Exploring Amazon: Ecommerce Platform Features & Benefits

E-commerce model

Describe about the Features of E-Commerce Company for Amazon.com.

This report deals with features of E-Commerce Company, amazon.com. Amazon is a multinational retail and E-Commerce Company that deal with various ranges of clothing, foods, gifts, and many more products, headquartered in the city of Seattle, Washington. Amazon is UK’s biggest retail group, especially in its fashion business and all kind of home furnishings. E-Commerce Company deals with four major market segments: C2C, B2B, B2C, and C2B. Amazon basically deals with B2C and B2B model of E-Commerce, where they offer various products to their customers (Amazon.co.uk. 2016). Recently electronic commerce company typically uses websites to deliver product through online shopping and provides a single platform to reach customers. This report analyses the features and benefits of Amazon and features of e-commerce. Amazon is working all over the world and delivers their product in global market. It is a platform that gives lots of variety to the customer for the same kind of product line, also allows comparing various products and the price of those products.

There are many electronic commerce models depends upon which company adopt which type of model to deliver their product to customers. Organization categorizes business model of e commerce sectors in four major parts: Consumer to Consumer, Business to Business, Business to Consumer, and Consumer to Business. Amazon uses Business to Consumer and Business to Business model to deliver their product to customers and allow various sellers to reach their target customers as well (Hartono et al. 2014). The business model for online retailer is often known as e-tailers and e-distributors. This depends upon the type of market Amazon focus on. Amazon in the Business to Consumer sectors focus on individual consumers and in Business to Business they target the seller to offer various product on their websites. A customer can view products directly on the website of Amazon and choose a product to order the same (Huang and Benyoucef 2013).

Figure 1: Business to customer model

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According to Huang and Benyoucef (2015), the main features of E-commerce Retail Company are to reach people at a mass to offer huge option for shopping. That reduces time and help people to shop from home. That reduces the effort of people in their day to day life. The seven unique feature of E-commerce is: Ubiquity, Global reach, Universal standard, Richness, Interactivity, Information density, and personalization.

Seven features of e-commerce (Amazon)

Amazon is characterized by its ubiquity, it is available almost everywhere. Amazon provides E-Commerce solution to the customers and gives their presence to every where through their websites (Qu et al. 2015). Customers can purchase products without going anywhere to physical stores or out let of the company and they can make purchase from their desktop only. Amazon offers product of many companies and brand in a single platform which help them to reach to their prospects and customer can also get their needs fulfilled. The ubiquity of Amazon lowers the cognitive energy that refers to mental effort required to complete the task.

Amazon allows business transaction on the global boundaries more easily reachable and more effective with respect to traditional business. The total number of customer Amazon can get depends on their reach to the global market. Without going any outlet Amazon help other brand and customer to reach a single platform to buy or and selling their product (Dorius and Alwin 2012). In contrast with traditional business, Amazon crossed national boundaries to global customer.

E-Commerce technology is an unusual technology that makes Amazon to deliver same standard of product to everyone locally or globally. Standard can greatly affect the market and also reduces the cost of delivery the products to the customers. Amazon’s product remains same to their every customer and the way they deliver that to the customer. Amazon is a E-Commerce giant, hence they maintain their standard worldwide. They are doing well in terms of quality of their product as various brand remains under same platform.

Advertisement and promotional activity is important to any business. Amazon can deliver the advertisement and promotional activity to the customer through the internet very effectively. And that advertisement help to sell product to the mass and that influence the customer to a great extent. One of the lacking is that the company and business are not able to reach the target people physically. The traditional business enjoyed the same but Amazon trying to reach mass by advertisements and offers they provide to customers.

Amazon selling activity or mode of selling is two way communications as both customer and seller can express themselves in a same platform as well. Customers get what they want to purchase and seller sells what they manufacture to satisfy the customers need and demand. Amazon tries to engage a consumer in a same way similar to face to face experience in global scale. It is not possible to meet customers physically if a company is dealing with E-Commerce Company so keeping in touch with customers and making the transaction interactive is one of the features of Amazon.

