An e-business analysis of Amazon.com

Executive summary4

Introduction5

E-commerce and E-business5

Amazon (Amazon.com)6

About Amazon6

History and background6

Discussion8

Life cycle stage8

Customer set and users9

Needs addressed9

Role of Internet in strategies10

EC metric (POP)10

Impact of Internet regulations11

EC security11

Competitive advantage12

Barriers to Global E-commerce12

References14

An e-business analysis of Amazon.com

Executive summary

E-commerce/E-business is a growing trend in modern trade. It has enabled the expansion of traditional market borders towards becoming a Global marketplace. Amazon.com, a first-mover towards e-commerce, has utilized technology to grow from a small business starting from a garage, into a global online business leader - the number one online music, book and video retailer. It offers customers a superior shopping experience with a high level of customer service. It has developed e-commerce innovations like customized services, one-Click ordering and convenient browse/search features. Shopping is fast/safe with a simple ordering-system, secure transactions, proper communication and direct shipping globally

Introduction

E-commerce and E-business

E-commerce and e-business have progressively developed into an essential element of a business's strategy as well as a powerful medium for economic development. The addition of ICT (information and communications technology) to businesses has transformed interactions within organizations as well as amongst individuals and organizations. Particularly, ICT usage in business has helped support better participation by customers, improved productivity, and has facilitated mass customization while lowering costs.

Even though e-business and e-commerce are generally used interchangeably, they are (however) two different concepts. Electronic commerce is used to describe a broad range of business activities (online) for services and products (Anita Rosen, 2000). It in addition relates to any type of business operation where interaction between parties is done “electronically” instead of direct physical contact or physical exchanges (MK, 2002). It is normally linked with selling and buying using the Internet (Mesenbourg, 2001). In e-commerce, ICT is utilized in inter-organizational or inter-business transactions; and also in business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions (which are transactions between businesses and individuals).

E-business, in contrast, uses ICT to improve the business. It consists of any process that a business organization - whether governmental, for-profit or non-profit - performs over a computer network. It alters processes to provide added customer value with the help of philosophies, technologies and computing concepts. The primary processes enhanced in e-business are the production processes, Customer-focused processes and the Internal management processes (Lallana, 1997).

Amazon (Amazon.com)

About Amazon

Amazon Inc., commonly known as 'Amazon.com', is a U.S. based multinational e-commerce company with its headquarters located in Seattle - Washington, U.S.A. It is the biggest online retailer in the world. It began as an online bookstore, and before long branched out into selling MP3 downloads, CDs, DVDs, software, toys, apparel, electronics video games, jewelry, food, and furniture. The company additionally manufactures consumer electronics most notable of which are the Amazon 'Kindle Fire tablet computer' and the 'Kindle e-book reader', it is also a chief provider of cloud computing services.

History and background

The company was established in 1994, encouraged by what Jeff Bezos termed as his "framework for regret minimization", which portray his hard work to fight off regrets (if any) for not taking part earlier in the boom of Internet business of that ...