AMAZON PROJECT

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

PROJECT ON AMAZON

Submitted by:

DECLARATION

We, students of MBA, Master of Business Administration, hereby declare that

We have successfully completed this project report on Amazon for the
academic year 2019-2021. The information incorporated in this project is true
and original to the best of our knowledge.

Thanking you.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We, MBA/2019-21 have taken efforts in this project. However, it would not
have been possible without the kind support and help of many individuals. we
would like to extend our sincere thanks to all of them. we are highly indebted
to for his guidelines and constant supervision as well as for providing necessary
information regarding the project and also his support in completing the
project. We would like to express our gratitude towards our parent for their
kind cooperation and encouragement which helped me in completion of this
project.
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INDEX

1. Summary ........................................................................................................................................................... 5

2. Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 5 to 6

3. Description of Amazon ....................................................................................................................... 6 to 9

4. Amazon’s competitors ...................................................................................................................... 9 to 10

5. Statistical information for Amazon ........................................................................................... 10 to 11

6. Design and layout analysis and findings ……………………………………………………………....11 to 12

7. Conclusion and recommendation ......................................................................................................... 12

8. References ..................................................................................................................................................... 12
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1. Summary

This paper will focus on the services provided by Amazon.com, which is one of the biggest
commercial websites in the world. With its recent expansion, Amazon increased the number of its
stores, improved its services, and grew its worldwide presence to nine branches (in the United
States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, Canada, Italy, Spain and China). Amazon also
added to its website some smart features, such as consumer reviews and links to similar products.
After all these changes happened, a significant number of competitors, such as eBay, appeared to
compete in the online market. In addition, the results of analysis of customer interviews show that
customers have made some proposals to improve Amazon through different methods: design,
features, payments, security, delivery, support, and languages in the website and branches around
the world. With these multiple proposals—which differ from customer to customer—Amazon can
apply some of the suggestions, because some competitor sites offered the same things. This way,
Amazon will be able to sweep their competitors, because it provides what customers need.

2. Introduction

With the emergence of the Internet and the progression of technology came the appearance of
commercial websites. One of the biggest commercial sites in the world is Amazon. Amazon was
incorporated in 1994 by Jeff Bezos and was initially named Cadabra; it was launched to the public
as a website in October 1995 with the name Amazon (Byers, 2006). The idea grew when Jeff Bezos
learned that the Internet was experiencing 2,300 percent annual growth; he also selected Seattle as
the site of the company headquarters, because he wanted to be near one of the biggest book
wholesalers, located in Roseburg, Washington. Bezos’s main goal was to establish a place where
customers could obtain what they want (Krishnamurthy, 2002).

Today, Amazon has a significant number of stores, including Music, Video, Home Improvement,
Software, Video Games, Kitchen, Camera, Sports, Gourmet Food, Health, Personal Care, Jewellery,
Beauty, TV and Electronics. Moreover, Amazon has a number of branches around the world, which
are located in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, Canada, Italy, Spain and
China (Amazon Timeline, 2012). For more details about the Amazon timeline, please see Appendix
1.

This report begins with an exploration of Amazon’s history and timeline (above), followed by a
description of the Amazon website and its competitors around the world; then will explore some
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statistical information about Amazon, such as stock price, number of visitors, expenses, sales and
profits. This report will also include an analysis of interviews with 15 Amazon users; the interview
questions comprise seven areas, which are entrance and usage, reasons for using Amazon, design
and layout, features, payments and security, delivery and information about branches, and support
and language. Finally, the essay will conclude by providing a recommendation to enhance the
services provided by Amazon.

3. Description of Amazon

Amazon is one of the biggest commercial Internet sites, and it has different types of sales sections,
including Software, Electronics, Video Games, Video and Home Improvement. All of these sections
serve more than 150 countries around the world (Gonzalez, 2002). In addition, Amazon’s home
page contains a number of links that are important to the end user, such as a search engine,
product advertisements, Today’s Deals and gift cards. In addition, customers can search for any
product in any section without wasting time, or they can pick the section which they want to search
inside to get his product.

