PRACTICAL ASSIGNMENTMINI

PROJECT OF SUMMER TRAINING

KMBN – 151

SUBMITTED TO SUBMITTED BY

PRIYA CHOPRA ARORA VAIBHAV BHANSALI

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR MBA BATCH - 2022-2024

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

―No Learning Is Possible Without Proper Guidance‖

This entitled “SUMMER TRAINING PROJECT” cannot be complete without a

word of thanks to those who have provided invaluable support and
guidance that leads to its successful completion. I acknowledge with
sincerity and a deep sense of gratitude, given to me by my guide and
Faculty mentor PRIYA CHOPRA ARORA – ―AssistantProfessor”.

Her suggestion and discussion were enlightening and a constant source of

inspiration during the project work. His guidance and support encouraged
me for the betterment of the project. Last but not the least, I would like to
take the opportunity to express my thanks to all colleagues for their help.

NAME : VAIBHAV BHANSALI

AKTU ROLL NO :

SIGNATURE :

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 Particulars Page no
Title Page i.
Certificate of Training from Company ii.
Certificate from Faculty Supervisor iii.
Certificate from Head of the Institute iv.
Acknowledgement (Duly signed by the Candidate) v.
Executive Summary viii
Table of Content
Introduction
Industry Overview

Organization Overview – (Name, Logo, Mentor, Nature & Industry etc. 8

Organization brief – Type of business, Market share, Products, etc.
Major functions and brief summary of operations and offerings
Organization Structure – diagram)
Literature Review 24
Problem Statement & Objective of the Study 27
Research Methodology 31
Analysis 38
Recommendations 45
Future Scope and Limitation of the Study 61
Conclusion
Bibliography in APA format
Appendix (No page numbers)

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 AMAZON
Amazon.com is a customer centric company. They put more effort in improving their system to make the
experience of customer more comfortable so that he keeps on returning to the website. Jeffery Bezos who is
the founder of the Amazon.com started this company after seeing the use of internet increasing rapidly. The
company was started in year 1994. According to Bezos, the company tries to solve a very hard problem by
understanding how can they serve the consumer better and thus try to convert the problem into straight forward
problem. When Bezos started his business, there were different reviews about this business like they say that
they don‘t have their own products but they sell other companies products, so they are a hindrance to
innovation for other companies. There were many negative reviews about the company being posted on their
website but Benzos wasn‘t concerned about those comments. Acc to Bezos, amazon.com doesn‘t make money
when they sell, but they make money when they help customers in choosing the product they want to buy.
According to Bezos, as the company grew from nothing to a successful organization you not only figure out
how to do but what to do. And this happens as the company grows from a one many company to large
company. So as the company grows bigger you figure out different ways to convince consumers. (Gregory T.
Huang. (2010)

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Amazon.com Inc (Amazon) is an online retailer and web service provider. The company provides products
such as apparel, auto and industrial items, beauty and health products, electronics, grocery, games, jewelry,
kids and baby products, music, sports goods, toys, and tools. It also offers related support services including
home delivery and shipping, cloud web hosting and other web related services. Amazon merchandises its
products through company-owned online and physical platforms. It also manufactures and commercializes
various electric devices such as Kindle e-readers, fire tablets, fire TVs, echo, Alexa and other devices. The
company allows authors, musicians, filmmakers, and others to publish and sell content. Amazon is
headquartered in Seattle, Washington, the US.

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Market Share

 Amazon saw a boost in revenue of 35% in the first three quarters of 2020. (Forbes, 2021)
 Interestingly, in Q3 of 2020, Amazon announced an increase in 37% of net sales, hitting $96.1
billion in revenue. (Amazon, 2020)
 Besides, in the most recent years, Amazon has recorded steady growth in net revenue. To illustrate,
2016 ($135 billion), 2017 ($177 billion), 2018 ($232 billion), and 2019 ($280.52 billion). (Amazon,
2021)
 As of July 2020, Amazon‘s market value had reached $1.49 trillion. (Forbes, 2020)
 In 2020, Amazon‘s projected share of the retail e-commerce markets in the U.S. was at 47% and is
predicted to increase to 50% in 2021. (Fortune, 2017)
 Amazon‘s global retail e-commerce sales are expected to decrease slightly to 15.9% or $468.87
billion in 2021. (eMarketer, 2020)
 By 2021, Amazon is projected to reach 39.7% in market share or $302.36 billion in U.S retail e-
commerce sales (eMarketer, 2020).
 In 2019, U.S. e-commerce sales figures reached $602 billion. Amazon sales comprised 36.9% of all
U.S. e-commerce sales during this year. (Digital Commerce 360, 2020)
 In 2020, Amazon ranked as the top U.S. company in retail ecommerce sales, capturing 38.7% of the
market. It is followed by Walmart (5.3%) and eBay (4.7%). (eMarketer, 2020)
 However, when it comes to gross merchandise value (GMV) of global online marketplaces, Amazon
only ranked third, generating $339 billion in 2019. The top spot went to Taobao with $538 billion in
GMV. (Digital Commerce 360, 2020)
 Amazon has a catalog of 12 million products across all categories and services. (RepricerExpress,
2021)
 Factoring in the Amazon Marketplace, there are 353 million products available on Amazon.
(RepricerExpress, 2021)
 The Amazon product category with the most number of global keywords is electronics (70
keywords) followed by home (12), media (7), miscellaneous (6), clothing (4), and food (1). (Visual
Capitalist, 2020)
 Getting down to the finer details, electronics (44%) are the most frequently bought product on
Amazon. Others in the list include: clothing, shoes & jewelry (43%), Home & Kitchen (39%), beauty
& personal care (36%), books (33%), cell phones & accessories (28%), movie & TV (25%), pet
supplies (20%), sport & outdoors (17%), grocery & gourmet food (15%), automotive parts &
accessories (13%), and baby products (9%). (Feedvisor, 2019)
 Also, Amazon has a large market share across different categories. The categories include electronic
(89.9%), home improvement (83.8%), food (81.8%), sports, fitness & outdoors (89.6%), household
essentials (88.8%), and health/medicines (92%). (Feedvisor, 2019)
 The top product category for Amazon sellers is home and kitchen, which accounts for 45% of
products listed on the platform. (JungleScout, 2020)
 There is no doubt, Amazon‘s market size will continue to grow. Currently, the retailer ships products
to more than 100 countries outside the United States. (Insider, 2020)
 Amazon has more than 1.2 million employees, 427,300 of which were hired during the pandemic.
(New York Times, 2020)

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  For every eCommerce dollar spent by a U.S. consumer, Amazon earns a whopping 50 cents. (The
Philadelphia Inquirer, 2019)

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  By 2021, Amazon is projected to reach 39.7% in market share or $302.36 billion in U.S retail e-
commerce sales (eMarketer, 2020).
 In 2019, U.S. e-commerce sales figures reached $602 billion. Amazon sales comprised 36.9% of all
U.S. e-commerce sales during this year. (Digital Commerce 360, 2020)
 In 2020, Amazon ranked as the top U.S. company in retail ecommerce sales, capturing 38.7% of the
market. It is followed by Walmart (5.3%) and eBay (4.7%). (eMarketer, 2020)

Type Of Business
The highly profitable division of Amazon provides servers, storage, networking, remote computing, email,
mobile development, and security. AWS can be broken into three main products: EC2, Amazon's virtual
machine service, Glacier, a low-cost cloud storage service, and S3, Amazon's storage system.

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Amazon Web Services (AWS), the cloud platform offered by Amazon.com Inc (AMZN), has become a
giant component of the e-commerce giant's business portfolio. In the second quarter of 2021, AWS brought
in a record $14.8 billion in net sales, accounting for just over 13% of Amazon's total net sales. Having
grown steadily in the 30% range the past few quarters, AWS is a frontrunner to other cloud computing
platforms such as competitor Microsoft Azure.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

 As the lead cloud computing platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the primary profit driver
for Amazon.
 AWS provides servers, storage, networking, remote computing, email, mobile development, and
security.
 AWS accounts for about 13% of Amazon's total revenue as of Q2 2021.
 Amazon controls more than a third of the cloud market, almost twice its next closest competitor.

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What Is AWS Exactly?

AWS is made up of many different cloud computing products and services. The highly profitable division
of Amazon provides servers, storage, networking, remote computing, email, mobile development, and
security. AWS can be broken into three main products: EC2, Amazon‘s virtual machine service, Glacier, a
low-cost cloud storage service, and S3, Amazon‘s storage system.

AWS is so large and present in the computing world that it's far outpaced its competitors. As of the first
quarter of 2021, one independent analyst reports AWS has over a third of the market at 32.4%, with Azure
following behind at 20%, and Google Cloud at 9%.2

AWS has 81 availability zones in which its servers are located. These serviced regions are divided in order
to allow users to set geographical limits on their services (if they so choose), but also to provide security by
diversifying the physical locations in which data is held. Overall, AWS spans 245 countries and
territories.3

Cost Savings

Jeff Bezos has likened Amazon Web Services to the utility companies of the early 1900s. One
hundred years ago, a factory needing electricity would build its own power plant but, once the
factories were able to buy electricity from a public utility, the need for pricey private electric plants
subsided. AWS is trying to move companies away from physical computing technology and onto
the cloud.

Traditionally, companies looking for large amounts of storage would need to physically build a
storage space and maintain it. Storing on a cloud could mean signing a pricey contract for a large
amount of storage space that the company could "grow into". Building or buying too little storage
could be disastrous if the business took off and expensive if it didn‘t.

