Amazon Marketing Plan

Amazon Marketing Plan

Introduction: Include a brief introduction of the company.

Amazon.com is an American company that mainly deals in e-commerce. Various products and services are listed on the company’s website. The company, which Jeff Bezos founded, began in 1995. Jeff Bezos’ understanding of the growth of the internet created this organization as a purely online entity that relied on the barely developed element (Sadq, Nuraddin, & Hama, 2018). The main goals included being customer-oriented and creating an online environment that facilitates easy shopping through to checkout. The company relies on a clear model emphasizing a renowned brand name, providing value to clients, the ability to handle large sales, and the realization of economies of scale and scope. Amazon.com lists electronics, cosmetics, books, toys, jewelry, furniture, apparel, shoes, clothing, automotive parts, music, and digital downloads. It serves specific customers, including content creators, final consumers, sellers, and enterprises. Its mission is to ‘be Earth’s most customer-centric company where people can find and discover anything they want to buy online’ (Lang, Tinder, Zimmermann, & Harrison, 2012). Do you need urgent assignment help ? Get in touch with us at eminencepapers.com. We endeavor to provide you with excellent service.

Competitive Analysis: Who are your company’s competitors, and how is each differentiated? Identify two or three strengths and two or three weaknesses of your company compared to a minimum of two of your company’s competitors.

The online market has experienced rapid growth because more individuals can access various retail sites. The technological advancements have driven up sales, which exceed 100 million globally. Internet-based retail sites are more attractive to clients due to the ease of comparing the different providers and the affordable prices in comparison to physical stores. Online stores lack fixed costs such as rent and utilities, which drive up the cost of goods in physical stores. Competition in the online retail market continues to stiffen up as more players enter with minimal resistance (Lang, Tinder, Zimmermann, & Harrison, 2012). Amazon.com is not exempted from competition from retailers such as Barnes& Noble, Walmart, and Alibaba.

Barnes & Noble specializes in making books, newspapers, and magazines accessible to clients through different distributors. In 2012, Barnes & Noble had more than 1300 bookstores across 50 states in America. At least 647 of these bookstores are found in educational institutions. The company has at least 35,000 employees working full- and part-time. Barnes & Noble operates at least 39.9 percent of the bookstore market share. Due to the growth in the online sale of books, the company created NOOK, which stocks digital content. This led to a 2 percent growth in sales in 2012. NOOK’s sales doubled over the following years. Barnes & Noble created a partnership with Microsoft to pursue further digital expansion and growth through Newco (Lang, Tinder, Zimmermann, & Harrison, 2012).

Alibaba, a Chinese company that offers services similar to Amazon, is a formidable competitor. The major difference that distinguishes Alibaba is its ability to connect wholesalers to clients globally. The Chinese company has morphed into different sites, including Aliexpress, Taobao, and Tmall. Alibaba acts as an intermediary between sellers and clients (Burgess, 2020). Alibaba is already recording at least $70 billion, which is a third of Amazon’s revenue. Often referred to as the ‘Amazon of China,’ Alibaba has the advantage of competing with Amazon due to its dominant position in the Asian market (Wu & Gereffi, 2019).

Walmart is commonly viewed as Amazon’s significant competitor. The majority of its revenue comes from its physical stores. Its proximity to most clients is an attractive aspect that drives up the sales recorded at Walmart. Walmart’s current revenue exceeds Amazon’s by $523 billion. With such remarkable performance, the company has started investing in e-commerce and has already experienced a 207 percent customer base growth. Its recent partnership with Shopify will expand its customer base through Shopify’s 1200 sellers (Burgess, 2020).

Amazon’s Weaknesses and Strengths

Compared to Walmart and Barnes & Noble, Amazon’s lack of physical stores presents a weakness. The two competitors began through physical stores and are now seeking to venture into e-commerce. Amazon only has an online presence, which locks out the market segment that does not gravitate towards online shopping. Its competitors are able to harness a market from segments that prefer online shopping and those that like to visit actual stores. Alibaba offers a Business-to-Business connection through wholesale prices. This enables Alibaba, which acts as an intermediary to assure clients of safe transactions and quality and offer sellers a consistent market for their products. Thus, Alibaba’s focus on both retail and wholesale leads to competitive prices and the ability to reach a wider market share globally (Wu & Gereffi, 2019). Amazon concentrates on retail sales and barely offers wholesale prices to clients. This may lead to losing clients and sellers seeking such opportunities. Amazon’s strengths include its versatile merchandise, which offers clients an opportunity to purchase items from different brands. In addition, its customer orientation, long-standing presence in the online retail sector, and financial ability to apply technology and utilize it beneficially propel it ahead of its competitors.

