...com’s European Distribution Strategy In January 2003, Tom Taylor, Amazon.com’s Director of European Supply Chain Operations, sat in his office in Slough, United Kingdom, and pondered what changes Amazon needed to make to sustain its growth in Europe. Established in the fall of 1998 through the acquisitions of two on-line Logistics Planning & Modelling Techniques booksellers, Bookpages.co.uk in Britain and Telebuch.de in Germany, Amazon.com’s European Distribution Strategy International, comprising Amazon Europe and Amazon Japan, now Amazon Europe had developed into three strong, independently run, country-based organizations in the UK, Germany, and France. Amazon represented 35% of Amazon revenues and was the fastest growing segment of the company (see Exhibit 1). Amazon.com’s European Distribution Strategy Amazon.com’s European Distribution Strategy Amazon.com’s European Distribution Strategy Amazon.com’s European Distribution Strategy To sustain its growth, Amazon Europe faced multiple expansion Taylor felt that a lot had been accomplished since his arrival six months options: it could replicate the broad array of product lines Amazon earlier. His team had managed to standardize and improve supply offered in the US, launch new Marketplacea activities, or expand into chain processes across Europe in the areas of vendor management, other European countries. In addition, Amazon Europe had to decide sales and operations...
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...JANICE HAMMOND Amazon.com’s European Distribution Strategy In January 2003, Tom Taylor, Amazon.com’s Director of European Supply Chain Operations, sat in his office in Slough, United Kingdom, and pondered what changes Amazon needed to make to sustain its growth in Europe. Established in the fall of 1998 through the acquisitions of two on-line booksellers, Bookpages.co.uk in Britain and Telebuch.de in Germany, Amazon Europe had developed into three strong, independently run, country-based organizations in the UK, Germany, and France. Amazon International, comprising Amazon Europe and Amazon Japan, now represented 35% of Amazon revenues and was the fastest growing segment of the company (see Exhibit 1). To sustain its growth, Amazon Europe faced multiple expansion options: it could replicate the broad array of product lines Amazon offered in the US, launch new Marketplace1 activities, or expand into other European countries. In addition, Amazon Europe had to decide which of its activities it should coordinate or consolidate at the European level. Tom Taylor had been transferred from Amazon US to Europe in June 2002 to address some of these issues and, in the words of his then boss, Senior VP of Operations Jeff Wilke, help Europe “catch the US in five years.” Taylor felt that a lot had been accomplished since his arrival six months earlier. His team had managed to standardize and improve supply chain processes across Europe in the areas of vendor management, sales and operations...
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...Amazon.com’s European Distribution Strategy Name: Shijing Zhao Date: February 23, 2013 Introduction and Problem Definition To best support its growth, Amazon Europe was considering building a European distribution network (EDN) where the location of inventory would be strategically determined. Among all issues to be considered, the most important one was to evaluate the three alternatives to design the EDN and choose one of them. External Analysis (See Appendix 1 for full listing) For opportunities, the first thing worth mentioning is the fast growth of international markets. Worth only $381.1 million in 2000, the Amazon International’s revenue reached at $1,168.9 million in 2002. That means the international market environment was fairly optimistic for Amazon and it should expand into other countries such as China and Korea. The second important opportunity is the large potential of European online markets and book markets. For example, Italy holds the third largest book sales of € 4,130 million in 1999 and the fourth largest online spending of €701 million in 2001. Amazon could consider Italy or other Europe countries with large potentials as its future target markets in Europe. For threats, the biggest one is the low EDI penetration among book, music and video distributors in Europe. EDI enables Amazon to get the information about the item ordered from the US supplier quickly. It would be difficult for Amazon to know details about the item ordered without EDI,...
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...Amazon.com Tax Avoidance Business Strategy, How they did it, And how it affects me. Introduction: Amazon and Tax Avoidance Part I: Amazon Part II: Taxes in the U.S. Part III: The IRS/Penalty for Tax Avoidance Part IV: Amazon and Tax Avoidance Part V: Amazon in Europe Part VI: Amazon in 2014 Part VII: How does it affect me? Part VIII: Conclusion Introduction: The topic I choose to write about is how Amazon.com website avoided collecting sales taxes in the U.S. for nearly it whole existences. I’m going to introduce amazon and what the company is about and the role they played as more then successful online retailer. Then introduce the topic of taxes and state taxes, sales tax, and the importance collecting and paying taxes, and the benefits the country and its residents get for paying such taxes. The amazon company will then be analyze and in operating structure and design and learn how they avoided paying taxes in their home country and how they brought their operation over seas and did the same. And why this topic and subject matter is and should be severely important for future business owners and managers on business structuring operations. Part I: Amazon Amazon is the largest online retailer as of 2014. And how did they accomplish this? Jeff Bezo is the founder and amazon.com and it all started in his garage in the state Washington. Amazon first started off as an online bookstore and soon began to venture off to selling CD’s, DVD’s, and computer...