Ubiquity

The density of information affects the business that can be reduced through internet technology and reduces the information collection and processing cost (Speyer 2015). But it also increases the accuracy and information is more useful tool for the E-Commerce. Amazon reduces information search regarding various brands, processing of same and the communication cost as a result it increases the quality of search to fulfill the demand as required. Amazon can discover customer’s interest, at the same time company can offer same product with a competitive price to the cost sensitive customers. That helps Amazon to enhance their product in term of quality, cost and brand.

According to Bharati and Chaudhury (2015), Amazon customizes their website to reach people of various countries. They design the website according to the conveniences of the locals of that country. E-Commerce provides stronger customer relation through the personalized service as well. Personalized and customized offering of Amazon also helps them to increase the customer satisfaction level. This also permits Amazon to understand the consumer behavior through their past purchase and company offers them product accordingly. Amazon personalize low priced product of their customer but they lack in customizing high price products because the brands of high quality deliver their customized product to customer.

An E-Commerce company acquire above feature to enhance their business so that they can achieve their organizational goal and customer satisfaction (Bermudez et al. 2012). Amazon follows all the above features but lacks in some of the points and doing well in some of them.

Source: created by Author

Amazon as an E-Commerce company provides variety of product to all the customers nationally and internationally. This report found that Amazon:

• Provides wide range of product
• Is present in global market
• Provides personalized product
• Business model is very attractive to customers
• Fully working is internet market

Amazon is an E-Commerce giant need to concentrate on some of the part of their business. Amazon should create:

• Trust & Security
• User friendly websites
• Site speed everywhere
• Provide meticulous details
• Review and testimonial desk
• Feedback desk for complaint solution.

The required action plan for the Amazon is to concentrate on various plan. The basic factors that need to concentrate are: customer service, marketing, public relation, research and development. The figure below illustrates the following fields.

Table 2: Action plan

Source: Created by Author

Conclusion

This project concludes that Amazon has become an important part of daily lives in United Kingdom. The features that Amazon has making them a market leader in E-Commerce industry. Although with some of the lacking Amazon is trying to serve the customer with wide range of variety. This project also concludes that Amazon has presence in many country and they serve the customers of that country. Amazon is using their above mentioned features to make their business successful and getting customer loyalty as reward. Author concludes that with global presence Amazon is creating a benchmark for their competitor in a way to serve customer well.

References

Amazon.co.uk. (2016). Amazon.co.uk: Low Prices in Electronics, Books, Sports Equipment & more. [online] Available at: https://www.amazon.co.uk [Accessed 22 Mar. 2016].

Bermudez, G.M.T., Rojas, D.D. and Gomez, P.V., 2012, June. E-commerce model for the interaction of the links in the supply chain of the textile sector in Bogota Colombia. In 7th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI 2012).

Bharati, P. and Chaudhury, A., 2015. Product customization on the web: an empirical study of factors impacting choiceboard user satisfaction. Bharati, P. and Chaudhury, A.(2006),“Product Customization on the Web: An Empirical Study of Factors Impacting Choiceboard User Satisfaction,” Information Resources Management Journal, 19(2), pp.69-81.

Dorius, S.F. and Alwin, D.F., 2012. The global reach of egalitarianism: Worldwide trends in gender beliefs. Unpublished document, Iowa State University. Retrieved from https://​ www.​ soc.​ iastate.​ edu/​ staff/​ dorius/​ Cohort, 20.

Hartono, E., Holsapple, C.W., Kim, K.Y., Na, K.S. and Simpson, J.T., 2014. Measuring perceived security in B2C electronic commerce website usage: A respecification and validation. Decision Support Systems, 62, pp.11-21.

Huang, Z. and Benyoucef, M., 2013. From e-commerce to social commerce: A close look at design features. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 12(4), pp.246-259.

Huang, Z. and Benyoucef, M., 2015. User preferences of social features on social commerce websites: An empirical study. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 95, pp.57-72.

Qu, W.G., Pinsonneault, A., Tomiuk, D., Wang, S. and Liu, Y., 2015. The impacts of social trust on open and closed B2B e-commerce: A Europe-based study. Information & Management, 52(2), pp.151-159.

Speyer, A., 2015. Information Density as a Factor for Embedding A language-historical Study of Causal Clauses. SPRACHWISSENSCHAFT,40(4), pp.453-485.