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The same applies to computing power. Companies that experience surge traffic would traditionally
end up buying loads of power to sustain their business during peak times. On off-peak times—May
for tax accountants for example—computing power lays unused, but still costing the firm money.

With AWS, companies pay for what they use. There‘s no upfront cost to build a storage system and
no need to estimate usage. AWS customers use what they need and their costs are scaled
automatically and accordingly.

Scalable and Adaptable

Since AWS‘s cost is modified based on the customers‘ usage, start-ups and small businesses can
see the obvious benefits of using Amazon for their computing needs. In fact, AWS is great for
building a business from the bottom as it provides all the tools necessary for companies to start up
with the cloud. For existing companies, Amazon provides low-cost migration services so that your
existing infrastructure can be seamlessly moved over to AWS.

As a company grows, AWS provides resources to aid in expansion. As the business model allows
for flexible usage, customers will never need to spend time thinking about whether or not they need
to reexamine their computing usage. In fact, aside from budgetary reasons, companies could
realistically ―set and forget‖ all their computing needs.

Security and Reliability

Arguably, Amazon Web Services is much more secure than a company hosting its own website or
storage. AWS currently has dozens of data centers across the globe that are continuously monitored
and strictly maintained. The diversification of the data centers ensures that a disaster striking one
region doesn‘t cause permanent data loss worldwide. Imagine if Netflix were to have all of its
personnel files, content, and backed-up data centralized on-site on the eve of a hurricane. Chaos
would ensue.

In fact, localizing data in an easily identifiable location and where hundreds of people can
realistically obtain access is unwise. AWS has tried to keep its data centers as hidden as possible,
locating them in out-of-the-way locations and allowing access only on an essential basis.

The data centers and all the data contained therein are safe from intrusions, and, with Amazon‘s
experience in cloud services, outages and potential attacks can be quickly identified and easily
remedied, 24 hours a day. The same can‘t be said for a small company whose computing is handled
by a single IT specialist working out of a large office.

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Criticism of AWS

While the success of AWS is unquestionable, critics of the service say Amazon is abusing its
control of the market share by engaging in anticompetitive behavior. This criticism has come from
open-source database makers who claim Amazon is copying and integrating software that was
originally created by other tech companies.

One such company, Elastic, filed a lawsuit against Amazon for allegedly violating trademark laws.
A statement released by the company claims "Amazon‘s behavior is inconsistent with the norms
and values that are especially important in the open-source ecosystem." As of August 2021, the
results of this lawsuit are pending.4

The Bottom Line

Amazon Web Services is a cash cow for Amazon. The services are shaking up the computing
world in the same way that Amazon is changing America‘s retail space. By pricing its cloud
products extremely cheaply, Amazon can provide affordable and scalable services to everyone
from the newest start-up to a Fortune 500 company.

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Retail

 Amazon Marketplace. Amazon's e-commerce platform enables third-party retailers to

showcase and sell their products alongside Amazon items.

 Amazon Fresh. Amazon's grocery pickup and delivery service is currently available in nearly
two dozen U.S. cities and a few international locations. A grocery order can be placed through
the Amazon Fresh website or the Amazon mobile app. Customers can either get their groceries
delivered or visit the store for pickup.

 Amazon Vine. Launched in 2007, Amazon Vine helps manufacturers and publishers get
reviews for their products to help shoppers make informed purchases.

 Woot. Acquired by Amazon in 2010, Woot offers limited time offers and special deals that
rotate daily. This shop features refurbished items, as well as new items that are low in stock.
Prime members get free shipping.

 Zappos. Amazon bought Zappos in 2009. This online retailer of shoes and clothing carries a
wide range of brands, including Nike, Sperry, Adidas and Uggs.

 Merch by Amazon. This on-demand T-shirt printing service enables sellers to create and
upload their T-shirt designs for free and earn royalties on each sale. Amazon does the rest --
from printing the T-shirts to delivering them to customers.
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 Amazon Handmade. This platform enables artisans to sell handcrafted products to customers
around the world

Consumer technology

 Amazon Kindle. Amazon's first e-reader, Kindle, enables users to browse, buy and read e-
books, magazines and newspapers from the Kindle Store.

 Amazon Fire tablet. Previously known as Kindle Fire, Amazon's popular and high-profile Fire
tablet competes with Apple's iPad.

 Amazon Fire TV. This line of Amazon's streaming media players and digital devices delivers
streamed video content over the internet to a paired high-definition television.

 Amazon Alexa. This cloud-based, AI-powered, voice-controlled personal assistant is designed

to answer queries, interact with users, and perform other tasks and commands.

 Amazon Echo. This is one of Amazon's smart home devices that comes equipped with a
speaker and connects to Alexa. Amazon Echo can perform several functions, including talking
about the weather, creating shopping lists and controlling other smart products, such as lights,
switches and televisions.

 Amazon Echo Dot. A smaller, puck-shaped version of the original Amazon Echo, an Echo Dot
can be placed in any room and can answer questions, play music, and read news and other
stories.

 Amazon Echo Show. As part of the Amazon Echo line of speakers, the Amazon Echo Show
works similarly through Alexa but also offers a 7-inch touchscreen display to play videos and
music and conduct video calls with other Echo users.

 Amazon Astro. This is Amazon's first home monitoring robot that works with Alexa. It is
designed to help with various household tasks, such as home monitoring, caring for the elderly
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 through notifications and alerts, and following owners from room to room to play TV shows,
music or podcasts.

Subscription services

 Amazon Prime. This subscription service provides members access to exclusive shopping and
entertainment services, discounts and more. As an example, all Amazon Prime members enjoy
free one-day or two-day shipping on qualifying orders.

 Amazon Prime Video. This is Amazon's on-demand video streaming service that offers a
selection of about 24,000 movies and over 2,100 TV shows. This service is included with an
Amazon Prime membership.

 Amazon Drive. Previously known as Amazon Cloud Drive, Amazon Drive is a cloud storage
app that offers 5 gigabytes (GB) of free and secure online storage for photos, videos and files for
Amazon customers. Amazon Prime members get free, unlimited, full-resolution photo storage,
along with 5 GB of video storage.

 Twitch Prime. A monthly subscription service, Twitch Prime is a subsidiary of Amazon Prime.
It gives members premium access to Twitch -- a video streaming platform that offers a fun and
social way to watch people play games.

 Amazon Music Prime. This is Amazon's music streaming service that is free for Prime
members.

Digital content

 Amazon Pay. An online transaction processing platform, Amazon Pay enables Amazon account
holders to use their Amazon accounts to pay external online merchants.

 Amazon Music Unlimited. Amazon's premium music service costs $8.99 a month for Prime
members and $9.99 for non-Prime members.

 Kindle Store. Part of Amazon's retail website, the Kindle Store can be accessed from any
Kindle device to purchase e-books.

 Amazon Appstore for Android. Amazon's app store for the Android operating system enables
users to download games and mobile apps to supported devices.

AWS

 S3. This is Amazon's scalable, cloud-based object storage. Files are referred to as objects in S3
and are stored in containers called buckets.

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 Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS). SQS is a pay-per-use web service that is designed to
provide access to a waiting message queue where messages can reside until a computer
processes them.

 Amazon EC2. This web service interface provides scalability with resizable compute capacity
in the AWS cloud. Users can run virtual servers or instances, commonly known as EC2
instances, that can be scaled up or down, depending on the network requirements.

 Amazon S3 Glacier. Amazon S3 Glacier is a low-cost cloud storage service for data that might
be associated with longer retrieval times. It also offers data archiving and backup of cold data.

 AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM). IAM provides secure and controlled access to
resources.

 Amazon Redshift. This data warehouse in the cloud enables users to query petabytes of both
structured and semistructured data using standard Structured Query Language queries. For
example, to address the expanding volume of transactions, Nasdaq moved from a legacy on-
premises data center to the AWS cloud, which is powered through the Amazon Redshift cluster.

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Amazon AI services

 Amazon SageMaker. A fully managed cloud machine learning platform, Amazon

SageMaker enables developers and data scientists to build, train and deploy machine learning
models for predictive analytics applications.

 Amazon Lex. This service for building conversational interfaces into any application using
voice and text is powered by the same technology as Alexa.

 Amazon Polly. A text-to-speech service, Amazon Polly uses deep learning technology to
convert text into spoken audio. It includes 60 voices across 29 languages.

 Amazon Rekognition. This software-as-a-service facial recognition and analysis platform uses
a deep learning algorithm to process images and extract information from them.

 AWS DeepLens. This programmable video camera enables developers to easily experiment
withmachine learning, AI and the internet of things.

 Alexa Voice Service. This programming interface provides developers with a set of C++
libraries to add Amazon Alexa's speech and other capabilities into their applications and devices.

 Amazon Transcribe. This service converts speech to text quickly and accurately by using a
deep learning process called automatic speech recognition.

 Amazon Translate. Amazon Translate is a cloud service that can convert large amounts of text
written in one language to another language.

 Alexa Skills Kit. This software development kit enables developers to build skills or
conversational applications on Amazon Alexa.
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Amazon privately owned brands

 AmazonBasics. This is Amazon's privately labeled, low-budget brand that mainly sells kitchen,
tech and household products.

 Amazon Elements. This line of domestic products includes health and personal care items, as
well as nutritional supplements.

 Mama Bear. This private label of Amazon sells baby wipes, newborn through size 6 diapers,
baby food, diaper pail refills and baby laundry detergent.

 Presto!. This brand started as a laundry detergent in 2016 but has added household paper towels
and toilet paper to its product line.

 Amazon Essentials. A Prime-exclusive program, this clothing line offers basic wear for men,
women, babies and kids, with additional options for family, big and tall, and athletic activity.