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...1. Problem Statement Since Amazon was established in 1994 it has focused on growth – “get big fast”. This focus on growth of number of clients was based on the assumption that to establish Amazon as the biggest internet retailer in the world secured long term profitability instead of short term profitability. The growth had been carried out through expansion in markets and an aggressive acquisition strategy. In 2000 the investors started to change focus and while they had been willing to support the expansion for market share they now started to focus on profitability. Amazon therefore needed to change strategy and adapt to the need for running a profitable business with the new watchwords “march towards profitability”. But the question is whether Amazon can change the company around and become profitable and how they can achieve it. Some of the questions which need to be answered is: • What should Amazon do next? • Should it continue its international expansion, or perhaps retrench to allow for more profitable operations? • Should it add product categories or cut back to its Books, Music and Video core? • Could Amazon use its brand strength and sophisticated personalization algorithms to individually price its way into the black? • Could Amazon steal a page from Wal-Mart and focus on supply chain management to part the sea of red ink? • Alternatively, should Amazon return to its virtual roots and outsource...
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...This case study analysis serves the purpose to evaluate Amazon’s unique approach to service marketing which creates satisfied and loyal customer base and to estimate its international expansion. Amazon is one of the most customer oriented companies in the world, which is essential for e-tailor business as the competitor is only one click away. With its main focus on customer experience, it offers wide variety of merchandise, lowest price and convenience. This three ‘customer experience pillars’ supported by a foundation of innovation build the center of Amazon main strategy (Figure 1). Innovation Figure1: Amazon’s Customer Experience Pillars [5] Let’s have a closer look at each item: 1) The variety and availability of items on site is one of the biggest advantages of e-bookstore in over a regular one. Since there is no limit for shelf space it can offer not only top-sellers but also very unique slow-moving items. shipment within 24 hours. 2) The fairness and competitiveness of overall price is achieved by offering the lowest prices for the most popular products, with less popular products commanding higher prices and a Most of the company products are available for Convenience Selection Price greater margin for Amazon. Free shipping is offered for all orders over a certain amount of money and is used to encourage increase in basket size. 3) Customer convenience could be subdivided into: a) web site functionality or the ease of use of the site itself, which was...
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...MBA 4641 – Strategy Dynamics Misis No. – M00387307 Q1. Amazon’s strategy during the period 2007 to early 2010 Amazon is the world’s biggest and best online bookstore and also the world’s most customer-centric company. Amazon’s in 2009 served three distinct group of consumer’s which included consumers through its retails websites, it provided a wide range of merchandise, low prices and convenience to its consumers. Seller customers that sold their products either on Amazon’s websites or on their own brand websites and fulfilled their orders using Amazon’s fulfillment facilities. Developer customers that used Amazon services which provided access to Amazon’s technology infrastructure that enabled them to create virtually any type of business. These services include: * Amazon Simple storage service (Amazon S3) * Amazon elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) * Amazon Simple Queue Service ( Amazon SQS) * Amazon simple DB * Amazon Flexible Payments Service (Amazon FPS) * Amazon Mechanical Turk After starting with a simple website that sold books online, it now offers huge diversity of Retail offerings from * Browsing * Searching * Review and content * Recommendations and personalization * On click technology * Secure credit card payment * Availability and fulfillment Books and other physical goods to an ecommerce platform, cloud computing services, Kindle e-books and readers, and now, mobile applications. Amazon had built...
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...1-25-16 SWOT Analysis Amazon.com is a world wide online retailing company that is the largest in the U.S. Amazon started out as an online bookstore that later started selling movies, music, audio books, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, and now has its own line of consumer electronics. It is a company that has rapidly grown and will steadily grow each year. A companies SWOT analysis is a tool that defines the companiess strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. SWOT helps a company asses what the organization can and can not do as well as potential opportunities and threats. A SWOT analysis determines what will help a company accomplish its objectives and what obstacles the company needs to overcome to reach the desired results. Amazon has many strengths such as cost leadership strategy, quality products and services, strategic acquisitions, and efficient distribution. These strengths are what help the company keep returning customers as well as creating new ones. Amazons cost leadership strategy is a strength because this means that Amazon produces their products and services at a lower cost than its competitors. Amazon is a reliable, convenient, and know for its low prices and fastest shipping as well the great reputation for customer service. This is why quality products and services are among the companies strengths. Another strength Amazon has is the companies strategic acquisitions. This means whatever the years the company has been adding new services...
