case study

Amazon .com : A Case Study

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How has Amazon .com and their use of the Internet changed the retailing industry ? Give some specific examples

The success of Amazon .com has proven the viability of online retail selling . This feat encouraged other companies to engage in the same e-tailing business , which in turn , promoted the trend and spawned an entire industry . Amazon .com also introduced innovations in online selling with its extra features like one-click shopping , gift wrapping customer comments and affiliation programs . Amazon has made people

discover the convenience of shopping in front of the computer and , by ensuring quality service through the years , increased their trust and confidence to online shopping . Today , several stores offer similar services as Amazon .com . For instance , one can shop at Target without stepping into their department store and getting sore feet from all the walking through the aisles . Yahoo ! shopping is another online venue by which one can buy things using credit card and have items delivered into your doorstep . Even small retailers have been encouraged by the trend popularized by Amazon .com so that there are websites today selling things from customized mugs and shirts to music sheets

Comparisons have been made between giant bookstore retailer Barnes Noble and Amazon .com . Barnes Noble operates dozens of bookstores in many local communities . Yet , Amazon .com 's reach goes anywhere and everywhere with the web . What , in your opinion , should Barnes Noble do to compete with Amazon .com

Amazon .com offers much more than Barnes Noble . If Amazon .com opens real bookstores , it might find it hard to compete with the more established B N in the field . But when it comes to online selling Amazon trumps B N . For one , Amazon .com is a more diverse e-store which sells almost anything the customer needs from books to garden supplies B N is basically a bookstore . Amazon gets more customers and sales because a customer who would like to buy a book can also buy sneakers and while he 's at it , he would be tempted with a link to the perfume sites and maybe he would end up buying a bottle of perfume , too . He ends up buying three different and unrelated things , all because he wanted to buy a book . Then , after ing the customer can put everything into one virtual shopping cart and pay for it all at the same time . Another is that B N has a higher shipping charge computation so that even if the same product is cheaper than in Amazon 's , the more expensive in B N . Finally , if B N would like to compete with Amazon .com , it simply has to follow the Amazon template of retail selling : added features in its website , expand from bookstore to virtual department store , and think of something as innovative as Kindle

In to more quickly realize and sustain its profitability should Amazon .com have remained a solely clicks-based e-business (without warehouses ) selling only books ? Why or...