 Happy Belly. This private label of Amazon was introduced in 2016 and sells snack food items.
In February 2019, the brand also began offering milk delivery services.

 Goodthreads. This menswear apparel line is available exclusively to Amazon Prime members.
The label offers both casual and professional pieces and is deemed a bit higher quality and more
stylish than the Amazon Essentials brand.
From online shopping to subscription services to publishing, Amazon offers products and services
in a multitude of industries.
Notable Amazon subsidiaries and acquisitions
From healthcare to entertainment, Amazon has acquired multiple companies by tapping into a
variety of sectors over time.

Following is a list of Amazon's notable acquisitions and subsidiary companies:

 IMDb. The world's most popular database for movies, TV, celebrity, video games and streaming
online content was acquired by Amazon in 1998.

 Audible. Audible, a book and spoken audio content provider, was acquired by Amazon in 2008
for $300 million.

 Zappos. Amazon acquired this online shoe and clothing retailer in an all-stock deal worth $1.2
billion in 2009.

 Twitch. A social media and video game streaming platform, Twitch was purchased by Amazon
for $970 million in 2014.

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 Whole Foods. Food, beverage and organic grocery store chain Whole Foods was acquired by
Amazon for $13.7 billion in 2017.

 Ring. Amazon took ownership of this home security and smart home company in 2018 for $1
billion.

 Zoox. An autonomous vehicles, robotics and transportation company was acquired as a wholly
owned subsidiary by Amazon for $1.2 billion in 2020.

 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Amazon acquired this film and TV studio for $8.5 billion in March
2022.
Amazon controversies and criticisms
Amazon has suffered a massive backlash over the years from multiple sources. The tech giant is
also being held responsible for creating the Amazon effect -- the evolution and disruption of the
retail market due to the company exhibiting monopolistic behaviors.

Following are a few concerns and allegations that Amazon has faced over time:

 Monopolistic and anticompetitive behavior. Due to Amazon's size and economies of scale, it
has been outpricing local and small shopkeepers and is accused of displacing an open market
with a privately controlled one. This is leading to the slow death of the brick-and-mortar store
model built by companies such as Sears and J.C. Penney.

 Unfair treatment of workers. Amazon is frequently under the microscope for providing unfair
work conditions in its warehouses, including treating workers as robots, providing low wages
and creating unsafe work conditions.

 Huge carbon footprint. Over the past two decades, Amazon has been accused by
environmental activists of having a staggering carbon footprint. Transport of any merchandise
relies on oil, and since Amazon delivers anything everywhere, it leaves a long-lasting carbon
footprint that automatically falls on its shoulders.

 E-waste. A recent investigation conducted by British television network ITV uncovered how
Amazon is contributing to the world's e-waste crisis by destroying millions of unused or
returned products. This also includes millions of electronics, such as phones, computers and TVs
that are toxic to soil, water, air and wildlife.

 Counterfeit product listings. Amazon has been under scrutiny by brands, shoppers and
lawmakers as counterfeiters have been listing and selling fake products on Amazon through its
third-party marketplace. To crack down on counterfeit products on its site, Amazon destroyed 2
million counterfeit products sent to its warehouses and blocked 10 billion fake listings in 2021.

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 Avoiding taxation. Edging fast toward a monopoly status, Amazon has been criticized for often
avoiding tax payments despite making huge profits. According to a report by the Institute on
Taxation and Economic Policy, the company avoided around $5.2 billion in corporate federal
income taxes in 2021.
Amazon finances
According to a news release posted on Amazon's investor relations website, Amazon experienced a
significant increase in net sales but a decrease in operating income in the first quarter of 2022.

Following are some notable statistics from the release:

 Net sales increased 7% to $116.4 billion in the first quarter, compared with $108.5 billion in the
first quarter of 2021. Excluding the $1.8 billion unfavorable impacts from year-over-year
changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, net sales increased 9% compared with
the first quarter of 2021.

 Operating income decreased to $3.7 billion in the first quarter, compared with $8.9 billion in
the first quarter of 2021.

 Net loss was $3.8 billion in the first quarter compared with net income of $8.1 billion in the first
quarter of 2021.

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Literature review

Shifting from traditional marketing into online marketing has allowed people to share their
experiences about various aspects of those products using textual comments known as Product
Reviews. As a result of this shifting, people are able to access various websites where they can find
reviews for all kind of products, even the rare ones. Thus, these reviews act as a supplementary
information and help people to make the right decision before buying products. Reviews that
influence one's decision are considered influential reviews, as they provide truthful experiences.
Given the list of reviews for a certain product, each user can vote for any given review as helpful or
unhelpful. As a result, each review would be given a number that represents how many users found
this review helpful. This would indicate how influential each review is. As a result, buyers rely on
these reviews and those who wrote these reviews. This study emphasizes on the importance of using
user votes as an important source of information for new users. The contribution of this work lies in
two aspects. First, it provides a comprehensive statistical analysis of a previously-published dataset
containing Amazon reviews. Second, this study insists on the importance of using user votes. This
study is the first phase for many future interesting directions. It was shown that the relationship
between the number of reviews and the percentage of votes is an inverse relationship.

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The number of internet users is increasing every day and this increased growth has created
opportunities for global and regional e-commerce. This number is expected to reach 445 million
users in 2020. Amazon (Amazon.com) is the world's largest online retailer. The company was
originally a book seller but has expanded to sell a good sort of commodity and digital media also as
its own electronic devices; Jeff Bezos incorporated the corporate as Cadabra in 1994 but changed
the name to Amazon for the web site launch in 1995. Amazon is headquartered in Seattle,

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Washington. Amazon operates in India as Amazon India subsidiary. The purpose of this study is to
understand the consumer's perception towards online shopping. For this study detailed literature
survey was conducted. The existing literature available on e-commerce, online shopping and
various studies on consumer perception were referred. Consumer perception regarding online
shopping is directly dependent on a number of factors, price of the products, and security of the
products. Guarantees and Warranties, followed by delivery time and reputation of the company,
privacy of the information and convenience. Amazon offers best prices, good products, and
completely hassle-free shopping experience for its customers. Barriers for online shopping are
inability to touch and try product, fear of faulty products, inability to bargain, risk of breach of
financial details

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Problem faced by amazon
1. Compromised Cash Flow

Amazon has a strict structure around payouts. Usually, the payouts are made every two weeks. On the
other hand, vendors need to pay to acquire/produce inventory that they later sell on Amazon and other
channels. Many manufacturers in China, for example, expect a 25% payment upfront.

The manufacturing process, coupled with shipping, customs clearance, and Amazon payout cycles could
mean a merchant gets paid after 3-4 months post the advanced payment for obtaining the goods. This
way, the Amazon sellers are subject to long periods of time before they achieve any return on their
investment in inventory.

Cash flow is certainly one of the massive challenges faced by Amazon merchants that sell on Amazon.
One solution to this problem is setting up one‘s own sales channels such as an e-commerce store. This
way a merchant can retain control over sales and also be the direct recipient of payouts anytime a sale is
made. This also helps in eliminating Amazon as an intermediary in the payments process. More details of
how Amazon charges for its services can be found later in the article.

2. High Degree of Competition

Another one of the key challenges faced by Amazon sellers is that it allows a large number of sellers to
sell the same product. At the same time, the barrier to entry for sellers on the Amazon platform is
extremely low.

Unless the merchants are selling an exclusive product, they are always competing with a large number of
other players. The excessive competition also makes it typically hard to be discovered by enough
customers to convert more sales. The said competition isn‘t just local. Out of the 900,000 Amazon sellers
registered in the United States, almost 38% of them are based out of China where manufacturing goods is
a lot cheaper giving them an opportunity to penetrate the market with lower prices.

In fact, in 2020, 2/3rd of all Amazon FBA sellers interviewed in a survey expressed concern and fear
over the increased competition leading to a steep decline in prices.
Having one‘s exclusive sales channels and marketing mediums provides merchants a chance to create a
unique positioning for their products and go one step further in building the brand that they wish to.

3. Packaging Restrictions

Amazon has strict guidelines on how products must be sent to the Amazon Fulfillment Centers. The
company has over the years suggested certain box sizes and deviations from them could either slow
down the process or worse, may render the entire consignment improper. In the latter case, the items are
sent back to the merchant and all costs associated with the activities completed previously are borne by
the merchants.

The challenges faced by Amazon company sellers here are the charges for both the delivery and the
return from the Amazon warehouse are paid for by the Amazon FBA sellers. This also poses a major
opportunity cost since the inventory stuck in transit/inspection could have been sold on other channels.

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There are various other reasons why Amazon could reject shipments such as unaffiliated shipping
partners, failing to meet Amazon pallet requirements, cancellation due to delay, etc.

Both FBA and FBM merchants are bound by policies that dictate their packaging process. The packaging
process typically consists of two pillars, the labeling and the actual packaging of individual products and
the consignments sent out to the Amazon Fulfillment Centres. Amazon expects each merchant to follow
international labeling standards for their manufacturing labels, Amazon labels (such as FNSKU), and
brand owner labeling (to prevent counterfeiting of high-value items).

Amazon sellers also have a choice to let Amazon produce labels for their individual product units.
However, the FBA Label Service may turn out to be costly for low-margin products as Amazon
charges about £0.15 or $0.20 for each unit it generates and places a label on.

Once the merchant has taken care of the labeling and the barcodes, the next step is to adhere to all the
packaging requirements for selling on the Amazon platform. Amazon has rigid guidelines around loose
products, sets, boxed units, polybagged units, and case-packed products where each box with the same
product must have the same number of units and the same SKUs. This ends up adding to the operational
complexity and the costs associated with the fulfillment process.