Marketing Strategies: What are the marketing strategies used by your company in the management of the global customer brand? Use the four Ps in your analysis, which are listed below.

Product: Begin with a theoretical definition of a product. What is the product/service offering by your company? How did the development of these new products affect your company’s marketing strategy?

A product refers to a good or service a company offers its clients in the market. A company’s products and services should satisfy the market’s demand. Amazon offers a wide range of products and services through its online platform. These include consumer electronics, Amazon publishing, Amazon videos, Amazon Fresh, Prime Pantry, and retail goods and services. Due to the unique platform that Amazon uses to offer its products and services, it must utilize different marketing strategies to reach out to the target markets. The company uses online techniques such as interactive advertisements, email campaigns, optimization of search engines, and paid marketing searches (Chackochan, 2018). These techniques are beneficial to Amazon because they facilitate the collection of data and, ultimately, the matching of various content to the interests of different groups of clients.

Place: Begin with a theoretical definition of place. What are the distribution channels used by your company?

Place refers to the company’s choice regarding the ideal location or platform to sell their goods and services. Amazon.com’s website, an online platform, has proven to be ideal since it was founded in 1995. The online platform is highly dependent on the availability or accessibility of internet connectivity, especially for its clients. The other platform that Amazon uses to get its products to customers is the physical stores. In addition, Amazon also uses Kindle, an application that provides clients access to digital books (Chackochan, 2018). The three distribution channels provide an easy technique for clients to view and purchase items or services for personal use.

Price: Begin with a theoretical definition of price. What is the pricing strategy used by your company?

Price is defined as the cost consumers incur to gain ownership of a product or access a specific service. Amazon.com applies different pricing strategies to satisfy the varying needs of its wide customer base. Besides discounts and attractive pricing, Amazon.com also uses market-oriented, value-based, penetration, psychological, and price discrimination strategies (Chackochan, 2018). Each of these strategies is used to achieve a different objective as part of marketing.

Promotion: Begin with a theoretical definition of promotion. What are the traditional and digital methods of marketing promotion used by your company? Explain a minimum of three traditional and three digital methods.

Promotion refers to the company’s public relations, advertising, and promotional tactics. Promotion is intended to inform consumers about a specific product or service, its benefits, price, and availability. Amazon.com uses advertising, direct marketing, sales promotion, and public relations as part of its promotional mix. Advertising is one of the traditional methods that Amazon utilizes for promotional purposes. The digital advertising strategies include social media, emails, coupons, and buy one get one. Email marketing is used as a form of direct marketing and customized advertisements shown to clients based on past searches or purchases. Newsletters, percentage off, lightning deals, and brand stores are the traditional methods that Amazon.com uses to promote its services and products (Chackochan, 2018). Each promotional process is designed to help the company achieve its financial and non-financial goals.

Competitive Advantage: Identify whether your company has a competitive advantage in each of the areas of the four Ps. Remember that your company could have a competitive advantage in one area and not in another. Include supporting rationale.

Amazon manifests a competitive advantage in the product aspect of the marketing mix. The company offers extensive merchandise that has varying items and services. These are critical in meeting the different needs and wants of clients. The products offered come from different brands, leading to a discrimination pricing strategy. The pricing of the same product differently due to slight variations allows clients to make choices based on their price sensitivity, brand perceptions, and perceived benefits of each product (Chackochan, 2018). Therefore, clients have the freedom to purchase products and services of choice to match their needs and wants adequately. In addition, when the company introduces new products, it uses penetration pricing, which is attractive and competitive. Such a pricing strategy allows consumers to test the product or service. The large numbers of sales that result from such a process enable the company to achieve economies of scale, leading to significant margins even when prices are slightly lower than their competitors’. Furthermore, the strategic partnerships that Amazon.com creates with different brands create an additional competitive edge. For instance, its recent partnership with Whole Foods has begun its process towards ownership of physical stores and serving the healthy food needs of its clients (Lang, Tinder, Zimmermann, & Harrison, 2012).

