Essay: Amazon

Introduction
Amazon was founded in 1994 in Seattle, USA by Jeff Bezos. It started as an online book store which was a success and it made it possible for the CEO to expand the operations by diversifying into other lines of business. In 1999 it started a Z-shops and Auction site, this was also a success and it made Amazon more popular in the auction business as well. The success witnessed by Amazon made it a successful brand and encouraged its shareholders to diversify yet again by introducing online retail store that sell almost all essentials.
The CEO of Amazon recently said ‘At current scale and growth rate, India is on track to be a fastest country to be a billion dollar in gross sales’. That is why they pumped in additional 2 million dollar s investment into India. Effectively in the near future Amazon has established itself in one of largest market in the world alongside local Champions flip kart and Snap deal. It debuted with local brand jungle.com in February 2012, launched its own digital market place in June 2013. They launched with just 2 categories in June 2013 and in just ten months the total selection now stands at over 15 million products across 20 categories, this shows the growth of almost 30 times since launch. Currently the number of shipped units piles up to 75%.
The competitive advantage Amazon has over local companies is global branding, while local brands make lots of effort to reach out to customers Amazon is already in the minds of the people. There are some little competition from some companies that focus on apparel and furniture.
The vision of Amazon is ‘To be earths most customer centric company to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy’ and there mission is ‘To leverage technology and the expertise of our invaluable employees to provide our customers with the best shopping experience on the internet’.
Values of Amazon
1. Customer obsession
2. Innovation
3. Bias for action
4. Ownership
5. High hiring bar
6. Frugality
Products and services
Amazon was known to be a grant in the selling of books online in the USA and later enlarged and opened other SBU to deal with other products and services. It is now a multinational e-commerce company and world’s largest online retailer. Amazon is involved in both retail and non- retail services.
It is into the following retail services
‘ Books, Movies and Music
‘ Electronics, computer and office equipments
‘ Tools and automobiles
‘ Food and household
‘ Home improvements
‘ Toys and video games
‘ Sports and fitness
‘ Clothing and jewelry
‘ Kids and baby
‘ Kindle.
Other non retail services
‘ Referrals/commission based selling
‘ Amazon web services
‘ Service to businesses
Features of Global E-commerce Business
The global e-commerce business is a business trade carried out electronically with the used of the computer networks which makes the world a global village by inter-connecting people via the internet. This connection enable people to gain access to the global e commerce markets available on the internet to buy, sell, mediate, auction and sometimes just search for knowledge purposes. The e commerce business evolved out of necessity by the masses to access goods and services that are not available in their environments. It made the e commerce business to expand their businesses though different parts of the world due to the pressure of globalization.
The global e commerce business is characterized by:
1) Large scale operation:
E commerce business is known widely by its large scale operation from the time a customer chooses a product and adds it to his cart to the payment processes and the modes in which he wants the product or service to be delivered. For a global e commerce business the logistics is different and. There is a global network and connection between various countries and business enterprises.
2) Keen competition:
Due to the development in information technology the world e-commerce business is becoming more competitive. This is one of the main features of e-commerce business. The players in the business always bring new developments in the business which forces the rest
of the players to make improvements in order to compete in the market.
3) Integration of economies:
The world economies are becoming more integrated through online transactions between countries of the world. A product sold in the US based website can be bought by a customer in Australia and make payments through his local currency online which make it possible for international remittance.
4) Sensitive in nature:
Every activity in e commerce Is interrelated to one another so the system is very sensitive once a problem occur in one process the whole system is affected until it is been rectified.
5) Central Management of e commerce stores:
The e-commerce store are centrally managed, for each store all the subsidiaries report to the mother company all records are been transferred there, main server and networks are been managed by the head office.
6) Multi currency:
For any international e-commerce business it allows for a conversion of the product price to the local currency of the particular country or region.