One of the another problems faced by Amazon sellers is that Merchants do also have the alternate FBA
Prep Service, where Amazon prepares the consignments to be sent to the Fulfillment Centers and
properly packages the products. However, the cost of this service can range anywhere from $0.95 to $3
and isn‘t available for each category of product.

Similarly, merchants can also choose to buy the recommended packaging material from providers of
Amazon Preferred Packaging, but, this again isn‘t cheap and may not be suitable for lower margin
products.

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4. Strict Inventory Expectations

One of the biggest Amazon challenges is that Merchants on Amazon are expected to maintain prescribed
levels of inventory at all points. Too little inventory with high turnover means frequent stockouts. High
levels of inventory that doesn‘t liquidate for longer periods of time means high storage charges and
penalties imposed by Amazon. Both situations tend to impact a seller‘s performance on the Amazon
marketplace.

Businesses in today‘s age need an algorithmic forecasting and recommendation system to attain optimal
inventory levels based on historical inventory and sales data. This helps companies save on inventory
holding costs and drive higher customer satisfaction and retention.

Amazon doesn‘t just have restrictions around inventory levels but it uses a metric called Inventory
Performance Index (IPI) to assess a seller‘s handling of inventory. The metric is based on the 12-month
performance of four components, excess inventory, sell-through rate, stranded inventory, and in-stock
inventory.

There are quite a few disadvantages associated with a low IPI score. First, Amazon sellers with lower IPI
scores may have their products show up lower in the search results. This leads to them losing their
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product positions to their competitors in an already highly competitive environment. A lower IPI score
can also lead to sellers losing on the Amazon Buy Box leading to other vendors for the same being
prioritized in the product page on the platform.

The problem faced by Amazon sellers is that they may also lose their Amazon Prime status making their
listings less appealing to the consumers in the age of rapid and expedited deliveries. This way, an
Amazon seller is totally dependent on Amazon for how well their products are discoverable to the
consumers and if they get the Amazon Prime tag.

Currently, due to the COVID-19 pandemic that has caused severe disturbances to inventory and supply
chain operations, the recommended IPI score is between 300-700. However, as of the 2021 Holiday
Season, Amazon has also started using the IPI to prescribe certain limits on the restock quantity and the
storage space allocated to a fba seller with some sellers only being allowed up to 25 cubic feet worth of
inventory.

Vendors with IPI scores of less than 500 are subject to losing out on allocated storage space and are
supposed to operate under the limits imposed on them. There is no way a merchant can appeal these
restrictions and has to wait till the next quarter when the inventory performance is reassessed and new IPI
scores are computed.

5. High Amazon Fees

The last but not least in this Amazon challenges list is that Amazon charges medium to high Amazon fba
fees for its services at every step of the process. These charges range from one-time to regular. As these
charges pile up, some Amazon FBA sellers have even recorded up to 53% of their entire revenue going
to Amazon in the form of various fees and charges. Even for the FBM or Fulfillment-by-merchant
model, sellers have had their Amazon-related costs as high as 27% only for the product listing and any
search ads they may have run.

First-off, Amazon charges 39.99 for setting up an Amazon seller account for ‗Professional Sellers‘. This
is a recurring monthly payment irrespective of the number of products and volume of sales. Additionally,
merchants must also pay the referral fee or commonly called the commission. This ranges anywhere
from 6-45% depending on the retail price and the product category.

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The referral fee is bound by the ‗Minimum Referral Fee‘ which sets the lower threshold for the
commission in each category. The Minimum Referral Fee is typically 0-2% depending on the category.
The biggest contributor to the costs is by far the fulfillment fees under the Amazon FBA program.
Amazon clubs the picking, packing, and shipping costs as one and it is to be paid for by the merchants.

These costs can range anywhere from $2 to $6.8 in the US depending on the size, weight, and category
of the products. Additionally, a lot of sellers do fall prey to the storage fees if their inventory is not
liquidating quickly enough. Amazon normally charges $.75 per cubic foot for most parts of the year but
during the October-December period, the charge is around $2.4 per cubic foot of storage space used. In
order to keep up with the demand and the competition during this period, sellers end up paying exorbitant
amounts towards storage that hampers their profitability.

To top it all, it is becoming increasingly difficult for merchants to rank higher on search results without
the use of paid advertising. 3 out of 10 top results on Amazon are normally the products being promoted
for the keyword/category. In fact, Amazon earned over $9.7B from their advertising segment only in
2021. This leads to sellers bearing more costs in addition to their regular promotion and marketing
spends.

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Research methodology of amazon

1.Information System:

In 1995 Amazon used website system and order fulfillment system separately in order to
improve security. By 1995 amazon has huge database running on Digital Alpha Servers. Amazon
renovated the entire system in the year of 2000. Company spent $200 million on the new system.
DBMS from oracle. (Gerald, 2012)
For communication with supplies amazon seal deal with Excelon for business-to-business
integration system. (Konicki, 2000) . Amazon Web Service (AWS) and Simple Storage Service(SS)
are the main system developed by amazon. Through this system amazon can maintain its vast
number of products and millions of active customers.
Amazon web service has become a global platform for individual to retailers to sell their
products. Through reliable, Scalable, and robust web service amazon creates a global
domination. The challenges of amazon.com web services are very prominent. Every second
thousands of customers are searching. For products and ordering products, the systems have to be
fast, reliable and secured. Every second CRM (Customer Relation Management) system is taking
customer information though their searching, data mining, wish list and so on. Whatever customer
buys or not they are providing information about them. Systems are smart enough to analysis the
information and provide service accordingly. For tracking fraudsters amazon.com built a system
known as SAS( Smart Analysis Search).This system decrease and detect fraud in the web site by
analyzing behavioral pattern. SAS allows amazon.com to measure and personalize customer and
help to serve customer effectively.
(Kantardzic, 2003)

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Amazon.com is information system based on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). SOA is fully
distributed and decentralized service platform enables amazon‟s information system to be robust
and scalable. SOA concentrates in multiple application rather than bigger process.

2.Transaction Processing System:

Every customer has his profile in amazon.com or must have a profile in order to order any
product. Amazon offer many features to personalize their profile with web tools like shopping cart,
wish list.
2.1. 1-click purchase:
Amazon brings 1 click ordering, personalized shopping services and easy to use card transaction,
e-mail communication with customers and direct shipping around the world. (1999 Annual
report) Customer with previously activated functionality can order items clicking only one button
without fulfilling order form. Amazon„s secured server automatically provide the information
required for the registered customer. (Annual report 1998)

2.2. Secure Credit/debit card payment:

information, credit card number and everything is encrypted in order to secure information over
internet.
3. Recommendation System:

Amazon developed an intelligent recommendation system which recommends items by

customer‟s past purchases and searching data. This system store every order made by customer.
For example if a customer buy a fiction book then the recommender system will recommend related
books to the customer. The system is basically based on ―linking‖ and ―Data mining‖.
recommendation. This enhances the browsing experiences of the customers because this acts as an
interactive platform between website and customers which help maximum customer
satisfaction.
3.1. Interactive searching System:
Amazon provides interactive searching option to the customers. Customer can select desired
items catalogs to find the item. Millions of items can be gained by searching tools. (Annual
Report 1998)

4. Supply Chain Management (SCM):

spent good amount in order to build automated warehouse and automated supply chain
management. (Jenkinson 2005, business week 2003) All the supply chain activities are controlled
by CRM system. (Gabe 2010)

4.1. Enterprise Resource Management (ERP System):

Amazon uses oracle as the ERP. It has huge database which hold information related to
customer. Customer‟s ordering process is automated as the order is taken as it automatically find
the nearest distributing center for the delivery. (Bacheldor, 2004)
This system fastens the order fulfillment process with the order tracking and reduces any
distribution mistakes. By this system the company reduced 50% of its customer service contacts
since 1999 because of fewer mistakes. (BusinessWeek, 2003)

4.2.Customer Relation Management (CRM):

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In order to gain customer satisfaction and loyalty amazon use Customer Relationship
Management system (CRM). CRM system follows the following application to collect
information of the customer.
All personal information of customers their credit card record, transaction record, order record,
profile, their past purchase history are collected in the database.
The order processing system takes care of the transaction record with secured transaction method
and it delivers instruction to the delivery system for the execution of shipment.
Through customer feedback, customer interest, wish list, product reviews web page system
collect customer information.

Automated communication is ensured with customers through e-mail and massage systems and
order information systems. (Jenkinson, 2005; Hottovy, 2011) With the CRM system amazon
successfully integrates customer sales, services and communication. (Jenkinson 2005; Manjoon
2011)

II.Part 2: Business strategies applied for internet activity In early stage of the amazon.com‟s
journey, the business strategy of amazon.com was very
simple and forward. Their one and only strategy was to sell books to the customer through
online. They invested to the customer and offer them a huge collection of books through online.
―From the beginning our focus has been on offering our customers compelling value. We
realized that the web was and still is the World Wide Web. Therefore we set out to offer
customer something they simply could not get any other way and began serving them with the
book.‖ -Jeff P. Bezos (shareholder‟s letter 97)
Amazon.com attracted customers by offering 1-click shopping, low price and increasing

1.Smart Innovation Strategy:

The main reason of the successful journey of amazon.com so far is the innovation strategy of the
company. Amazon.com started the business by offering DVDs and CDs alongside books.
In the following year they brought auction theme to the customer. Their strategy was to provide
customer better experience of auction by protection from the fraud to the bidder though this
strategy did not bring success to the company.