In terms of place, Amazon.com enjoys significant bargaining power. Its long-standing presence in the online platform allows Amazon.com to dominate the online retail market. Being a pioneer in this sector creates a certain brand recognition that leads to a large customer base. Despite the lack of high entry barriers in the online retail sector, the company’s financial ability to leverage different innovations and tailor them to serve customers offers an added advantage (Demir, 2017). In addition, Amazon.com understands the techniques and strategies that are useful in the achievement of goals while dealing with online platforms. Its operational efficiencies, which have been acquired over a long time, attract publishers to work alongside Amazon.com’s Kindle. Publishers can cut their operation costs that they could incur when producing content and shipping the final product to clients. These variable costs lead to increased savings as volumes of work from publishers increase (Wang & Miller , 2020). Most importantly, Amazon enjoys an added advantage in its unique promotion approach. The ability to process the data that the company collates offers essential information about its clients and their needs or preferences (Odediran, 2020). Therefore, Amazon’s targeted email marketing leads to positive results, such as more purchases of the advertised items.

References

Burgess, J. (2020). Reviewing Amazon’s Biggest Competitors Across Different Industries.

Chackochan, N. (2018). A Study on E-commerce Marketing Strategy with Special Reference to Amazon. com,In. Journal of Social Welfare and Management, 10(3), 448-452.

Demir, A. (2017). Management Information System: Case Study ofAmazon.Com. Journal of Research in Business and Management, 4(11), 11-17.

Lang, S., Tinder, L., Zimmermann, J., & Harrison, J. S. (2012). Amazon.com: Offering Everything from A to Z. Retrieved from https://robins.richmond.edu/documents/Amazon.pdf

Odediran, A. (2020). The Competitive Advantage Strategy Amazon’s Success Definition.

Sadq, Z. M., Nuraddin, S., & Hama, S. (2018). Analyzing Amazon success strategies. Journal of Process Management New Technologies, 6(4), 65-69.

Wang, R. D., & Miller, C. D. (2020). How Third-Party Sellers Can Make Amazon Work for Them. Harvard Business Review.

Wu, X., & Gereffi, G. (2019). Amazon and Alibaba: Internet governance, business models, and internationalization strategies. In International Business in the Information and Digital Age (pp. 327-356).

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Marketing Plan

Throughout this course, you have learned about the elements of a marketing plan. This assignment will provide you with the opportunity to research the marketing methodology of an existing publicly traded company; using a publicly traded company will provide you with access to a greater amount of information to complete this assignment. As you research this company, apply the theoretical learning from this course.

Include the sections below in your marketing plan.

• Introduction: Include a brief introduction of the company.
• Competitive Analysis: Who are your company’s competitors, and how is each differentiated? Identify two or three strengths and two or three weaknesses of your company compared to a minimum of two of your company’s competitors.
• Marketing Strategies: What are the marketing strategies used by your company in the management of the global customer brand? Use the four Ps in your analysis, which are listed below.
  • Product: Begin with a theoretical definition of a product. What is the product/service offering by your company? How did the development of these new products affect your company’s marketing strategy?
  • Place: Begin with a theoretical definition of place. What are the distribution channels used by your company?
  • Price: Begin with a theoretical definition of price. What is the pricing strategy used by your company?
  • Promotion: Begin with a theoretical definition of promotion. What are the traditional and digital methods of marketing promotion used by your company? Explain a minimum of three traditional and three digital methods.
• Competitive Advantage: Identify whether your company has a competitive advantage in each of the areas of the four Ps. Remember that your company could have a competitive advantage in one area and not in another. Include supporting rationale.

Your submission must be in essay format and use subheadings. You need to include a minimum of five scholarly sources (no blogs, no Wikipedia), and three must be peer-reviewed sources. Your scholarly activity must be at least six pages in length, not counting the title page and references page. APA format is required.