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...Strategy Recommendation Project Final James Bellew Capella University MBA6004 Section 01, Jan-Feb 2014 U06a1 Instructor – Dr. Rebecca Snarski Due: February 16, 2014 Table of Contents Introduction……………………………………………………………………………… 3 Brief explanation of Project………………………………………………………..... 3 Who is Amazon……………………………………………………………………… 3 Why did I choose Amazon…………………………………………………………... 3 Amazon's Channel Design including its use of the Web………………………………... 3-4 Web Beginnings……………………………………………………………………... 4 Today………………………………………………………………………………… 4 Amazon’s future including key strengths and weaknesses……………………………… 4 Amazon’s Vision and the changing Web…………………………………………… 4-5 Key Strengths and Weaknesses……………………………………………………… 5-6 Opportunity and Threats…………………………………………………………….. 6 SWOT Analysis…………….…………………………………………………………… 7-9 Amazon’s Ethical Challenges…………………………………………………………… 9 Changing Web Ethics……………………………………………………………….. 9 Ethical challenges for Amazon……………………………………………………… 9 Strategy Recommendations for Amazon………………………………………………... 9-10 References……………………………………………………………………………….. 11 Introduction Amazon is one on the world’s undisputed leaders in web-based commerce. Although they were not the first company to capitalize on using the World Wide Web for commerce, they certainly raised it to an art form. When you think of shopping on the web, you think of Amazon. Amazon perfected this channel and continues to innovate as the technology and access to web grows. Amazon...
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...Crafting & Executing Strategy the Quest for Competitive Advantage The Amazon Company Table of Contents * Introduction……………………………………………P.3 * Background Information………………………………P.3 * Senior Management……………………………………P.8 * Competitors……………………………………………P.8 * Marketing Strategy……………………………………P.9 * Problems and Issues confronting the Company………P.10 * Recommendation……………………………………..P.10 * SWOT Analysis……………………………………….P.10 * Financial Ratios and Analysis………………………..P.11 Introduction Surviving the dot com boom was a significant accomplishment for Amazon, which helped them claim the title of being the one stop shopping retailer for all. Amazon was introduced to the public in 1995 from Seattle Washington. Some people may remember Amazon as an online bookstore. Over the years, they evolved into the most popular internet retailer in the world and Amazon quickly became the growing trend among consumers, because they are convenient, have a speedy service, low prices and quality. Using third party sources, Amazon has diversified their portfolios and continues to offer consumers new products (LexisNexis, Academic). Reinventing their strategy to adapt to consumers’ growing needs and the source of must have items; Amazon will continue to survive the world of internet retail. Background Information Amazon is the pioneer of online retailing. It started out as an online bookstore, offering a limited amount of selections. They expanded...
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...Amazon’s business strategy and revenue model: A history and 2014 update I’ve used Amazon as a case study in my books for over 10 years now since I think all types of businesses can learn from their digital business strategy. From startups and small businesses to large international businesses, their focus on the customer, testing market opportunities made available by digital technology and their focus on testing and analysis to improve results. I aim to keep this case study up-to-date for readers of the books and Smart Insights readers who may be interested. In it we look at Amazon’s background, revenue model and sources for the latest business results. We can also learn from their approach to digital marketing since they use digital marketing efficiently across all customer communications touchpoints in our RACE marketing planning framework: * Reach: Amazon’s initial business growth based on detailed approach to SEO and AdWords targeting millions of keywords. * Act: Creating a clear simple experiences through testing and learning. * Convert: Using personalisation to make relevant recommendations and a clear checkout process that many now imitate. * Engage: Their focus on customer experience, “Customer Obsession” as they call it is shown by the way they consistently outperform other retailers in their ACSI customer satisfaction rating too. We have our own internal experimentation platform called “Weblab” that we use to evaluate improvements Experiments and...
