic product at the lowest possible prices. The diversity of products offered by Amazon is one of the key factors leading to its grand success in the online retail sector.
The brainchild of Jeff Bezos, this company was born in the year 1994 in Seattle, Washington. Starting off as a small online bookseller platform in the founder’s tiny garage, this company has evolved into a giant platform selling a huge selection of products ranging from videos, audios, cloud services, stationery, beauty and health products and even groceries, kitchenware, toys etc fulfilling the inventor’s vision of making this internet-based enterprise an agent of e-commerce domination. To sustain this massive growth Amazon needed private investors to facilitate the expansion.
At present, the second largest shareholder after Jeff Bezos is Andrew Jassy who is also the CEO of Amazon web services, which operates on leadership, differentiation smart business strategy.
Much of the credit is given to Amazon’s and focus. With a comprehensive business model, strong logistics and first priority on customer satisfaction, which are some of its biggest strengths (very distinctly covered in the SWOT analysis of Amazon) this online shopping platform lies much ahead of its competitors leaving top-notch retailers like Walmart and Alibaba behind.
The Amazon application designed with personalized tools has enabled the customers to indulge in easy online shopping. Consumer history allows the customer to reselect certain products purchased in the past by keeping records of their choices. The grand combo offers on many items is a huge attraction for many middle and upper-middle-class customers who harp on affordability. Its customer-centric initiatives, a huge selection of brands and efficient delivery networks enhanced their customer loyalty as well as profit margins.
With the launch of the Amazon Web Services in 2002 which enabled online video streaming service, Amazon created history by allowing individuals and companies to rent computing resources over the internet. Services like the S3 and the EC2 launched by AWS is also used by Amazon’s biggest rival Netflix.
Amazon Web Services maintains its position as the king of cloud infrastructure. With its broadest range of use cases like e-business hosting, general business application, Amazon has a vast range of extensive network of partners offering professional services such as data center migration. AWS is a favorite among the consumers with its reasonable pricing and does enjoy first mover’s advantage in the cloud space with significant market share.
The advent of Amazon Kindle in 2007 was a revolution in the history of reading. It allowed access to a million online books within a tablet screen hence introducing the millennial craze of e-reading. In 2009, Amazon introduced its very own self-publishing line to resolve its conflict with the publishers. It was called AmazonEncore which allowed individuals to publish their own e-books. This line was also dedicated to old and out of print books.
Today Amazon offers a variety of different services such as Amazon Alexa, Amazon Echo, Fire tablets, Kindle store, Amazon music, etc. This intelligent business strategy to sell its own products has helped this enterprise to recover its losses due to product flops, near zero margins and free delivery. The competitive analysis of Amazon covers this business diversification of Amazon in details and dives into their competitors for each of these business segments.
In June 2013, Amazon entered the online portals of India by launching its first website in the country called Amazon.in which received 50,000 orders on the first day itself. In a very short period of time, Amazon India has become a force to reckon with in the Indian e-commerce space. Amazon India currently offers millions of products on its platform and has millions of registered users. Amazon India has been facing stiff competition from home-grown e-commerce companies such as Flipkart and Snapdeal. The primary competition for the Indian e-commerce market is currently between Amazon India and Flipkart. Nevertheless, it continues to rule the e-commerce market of not only India but the world.