Amazon followed B2C (Business to Customer) model. But it again changed its strategy and
transformed from direct sales business model to sales and service model. Through this model
amazon‟s target group was customers and other business group.
Amazon.com offered small business group to use amazon web service and platform to offer their
product to the customers. Amazon took commission on each sell of other retailer‟s product.
Through this service amazon created eco system in the market. Through „Amazon
Associates Program‟ amazon created and developed partnership with customers and
businessman. Theprimary goal of the program was to acquire new customers to boost the sales on
Amazon.com.

Amazon instead gave them its affiliates a revenue share. (ISCKIA and LESCOP)
This allowed amazon to extend it market place into a broad section from a single product. There
was a change in model in Amazon business strategy. It was a cyber- book store and with the
affiliates and association of the other retailer and being a platform to the others it became a
cyber-market.

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2.Customer Relation Management Strategy: When a customer first enter into Amazon.com
he/she is provided „ Featured Product‟ by the
website, But when the customer visit for the second time the recommender system automatically
provide products by studying customer interests and personality.
Customer acquisition and retention has been the most priority to Amazon.com‟s strategy.
Through web site Amazon maintain sophisticated communication that automates the process of
creating value for the customer. (Jakinson and sain)

Jeff Bezos 3 big idea –

1. Limitless inventory

2. Customer Care

3. High margin, lowest price. (FABERNOVEL)

3.Limitless Inventory:

When amazon started offered books to the customers. But over the period it increased its
products from books to music, movie, cloud storage, gaming and many more. Poter mentioned three
district sources-

1. Serving few needs of many customer

2. Serving broad needs of few customer

3. Serving broad needs of many customers. (Porter, 1996)

Initially amazon was followed first source of serving with few products. But it changed its
strategy over time and now it fits into third sources.

4. Customer Care:

―If you do build a great experience, customer tells each other about that. Word to mouth is very
powerful‖ - Jeffry p. Bezos One of the success factors of amazon.com is word of mouth. Because
of excellent customer service customers trusted Amazon. They used to talk about Amazon.com to
other. This spread rapidly by creating increasing traffic on the web site.

5.High Margin, Lowest Price:

Amazon.com provides products significantly cheaper than its competitors. One of the main
visions of Amazon.com is based on the long term plan. (1997 Stockholder report) This makes easier
for amazon to take risk of low profit in order to succeed in future. An estimate shows how it is
possible for amazon to become profitable with lowest price. A product on average gets sold in
33 days through amazon.com. On the other side it competitors like best buy took 70 day to sell the
product. (FAVERNOVEL)
Amazon keeps the best-selling product to its own stock and longer tail items to third party sellers
stock. This gives an advantage to the company.

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6.Marketing and Promotion Strategy:

customer loyalty. To gain so amazon.com undergone various promotional method. Public

relation activities, online and traditional advertising including radio, television and print media are
the prominent.

7.Associate Program:

To boost the customer traffic and rate of sale amazon.com started a associate program with
customers and small businessman. Approximately 200,000 websites have enrolled in the
associate program. (Annual report 1998)

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III.Part 3: e-CRM cycle Conducted for internet Activity:
Customer Relationship Management
In today‟s business world CRM is no longer considered as a trend rather as a standard
requirement. For competitive advantage and increased revenue, in most of the case with effective
CRM every company have resulted increasing revenue and profit as well as greater customer
loyalty.

1. Electronic Customer Relationship Management:

The application of CRM to internet based e-commerce business is the basic concept of electronic
CRM (E-CRM). Pan (2003) said ―e-CRM provides the ability to capture, integrate and distribute
data gained at the organization‟s website throughout the enterprise.‖ In today‟s world e-
commerce platform does not bind itself in single channel rather expanded toward multichannel
using internet, web browser, e-mail, PDA, smartphones etc. e-CRM solution supports
marketing, sales and service of the rapid growing online based business.
A recent study revealed that a 10% gain in repeat customer arise 10% to the revenue of the
company. (Scullin, Allora, Lloyd, Fjermestad)
Amazon.com successfully integrated CRM system. Amazon innovated number of approach to
gain and satisfy customer through the implementation of electronic customer relationship
management.
No one in the world better understand to their customer better then amazon. This yields
maximum revenue to amazon.com over the competitive world and kept always 1-step ahead of its
competitor like e-bay, best-buy.

2. How amazon implement CRM:

Amazon has extensive implementation of customer relationship management. Each and every
customers are taken in account in amazon.com.

2.1 Customer Selection:

Customer selection part through Amazon.com website has given amazon a extra benefit in order to
boost their business. Amazon uses numerous methods to select customer by knowing their customer
behavior. Amazon‟s early target was people who love books. But days its target market is vast and
challenging. Amazon through their website, PR strategy target people to motivate them to use
amazon.com.

2.2 Customer Acquisition:

2.2.1 Customer account:

Every customer buying through amazon.com has his/her profile in amazon website.
Amazon.com creates a database to store the account, information of the customer, credit/debit
account.

Through the customer account amazon knows about the customer, their personality and last of all
can satisfy them.

2.2.2 Wish List, review system:

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Amazon always encourage customer to add favorite items to the wish list. This helps amazon to
know better about the customer. Product review by customer not only be help customers to find and
select product but also acts as direct marketing event for amazon.com.(Jerkinson and sain).
Amazon allows making connection in between the customer, communicating and viewing their
interest help to amazon to gain customer trust and initiate world of mouth.

In the first 3 month of 2000, amazon acquired 3 million new customers without any investment.

To satisfy customer amazon uses information acquired through customer account, wish list etc.
Amazon brought number of system to satisfy customer. 1-click ordering has been an excellent
system innovated by amazon which revenue less than 20 sec to enable purchase. (Jenkison and sain)

2.3 Customer Retention:

Amazon.com emphasizes customer retention over just acquisition. An analysis shows

back to purchase product in amazon.com. Amazon does retain customer very smartly and sincerely
by satisfying its best buyer through good service and effective communication.

dollars building great customer analysis and 30% shouting about it.

Integrating lean advertising, service and selling amazon acquires customer and through great
customer experience it retain the customer.

2.4 Customer Extension:

The market place is very competitive even for amazon.com with competitor like e-Bay, bestbuy
breathing very behind amazon. Customers now days get every single distraction through other
competitor‟s service and brand value. It is very challenging to every retain customers When people
ask me if our customer are loyal I say, ―Absolutely right up to the second somebody else
service, trust factor, brand value initiate them rapid and growing customer popularity. About 70% of
amazon‟s customer trust amazon and recommend amazon to their friend [Jenkison and sain]
Amazon integrated communication in between customers. This helped amazon to retain even
extends

IV. Part 4-Recommendation for Amazon.com:

Amazon.com is the ultimate online retailer around the world. Its nearest but not even close
competitors are e-bay and best buy. But the competition is growing day by day.

1. Competing in the market:

Like past, amazon in future will have to come up with special something. The global market is
changing day by day. Business competitors are investing large to take amazon down. There is no
room for relaxation. It is very challenging and has to be consistent in the market to be number one
retailer shop.

2. Innovation of new Product:

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It is essential for amazon to think out of the box and bring new products to satisfy and retain
ustomer to be loyal to amazon.com. Amazon always offered its customer better quality and
better service. But in future it may not be the same. People in today‟s world ask for more.
Amazon has to be smart enough to understand the customer need before even customers know about
it.
3. Integration of New Technology:

Technology is making progress like the spread of light. Company like „amazon‟ needs to be
adaptive and technology friendly to retain its domination in the market. Amazon‟s new
technology of Drone delivery system indicates it is planning and investing significant amount of
money in technology for near future.

4. Customer Loyalty:

For a upward revenue stream customer loyalty is essential.. Amazon‟s most of the buyers are its
repeat customers who are loyal to amazon. But growing competition can be a risk to amazon‟s
loyal customer.

5. Global Expansion:

Amazon is expanding its business around the world. But this may cause significant strain in
number of sectors like management, inventory, supply system and more over to amazon‟s market
place. ―We may not be successful in our efforts to expand into international market segment‖
(annual report 2013)
International market is very challenging because of political and economic conditions.
Upgrading e-CRM and investing more towards customer information for better understanding the
customer needs and behavior is essential.

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Analysis of amazon
Amazon is the world‘s leading online retailer and its success has spurred other physical, brick, and
mortar retailers to have an online presence. It is often referred to as the online equivalent of Wal-
Mart because of its reach and global footprint as well as its aggressive pricing strategies.

Amazon can leverage on several opportunities in the emerging markets and can ensure that its
global supply chain of networked warehouses deliver substantial value for itself and its
stakeholders.

Further, Amazon has to rethink its business model of operating at close to zero margins and the fact
that the company has not returned a decent profit in the last five years gives it much room for
improvement.

Strengths

 Being the world‘s leading online retailer, Amazon derives its strengths primarily from a
three-pronged strategic thrust on cost leadership, differentiation, and focus. This strategy has
resulted in the company reaping the gains from this course of action and has helped its
shareholders derive value from the company.
 Amazon primarily derives its competitive advantage from leveraging IT (Information
Technology) and its use of e-Commerce as a scalable and an easy to ramp up platform that
ensures that the company is well ahead of its competitors.
 One of the key strengths of Amazon is that it enjoys top of the mind recall from consumers
globally and this recognition has helped it enter new markets, which were hitherto out of
bounds for many e-Commerce companies.
 Using superior logistics and distribution systems, the company has been able to actualize
better customer fulfillment and this has resulted in Amazon deriving competitive advantage
over its rivals.