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...A summary of the Amazon Company Profile is that Amazon.com is the largest retailer of goods on the Internet and is well positioned to access online markets in developing nations through the use of custom tailored websites. Amazon Company Profile A summary of the Amazon Company Profile is that Amazon.com is the largest retailer of goods on the Internet and is well positioned to access online markets in developing nations through the use of custom tailored websites. This is a topic suggestion on Amazon Company Profile from Paper Masters. Use this topic or order a custom research paper, written exactly how you need it to be. Amazon.com sells retail goods on the Internet at discount prices, and provides a wide range of additional services to private vendors that use the Amazon website as a marketplace for the sale of goods. While the majority of the firm's revenues originate from book, CD and DVD sales, it has expanded into toys, beauty products, tools, and services such as film processing. The firm also generates commission revenues from the sales made by private retailers using the Amazon site a host for auctions and other types of direct vending via the Internet. The firm uses electronic data interchange system to minimize inventory and expedite delivery. The firm operates websites in several foreign languages and offers distribution of goods from fulfillment centers in the United States and Europe. The market for the firm’s products and services is expanding rapidly as Internet...
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...SWOT Analysis Amazon Strengths * Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Information Technology (IT) support Amazon’s business strategy. The company carefully records data on customer buyer behavior. This enables them to offer to individual specific items, or bundles of items, based upon preferences demonstrated through purchases or items visited. * Amazon is a huge global brand. It is recognizable for two main reasons. It was one of the original dotcoms, and over the last decade it has developed a customer base of around 30 million people. It was an early exploiter of online technologies for e-commerce, which made it one of the first online retailers. It has built on nits early successes with books, and now has product categories that include electronics, toys and games, DIY and more. Weaknesses * As Amazon adds new categories to its business, it risks damaging its brand. Amazon is the number one retailer for books. Toy-R-Us is the number one retailers for toys and games. Imagine if Toys-R-Us began to sell books. This would confuse its consumers and endanger its brands. In the same way, many of the new categories, for example automotive, may prove to be too confusing for customers. * The company may at some point need to reconsider its strategy of offering free shipping to customers. It is a fair strategy since one could visit a more local retailer, and pay no costs. However, it is rumored that shipping costs could be up to $500m, and such a high figure would...
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...Amazon Inc. SeifAllah Marzouk – Ahmed Fadel – Mohamed Hajaij Introduction Amazon is the global leader in ecommerce. It directly sells a huge range of diverse products. Ranging from books to music to other physical goods and, their specialized asset, Kindle e-book. The company attains their high value-added differentiation by customer-focused information services such as holding online customers’ preferences and providing customization. One of the main competitive advantages of the company is unique bundling of several recourses such as service and distribution. Amazon was initially an online bookseller that directly shipped orders to customers; however, the company grew substantially and soon established a distribution network through which it could ship millions of items to customers all over the world at the lowest costs possible. Operating 10 websites in more than 45 countries now gives Amazon a strategic advantage in its diversity. Amazon was founded in 1994 in the state of Washington DC, USA. It strategically competes internationally by attaining the lowest prices amongst its competitors. With regards to book selling, Amazon’s biggest competitor is Barnes and Noble. While Barnes and Noble enjoys the spoils of selling in the physical world and online, Amazon is stuck in the cyber world (which evidently keeps costs down but doesn’t help with the sales)...
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...Amazon’s new Kindle Fire edged Samsung Galaxy Tab as the leading Android Tablet in North America, on par with interest for the iPad prior to its launch in April 2010, and second only to the Galaxy Tab globally with developers. Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 also decisively moved ahead of RIM’s BlackBerry OS to become the clear number three mobile OS behind iOS and Android. Appcelerator and IDC also continued their research into how companies are making the move from the web to mobile. This quarter, the report dives deep into understanding the priorities companies are making with their mobile strategy and how mobile is fundamentally transforming customer relationships. The Rise of Amazon, Microsoft, and Samsung … and An Improved Outlook for Nokia As the mobile industry advances, contenders are finding success by securing new footholds and partnerships to compete against Apple’s dominance. Amazon announced the Kindle Fire, a smaller, cheaper Android-based tablet that leverages its large content library while Microsoft’s Window’s Phone 7 is building strong European developer enthusiasm thanks to its Nokia partnership. Developers and businesses gave high marks to these strong moves, which contrast sharply against BlackBerry OS, BlackBerry’s QNX-based PlayBook, and webOS, all of which collapsed in interest with developers this past quarter. Below are the topline findings from this quarter’s report: Copyright © 2011 Appcelerator, Inc. and IDC. All Rights Reserved. 1 • Amazon’s...
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