7) Multi lingual E-commerce platforms:
The e-commerce platforms are made mow to be multi lingual since it’s global. It supports multiple languages including the symbols and Cyrillic’s. This makes it possible for people to make purchase using their local languages.
8) Multi payment options:
In order to be relevant to customer e-commerce is characterized with the use of multiple currencies putting in mind the region and country. Different payments modes are available from pay pal to Master cards to visa cards to coupons or gift cards and so on.
9) Multi warehouse:
Since it is global it needs to have a storage facility for products for separate regions, each region with a different warehouse for easy delivery to the customer on time.
10) Handling of multiple and complex tax:
The e commerce is characterized by different tax which makes it more complex to handle, every region follows its own tax system so it has to suit the tax system of the regions it is operating in.
Impact of Social Networking (media) on e business:
Social networking is helping online enterprise become more focused on their customers than ever before. Social networking technology can help online businesses learn more about what their competition is doing and respond rapidly. Customers who participate in social networks are feeling more empowered in their interactions with e business. People are seeing business responding to the opinions people post online and that makes customers feels like they are having more influence on business behavior.
Achieving goals:
The continued growth of social networking technology is helping more business achieve goals that had previously been almost unreachable. Social networking is reducing e business communication experts especially for online business that maximize their use of the technology.
Efficiency growth:
E-business continues to gain more efficiencies as the number of people using the technology grows. Companies are maintaining one to one marketing strategies regardless of how large the number of customers or partners involved gets. These networks are making recruitment efforts more precise and reducing the cost and time involved in recruitment. Online businesses and their recruiters search online for qualified candidates on professionals networking sites as it is less than it costs to buy a job advertisement. E business is able to spend less time on hiring because they don’t have to sift through hundreds of responses to a job advertisement.
Negative Impacts of social network on e-commerce:
The flip side of these benefits are that some employees of online business become less productive or distracted when given access to social networks during work hours. Instead of concentrating on the job at hand the social media becomes a source of distraction for the worker which tends to affect the productivity level.
Advertisement back firing:
Advertisement on social networks has had negative results because customers tend to block the pop ups advertisement on their computers by making it on a short list of intrusion on their computer security mechanism or ant viruses.
Advantages of e-commerce
To customers:
‘ There is a 24 hours support:
Customers can perform transaction for the product or enquiry about any product/service provided by the e-commerce site or company at anytime of the day from anywhere the customer is located.
‘ Quick delivery of products:
The e-commerce application provides the users or customers more options and quicker delivery of products.
‘ E- Commerce application provides users more option to compare and select the cheaper and better options of items.
‘ A customer can put review comments about a product and can see what others are buying or see the review comments of the customers before making a final buy.
‘ E-commerce provides option of virtual auctions.
‘ Readily available information:
A customer can see the relevant detailed information within seconds rather than waiting for days or weeks.
‘ E-commerce increases competition among the organization and as result organization provides substantial discounts to customers.
To producers:
‘ Handle delivery and customer services
The delivery to consumers and after sale service not handled by the producer rather it is being handed by the e commerce company.
‘ Ability to expand into global markets with minimal costs, enabling companies to reach narrow market segments that are geographically dispersed.
‘ Provide insurance of products:
All products are protected by insurance in case of any damage or loss on transit.
‘ Allows the flexibility to target market segmentation:
This is done by allowing companies to focus on a select group of clients with a competitive advantage by giving them what they want and the satisfaction of unique needs.
‘ Access to lowest shipping rates
The producer and the seller share shipping expenses as they share profits.
‘ Eliminates the barriers of global trade:
This is explained by the fact that the internet is a channel reset costs and consequently, many products and services, which are typically delivered as a physical object or service are now available in virtually as data. This removes obstacles such as time, distance and cost of course
‘ Inventories is secured:
The inventories of the producers are secured because they supply to the seller in this case the e-commerce company
‘ Sell more:
The producers tend to sell more products because the e-commerce sites have no boundaries as to where the product can reach, so maximum sales are attained..