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Weaknesses

 In recent years, Amazon as part of its diversification strategy has been ―spreading itself too
thin‖ meaning that it has allowed its focus to waver from its core competence of retailing
books online and allowed itself to venture into newer focus areas. While this might be a good
strategy from the risk diversification perspective, Amazon has to be cognizant of losing its
strategic advantage as it moves away from its core competence.
 As Amazon offers free shipping to its customers, it is in the danger of losing its margins and
hence, might not be able to optimize on costs because of this strategy.
 Considering the fact that Amazon is an online only retailer, the single-minded focus on
online retailing might ―come in the way‖ of its expansion plans particularly in emerging
markets.
 One of the biggest weaknesses and something that has been oft commented upon by analysts
and industry experts is that Amazon operates in near zero margin business models that have
severely dented its profitability and even though the company has high volumes and huge
revenues, this has not translated into meaningful profits for the company.

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Opportunities

 By rolling out its online payment system, Amazon has the opportunity to scale up
considerably considering the fact that concerns over online shopping as far as security and
privacy are concerned are among the topmost issues on the minds of consumers. Further, this
would improve the company‘s margins as it lets it reap the advantages of using its own
payment gateway.
 Another opportunity, which Amazon can capitalize on, relates to it rolling out more products
under its own brand instead of being a forwarding site for third party products.

In other words, it can increase the number of products under its own brand instead of merely
selling and stocking products made by its partners.

 Amazon can increase the portfolio of its offerings wherein it stocks more products than the
norm currently which places it in a position of strength and comfort as this can translate into
higher revenues.

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  The fourth opportunity, which Amazon has, is in terms of expanding its global footprint and
open more sites in the emerging markets, which would certainly give it an edge in the uber-
competitive online retailing market.

Threats

 One of the biggest threats to Amazon‘s success is the increasing concern over online
shopping because of identity theft and hacking which leaves its consumer data exposed.
Therefore, Amazon has to move quickly to allay consumer concerns over its site and ensure
that online privacy and security are guaranteed.
 Because of its aggressive pricing strategies, the company has had to face lawsuits from
publishers and rivals in the retailing industry.

The obsessive focus on cost leadership that Amazon follows has become a source of trouble
for the company because of the competitors being upset with Amazon taking away the
business from them.

 Finally, Amazon faces significant competition from local online retailers who are more agile
and nimble when compared to its behemoth type of strategy. This means that the company
cannot lose sight of its local market conditions in the pursuit of its global strategy.

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Conclusion

Amazon has its task cut out as far as its future strategies are concerned and this SWOT Analysis can
provide a guide and a roadmap that the company can implement going forward.

The key take away from this SWOT Analysis is that Amazon has to focus on profitability and not
volumes alone if it has to be competitive in the future where volumes and market leadership are not
alone to add value to its stock.

Observation of amazon

Amazon.com just announced a new online platform focused on industrial and commercial
customers. With more than 500,000 products and expertise in e-
commerce, AmazonSupply.com should not be discounted as a competitor in the industrial
distribution space.

Amazon has been selling many of these products for quite some time now – acting as a distributor
itself by selling products directly from manufacturers, as well as serving as an online platform for
distributors looking to expand their reach. But AmazonSupply.com is what appears to be its first
formal and most aggressive foray into the industrial distribution space.
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It‘s good timing for Amazon. Many of the largest MRO distributors say that their online sales have
grown at a rapid clip over the past few years; what‘s more, online customers tend to have a larger
average order size than other customers.

Here are a few initial observations on Amazon‘s new initiative:

The Opportunity
A good number of blogs online are touting AmazonSupply as a new platform for ―garage geeks.‖
They‘re missing the point. AmazonSupply is designed to go after a B-to-B marketplace worth tens
if not hundreds of billions of dollars depending on the products you include in the MRO market
basket.
While I‘m sure consumers will make up some of the new platform‘s business, the real opportunity I
see is capitalizing on what Grainger, MSC and other large MRO distributors call ―unplanned spend‖
for MRO supplies. Grainger has put the percentage of unplanned spend for MRO as high as 75
percent of all purchases in the category. That‘s a huge opportunity.
―One thing that‘s unique about MRO as compared with other spend categories is that most of the
purchases within MRO are unplanned, which makes it really difficult to manage. So it‘s an area
where customers really need the help of a strong supplier,‖ MSC COO Erik Gershwind told MDM
Associate Editor Jenel Stelton-Holtmeier last year. (See: MDM Interview: MSC Positions for Long-
Term Growth)

The Experience
From its news release, we can surmise that the focus for Amazon is on low prices, product breadth
and fast shipping. That‘s always been Amazon‘s niche. Services or expertise in any of the 500,000+
products they are offering are not the focus here.
"We're excited to offer a wide range of items, from basic supplies like drill bits and automatic hand
dryers to hard-to-find parts like laboratory centrifuges and miniature polyimide tubing, enabling
business and industrial customers to streamline their buying processes," said Prentis Wilson, vice
president of AmazonSupply, in the news release today.

AmazonSupply offers free 365-day returns, corporate lines of credit and a dedicated customer
service center and technical help. Along with the online e-commerce site, AmazonSupply says
companies can order via phone or fax. AmazonSupply also offers offer two-day free shipping on
qualified orders of $50 or more, and has a guaranteed accelerated one-day shipping option, as well.

The Interface
Will an amazon.com experience work for B-to-B? It already is. Most people have bought something
for their businesses at amazon.com. The company is well-known for making it very easy to buy
things and get those things very quickly. And as we've said in past blogs on mdm.com, consumers'
knowledge based on purchases they've made online for personal purposes does affect what they
expect when they go online to purchase product for their businesses. (See: In 2010, Most Customers
Expect What grainger.com Has)
This new site, targeting industrial and scientific supplies, has been customized to fit what B-to-B
customers have come to expect. They didn‘t mimic their consumer interface. Instead, what you see
at AmazonSupply.com feels more like a grainger.com or mcmaster.com or any of the newer e-
commerce sites we‘re starting to see from industrial distributors.

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Amazon benefits from having a lot of experience online, which means the learning curve will be
less steep than it may be for some distributors just now starting out with an e-commerce platform.
Amazon knows best practices in e-commerce site design. The new website includes common
features such as customer reviews and a section highlighting what other customers also viewed. It
also includes a feature allowing customers to track their orders. And search engine optimization will
continue to be a priority for Amazon, as well.

MDM will continue to cover the potential impact of Amazon‘s latest move in industrial markets in
the coming weeks and months in MDM Premium. Learn more about MDM‘s premium twice-
monthly newsletter, which features original in-depth analysis of the wholesale distribution industry.

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RECOMMENDATION OF AMAZON
―Judging by Amazon‘s success, the recommendation system works. The company reported a 29%
sales increase to $12.83 billion during its second fiscal quarter, up from $9.9 billion during the same
time last year. A lot of that growth arguably has to do with the way Amazon has integrated
recommendations into nearly every part of the purchasing process…‖

Amazon, being the the multi-billion dollar behemoth a lot of online retailers look up to makes them
the perfect company to watch and learn from.

Amazon has a heavy focus on data-driven marketing. If you see them testing something and then
rolling it out, you can bet it‘s getting them great results.

In 2015, they generated 107.1 billion in net revenue.

They have billions of data points to test so many different things to find out what works and what
doesn‘t, quickly. Over the years we‘ve been watching the way Amazon does recommendations both

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on-site and off, via email. Plus we also found out that their recommendations via email convert
better than their on-site recommendations…

And that bit of information got us very excited…

“Amazon also doles out recommendations to users via email… In fact, the conversion rate and
efficiency of such emails are „very high,‟ significantly more effective than on-site
recommendations. According to Sucharita Mulpuru, a Forrester analyst, Amazon‟s conversion to
sales of on-site recommendations could be as high as 60% in some cases based off the performance
of other e-commerce sites.”

Not surprising though as email was once again regarded as the best digital channel for
ROI by Econsultancy.com

35% of Amazon.com’s revenue is generated by its recommendation engine. (source) So

what’s their strategy?

Amazon uses recommendations as a targeted marketing tool in both email campaigns and on most
of its web sites‘ pages. Here are the different ways they are currently using recommendations:

On-site Recommendations

1) “RECOMMENDED FOR YOU, THOMAS”

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Clicking on the ―Your Recommendations‖ link on Amazon.com leads users to a page full of
products recommended just for you. Amazon recommends a range of products from different
categories you’ve been browsing, with the aim of putting products in front of you that you‘re
likely to click, learn more about and buy.

2) FREQUENTLY BOUGHT TOGETHER

This recommendation has one main goal: increase average order value. ‗Frequently bought together‘
recommendations aim to up-sell and cross-sell customers by providing product suggestions based
on the items in their shopping cart or below products they‘re currently looking at on-site.

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3) YOUR RECENTLY VIEWED ITEMS AND FEATURED RECOMMENDATIONS –
INSPIRED BY YOUR BROWSING HISTORY

Here Amazon looks at products you‘ve been browsing and recommends very similar products of
different shapes, sizes and brands to help you find something very similar to a product you‘ve
already shown an interest in. They throw different brands, colours, shapes and sizes at you with the
hope that they‘ll place one product in front of you that you cannot resist.

4) BROWSING HISTORY

If you‘ve already looked at a product, it means you were slightly interested and Amazon knows it,
so they‘ll show you your browsing history in case you want to quickly go back and buy something
you previously showed an interest in.

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5) RELATED TO ITEMS YOU‟VE VIEWED

Just as it says, Related to items you‟ve viewed displays similar products in different sizes, brands,
etc., to products you‘ve looked at in the past. This has the same goal as point #3 (to help you find a
product you have to buy), but Amazon has labelled it differently on their site.

6) CUSTOMERS WHO BOUGHT THIS ITEM ALSO BOUGHT

Similar to #2 (frequently bought together), Amazon displays items that have been purchased
together in the past, with the goal to increase average order value through up-sells and cross sells.
My guess is that these items are purchased together a little less often than ‗frequently bought
together‘ and is a way for Amazon to sell items that are not as popular to help retailers move their
inventory.

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7) THERE IS A NEWER VERSION OF THIS ITEM

People love to upgrade their gadgets to the latest version and this recommendation appeals to that
need. If I look at the old Kindle I bought on Amazon.com, there is a recommendation underneath
the invoice letting me know there is a newer version of the product that I can upgrade to. It‘s almost
like a replenishment campaign but for an electronic device… Smart.

8) RECOMMENDED FOR YOU BASED ON A PREVIOUS PURCHASE

After I purchased a Kindle from Amazon.com I was taken to an ‗order details‘ section. Underneath
it they recommend a variety of different cases for the exact Kindle I had just purchased in an
attempt to encourage a second purchase with a highly relevant cross-sell offer.

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9) BEST-SELLING IN “CATEGORY” – „DISCOVERY‟

Amazon.com recommends category top sellers for shoppers looking to try the new and latest
products. ‗Best-selling‘ adds a social proof element to the recommendation, that ‗other people are
doing it and so should you‘. Best sellers from a specific product category help people find popular
products and buy from new categories they may never have purchased from before, which opens up
someone to a whole new range of up-sell and cross-sell opportunities.

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Off-site Recommendations with Email

Kwasi Studios wrote up a great post on the email follow up they received after browsing ‗Point and
Shoot‘ cameras on Amazon.com.

Here are examples of the recommendations Amazon proceeded to send them via email:

1) “THIS WEEK‟S BEST SELLING CANON MODELS”

The first email was a range of best selling models from a product category they visited. As only
Canon models were showcased in this email, you can be sure they were browsing that brand of
Camera on-site or even added a Canon camera to their shopping cart.

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2) “THIS WEEK‟S BEST SELLING KODAK MODELS”

The following email was another ‗best selling‘ recommendation from the same category (cameras),
but showcased the Kodak camera brand the user would also have been browsing. Amazon‘s is
showing their most popular cameras as they know most people buy one of these Kodak‘s and they
think you will as well.

3) “BUY A CAMERA PACKAGE”

This recommendation email contained items frequently purchased together, with the aim to get you
to buy a camera and cross-sell its accessories in order to increase average order value and the
amount of revenue they generate from each customer.

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4) “BEST SELLERS ACROSS THE ENTIRE PRODUCT CATEGORY” – NO SPECIFIC
BRAND

This email contains top selling items from across the entire product category (digital cameras) the
user was browsing. There is no focus on any specific brand, again they just display best sellers that
most people end up buying. These items have the best reviews and conversions rates and will likely
turn an interested browser into a customer.

Take notice – Amazon is only recommending products and brands that this person has viewed on
their site or items they had added to their cart.

Highly relevant emails are critical for improving your click-through rate, conversion and
revenue per email metrics.

If Amazon started sending this person discount offers for children‘s books or outdoor tents when
they hadn‘t been looking at these things, there would be a disconnect and these emails would likely
be marked as spam or they‘d just unsubscribe from future mailings.

A perfect example of what not to do came from an email I received from iHerb.com. I purchased
some fish oil and vitamin B supplements and they proceeded to send me this…

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Lets just say I didn‘t take them up on their offer.

Sending the right message to the right person at the right time is such a common phrase these days,
but it‘s true, and it‘ll help you increase the ROI from your email marketing efforts.

How Amazon’s Recommendation Engine Works

There are in-depth discussions about how Amazon‘s recommendations engine works.

Existing recommendation algorithms couldn‘t scale to Amazon‘s tens of millions of customers and
products, so they decided to develop their own.

Amazon currently uses item-to-item collaborative filtering, which scales to massive data sets and
produces high-quality recommendations in real time.

This type of filtering matches each of the user‘s purchased and rated items to similar items, then
combines those similar items into a recommendation list for the user.

Their recommendation algorithm is an effective way of creating a personalized shopping experience

for each customer which helps Amazon increase average order value and the amount of revenue
generated from each customer.

And That’s Why Rejoiner Has Created Its Own Recommendation Engine

We‘ve been so fascinated by Amazon over the years (and so are a lot of our customers).

After we saw them rolling out their recommendations engine, we knew we wanted something
similar incorporated into our software so that we could help online retailers increase increase sales

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by intelligently offering up and predicting what customers are likely to buy next and then
dynamically serving those products into our customer‘s lifecycle email campaigns.

How Recommendations Helps Increase Average Order Value, Click-Through and Conversions
From Email by Intelligently Predicting What Your Customers Are Likely To Buy Next, And
Serving Those Products In Your Rejoiner Email Campaigns

When a subscriber or customer receives an email from you, the goal is to get them back to your site
to make a purchase.

Now with Rejoiner‘s recommendations engine, you can intelligently serve people, top selling items
or products that are frequently purchased together, inside your emails to increase engagement and
click-through rate back to your online store.

Serving other products that are frequently purchased together in your emails, giving people to the
chance to add more products to a cart they previously abandoned, which helps increase average
order value.

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Sending an 3-step abandoned cart email series with the last product someone left in their cart is a
great way to get them back to your site, but if they‘re not interested in that specific product anymore
they‘re more than likely just going to delete the email.

So if a product they left in their cart isn‘t going to peak their interest, the recommendations engine
can act as a another way to encourage every person reading your emails to come back to your store.

Blue Nile do this perfectly with their ‗cart abandonment email sandwich‘.

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The first email is a standard abandoned cart email – ‗you left this Diamond Stud Earing in your
cart‘.

The second email recommends different earrings from the same diamond stud category.

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The third and final email again shows the original item the person left in their cart, combined
with other recommended items from the same category. The goal being to get the person to either
buy the product they originally showed an interest in, or to get them back into the buying process
again with a different product from the same category.

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VAIBHAV BHANSALI Page 58
Limitations

The initiative combines three tools: automated protections, a self-service counterfeit removal tool,
and product serialization codes as an attempt to drive down the number of counterfeit goods
available on its marketplace.

Previous efforts by Amazon to stop the flood of fake goods, such as the ‗Brand Registry‘2 program
launched in 2017, have proven to be ineffective for many brands, with some going as far to say that
they merely pay lip service to the problem. Although Project Zero in theory is a good sign of
progress, there are constraints to Amazon‘s approach and questions remain surrounding where
accountability should lie. Below are the six key limitations that we have identified to the initiative in
its current form.

Brands retain responsibility for removing counterfeits

Whilst self-service counterfeit removal is seen as a welcome change, the platform may be absolving
itself of responsibility for the majority of counterfeit enforcement. Brands are expected to actively
monitor the platform for infringements with the enforcement burden now on them. In theory,
Amazon could now take a more hands-off approach and simply point brands to the anti-
counterfeiting tools they can use.

Self-service removal data also feeds into the automated protection tool and will likely require
significant enforcement input from the brand to ensure Amazon gets takedowns right.

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Brands without trademarks cannot register

Enrollment to Project Zero is invitation-only to brands currently signed-up to Amazon‘s Brand

Registry. This limits the scope of the program, as brands without trademarks cannot register for
Brand Registry. Those that rely on design rights or patents when enforcing against infringements are
shut-out of Amazon Brand Registry.

Only targets counterfeiting

Project Zero is an anti-counterfeiting program first and foremost rather than a brand protection
solution. It is not designed to assist with the full spectrum of intellectual property issues on
Amazon, including trademark misuse in competitors‘ listings. The enforcement tool is not to be
used by brand owners to manage other third-party seller activity, even if that activity is unlawful.

Flawed ASIN system

Project Zero is focused on helping brands manage counterfeit sellers who sell under brand owner
Amazon Standard Identification Numbers (ASINs) and share the same product listing page. The
tools are not helpful in detecting counterfeit infringers who set up separate ASINs that seek to
―private label‖ counterfeit products without explicit reference to your trademarks.

Lack of prioritization

Amazon‘s tools lack prioritization to determine which sellers are the most prolific or possess the
most stock, offer no way of linking connected sellers to determine if they are operating together,
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and provide no means of ―whitelisting‖ your own legitimate products under the ASIN. The process
is time consuming because it is very hard to filter out what you want to enforce upon, so everything
has to be reviewed in turn.

Brands pay for serialization

For smaller brands with fewer products, particularly products that are new to market and with high
individual unit prices, serialization could be beneficial. But for larger brands that have historically
sold through multiple outlets or those that offer lower-priced products, the advantages remain
unclear. On top of the US$0.01 – $0.05 that Amazon charges per unit, brands will also have to alter
their manufacturing processes, bearing a further cost.

Areas of improvement

Depending on the success of Project Zero, there are other initiatives Amazon could investigate, such
as seller transparency and accountability. It is currently too easy for counterfeiters to create new
seller accounts and hijack top-selling products; bad actors need only an email, phone number,
address, credit card, ID, business name and bank account3.

In contrast, platforms such as Alibaba force sellers to provide much more information and make that
information available to consumers so that they can determine whether the seller ought to be trusted.
However, even detailed seller information is only part of the jigsaw that allows effective
enforcement and lasting impact.

Increasing transparency about the identity of sellers and forcing them to provide additional
information about their product offerings would protect the consumer and allow brand owners to
more effectively manage infringement on Amazon.

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Combine with an intelligence-based solution

The Project Zero functionality is best used as part of a comprehensive brand protection strategy that
targets multiple platforms and regions to take down the largest and highest priority criminal
enterprises. Without wider insight and further collaboration, the Amazon tools will always have
their limitations.

Automated, AI-enhanced brand protection technology ensures that brands can prioritize the top
offenders. By automating the enforcement process, brand owners can save time and achieve lasting
impact against infringers. Using Amazon‘s tools in combination with smart automation is the best
way to make a real difference.

If you would like to find out more about how Corsearch‘s technology integrates with Amazon‘s
anti-counterfeiting tools and allows you to monitor all forms of infringements on its
marketplaces, please get in touch with one of our experts.

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THE FUTURE SCOPE OF AMAZON
In less than 20 years, the feats accomplished by Seattle‘s Amazon are simply astounding and,
curiously, often taken for granted. It is the world‘s largest online retailer, a master of logistics, an
oracle of computing power, a wrangler of digital content, a beacon of customer service and reviews,
and even innovative when it comes to conceiving handheld electronic devices. In terms of what can be
reasonably expected of a business at its scale, Amazon has not only lived up to its namesake as a
massive force of nature, but also its mythology as fierce warriors, waging battles along multiple fronts
with remarkable dexterity.

For context, let‘s briefly revisit how Amazon has evolved since its origin. It began as a destination to
buy books, and eventually other media. It then offered marketplace services for online retailers and/or
individuals (similar to eBay), while simultaneously selling other physical goods for homes, offices,
cars, and and beyond. During the shift to online retail, Amazon excelled by harnessing web data fo
optimize price, locating warehouses to optimize logistics, and experimenting with delivery models
(e.g. ―Prime‖) to segment its consumers, all the while providing trust through customer service and
reviews. In its second decade, Amazon maintained its roots while becoming a player in the market for
digital media, cloud computing services, and, most recently, manufacturing its own handheld
electronic devices, a dizzying amount of diverse and complicated business lines to be committed to,
and yet it continues to hum along, executing its way to a $100B+ market cap and an extremely bright
future.

With such a glorious run to date, what does that future look like for Amazon, specifically?

We all know that Amazon is a truly exceptional company and their past is well-documented. My own
belief is that if the company were located in Silicon Valley, it would receive an even more hype and
be valued above its already impressive P/E ratios. My biases aside, I meet lots of up-and-coming
founders who idolize Amazon‘s CEO over other role models, not to mention that they wouldn‘t mind
being acquired by the company, either. With all this hard-earned momentum, I‘ve been thinking about
what Amazon could do to leverage it further into its third decade, to wedge into and newer markets,
continue their march to dominance, and transform into an Apple-like company that, as it says in this
telling television commercial , are the ones that put a ―smile‖ on the box.

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Amazon is known for selling and delivering physical goods, so we can expect the company to
directly challenge the big offline consumer retail megastores as they accumulate more purchasing
power, and as incumbents look to become more lean by shedding underperforming real estate
liabilities and rising costs pegged to headcount. Amazon already offers these services, but will likely
go beyond the Targets of the world to include chains like Staples, as well. Competing directly with the
big CPG companies won‘t be easy given their scale, but early in the game, Amazon is off to a good
start. Additionally, as Amazon‘s traffic provides it with enough liquidity to attract other sellers and
buyers for its marketplace, the company will also be on the prowl for other web- and mobile-based
acquisitions to add to its portfolio, which includes Diapers.com, Soap.com, and Zappos.

For a company that sold and delivered physical items, Amazon‘s ability to add digital goods to its
arsenal has also been well-executed, to put it mildly. Beyond this, Amazon has already laid the
groundwork to offer content-creators a platform to self-publish, distribute, and collect payments for
their work, as well as creating its own publishing arm (kicked off by signing Tim Ferris). Amazon
will be a player in the gaming space and has already dabbled in questions with Askville. Focusing on
written content, I‘d expect authors who once coveted publisher advances to experiment with a host of
creation options and tests within the market, and then harness Amazon‘s distribution to get their work
out to the masses. The fact that folks will be reading Amazon-created content (often on Amazon-
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branded devices) opens up a new world of possibilities with respect to the format of written
or graphic content, as well as the analytics to measure its reach.

In devices, the Kindle is to Amazon as the iPod was to Apple. Many iOS and Android users read
books on these devices through Amazon‘s Kindle app, but we all know that Bezos doesn‘t just want
to be an ―app‖ on someone else‘s property, especially those that may fiddle with its ability to transact
with customers and offers competitive products. The success of Kindle and its evolution
has afforded Amazon the ability to, like Apple, expand its fleet of devices, recently announcing
Paperwhite and two Kindle Fire options. And, like we‘ve seen with Apple, these devices just won‘t be
for reading — they‘ll likely create another mobile app ecosystem and provide Amazon with a robust
channel to sell both digital goods and physical goods. Amazon, like iTunes, has your credit card
information, your purchasing history and tastes, and wants to not only compete against iOS for
gaming and media, but also provide the singular device where you buy stuff from. Beyond handheld
units, we should expect mobile phones in this day and age and, if the rumors around
Amazon‘s interest in acquiring Roku are true, we shouldn‘t be surprised to see them make a play to
deliver content directly to our televisions, as well. As their device offerings increase, we should also
anticipate the creation and deployment of its own advertising network within its ecosystem.

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The Kindle ―suite‖ of devices are delivery vehicles to bring users what they seek. Apple and
application services such as Uber have trained us to expect that we can, with a tap of a finger, so we
can expect the Kindle line to strive for that level of efficiency. While Apple provides the platform for
other applications (like Uber) to provide amazing services or delivery, Amazon itself is a pioneer and
expert in a variety of delivery options, such ―Prime‖ and ―Subscriptions.‖ Amazon ―Prime‖ is often
heralded as feeling close to ―magic,‖ a program for customers to pay for the privilege of receiving a
physical good within 48 hours, though in the future, 48 hours may not be good enough. So, Amazon is
pushing the envelope on delivery options. Expect them to experiment with same-day delivery options
(consistent with startups like Instacart and Postmates, among others), as well as their current moves
with Amazon ―Lockers‖ for consumers to pick up at a single location, which could save the company
on shipping fees and also provide urban shoppers with a more secure delivery experience. Given
Amazon‘s ability to experiment and execute, I also wouldn‘t be surprised to see the company also
look into aerial drones as delivery channels, and given my fascination with Tacocopter, I do hope this
happens.

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With all of these diverse transactions, we should expect Amazon to innovate with payments, too.
Amazon already has our credit card information, and now that it wants to power more purchases
across the web and its devices, the company could look for alternatives to the annual fees they pay to
the credit card companies today. Those solutions could come in the form of one-click payments
(similar to iTunes) outside of its main website, either through third-party offerings or, more likely,
through a major acquisition. This is undoubtedly a huge opportunity, and with PayPal struggling to
adapt (and hurting eBay as well), Amazon may be licking its chops to make a move.

Amazon also provides consumers, mostly developers, with power. Whether its human power
with Mechanical Turk, or more interestingly, computing power with Amazon Web Services (AWS),
Amazon also has excelled at providing these critical services. In AWS specifically, Amazon has built
a $1B annual business by providing cheap, efficient cloud computing power. It is well-document in
the startup world, and as reports indicate, the company believes it has only scratched the surface in
web services, with more profits to come. Microsoft has Azure and Google launched its own offerings,
so Amazon will also face competition as thin margins here over time, but the real prize here is making
inroads with the enterprise, to be part of larger companies‘ hybrid cloud models. There‘s also a chance
Amazon moves up the stack with AWS beyond infrastructural services and offers platform services,
as well, perhaps even integrating payments at this layer.

Goods. Devices. Delivery. Payments. Power. Amazon, perhaps more than any other online property
(more than Facebook and Google), knows what you have purchased, what you may want to buy, has
built the premier destination to purchase it and mapped out a mobile ecosystem, going so far as to

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build their own devices, and has will offer an array of delivery options to satisfy each segment‘s
desires.

Naturally, with all of these initiatives, Amazon will face challenges and questions. Will their research
arm at A9 Labs continue to provide the company with better science and experimentation? Will AWS
continue to mint money for the company as enterprise shifts to hybrid cloud management models?
Will the company be able to maintain its ability to execute across so many different types of business
lines, let alone maintain focus? What types of acquisitions will it make? Will they stumble with
respect to logistics as they bring their brand offline and local? (To date, they‘ve kept an arms-
length distance in local through an investment in Living Social, for instance.) Will their strategy of
using Android as a framework make them too reliant on Google, which it competes with? Will they
be able to carve out a sustainable piece of the mobile device ecosystem where Apple and Google have
a headstart, and where Facebook most likely has to enter?

The future of Amazon is bright and also generates a dizzying amount of complex questions, but given
its history to date, its ability to execute on multiple fronts, often in parallel, and still under the
leadership of its dynamic, visionary founder, there‘s little doubt that, over the next decade, Amazon
will continue to increase its dominance in many of these categories and also earn influence in others.
Like their name suggests, from everything from A to Z, Amazon is that one brand, worldwide, which
can fulfill demand and close the loop on the transaction and delivery, and by owning the end-to-end
process of selling these commodities, it has afforded the company a war chest, mindshare, and the
potential to grow even bigger. Seen through this lens, Amazon may just be getting started.

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 BIBLOGRAPHY
www.cbinsights.com

www.newsclick.in

wwwtechcrunch.com

wwwt.sharethis.com

www.managementstudyguide.com

www.researchgate.net

www.scribd.com

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