In terms of Today’s Deals, this section allow to the customer to buy a product for less than its list
price; the discount is usually between 25 and 80 percent, and these products are available for only
a certain period of time (between one and 24 hours). In addition, through a product’s customer
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discussion option, Amazon allows customers to exchange their views to talk about all aspects of the
product, such as price and quality. Figure 2 shows an example of a deal, which is a jacket with a list
price of $200 and a discounted price of $70; this deal was only available for six hours.

The gift card section allows customers to buy a card and send it to their family or friends as a gift in
order to give them the chance to choose what they want. Specifically, Amazon provides three types
of gift cards: 1) gift cards that can be sent through e-mail or a Facebook post; 2) gift cards that can
be downloaded, printed, and sent to the recipient; and 3) gift cards that Amazon will deliver within
one day, with a free shipping option. It is important to note that Amazon offers these gift cards
without fees, and they have no expiry date.

One of the most important features Amazon offers is customization, which allows customers to
customize their search depending on price, brand name, shipping option, customer reviews and
product condition (new or used). For instance, four months ago, one of my colleagues at work
bought a watch using this customization feature, with a budget between $50 and $80. This smart
customization feature allows end users to find what they want without wasting time and to search
among tens of thousands of products.
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On the product page, customers can read the full details for a product, such as the weight, soonest
shipping date and customer opinions about the product. In addition, the user can add the product
to his basket and process the product to checkout, where he chooses the shipping type. Moreover,
Amazon has different types of delivery methods, such as FREE Super Saver Delivery (3-5 business
days), First Class (up to 2 business days), FREE One-Day Delivery, One-Day Delivery, Express Delivery
and Evening Delivery. Customers can choose one of these options, or they can pick up the product
from the nearest pickup location. At the end of the process, customers need to make a payment
through a gift card code or a credit card. Finally, it is vital to mentioned that Amazon has the
strongest security systems available to protect their customers, including an HTTPS (Hypertext
Transfer Protocol Secure) connection and SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) software, which encrypts user
information and encourages users to log out of their Amazon account when they use a shared
computer.
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4. Amazon’s competitors
Amazon is one of the largest commercial sites in the world; however, after the dot-com success of
the nineties, a significant number of competitors appeared who are trying to benefit from e-
commerce via the Internet. Amazon has several branches in different parts of the world, and the
competition differs from one country to another. For example, in the United Kingdom, there are a
significant number of competitors such as eBay, Argos and Tesco. Moreover, in the Middle East,
there are a number of new commercial sites similar to Amazon, such as Souq.com. In addition,
there are other competitors in various places around the world, such as Ubid.com and Bids.com.
Some of these competitors provide some features which are not available on Amazon (such as
making the payment through PayPal), which has triggered an increase in the competition between
them.
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5. Statistical information for Amazon

There are various types of statistical details, such as number of visitors, expenses, sales and profits,
related to the focus of this paper. According to Dodge (1999), there were approximately 10.8
million unique visitors to Amazon.com in May 1999 and approximately 14 million unique visitors in
March 2000. According to Gonzalez (2002), at the end of June 2000, the number of Amazon
accounts reached 22.5 million. Krishnamurthy (2002) highlighted that the number of customer
accounts grew from 1.5 million in 1997 to approximately 24.7 million at the end of 2001. In May
2012, the number of unique visitors to Amazon was around 76 million, and the average monthly
minutes spent on Amazon per person was 34 (Murdoch, 2012). In addition, Amazon (2012) pointed
out that the number of worldwide active accounts is more than 164 million.
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Regarding expenses and sales, Amazon’s market expenses were $326,000 in 1997, which rose to
$139 million in 2001 (Krishnamurthy, 2002). In addition, in the second quarter of 2005, its total
expenses were $346 million, and this increased to $462 million in the same quarter of 2006 (Flynn,
2006). However, in 1997, Amazon’s sales were $147 million, and this figure grew to approximately
$3.1 billion in 2001 (Krishnamurthy, 2002). Furthermore, first quarter sales in 2007 exceeded $3
billion, and the fourth quarter from the same year exceeded $5.7 billion. Also, the total sales for
2010 were around $34 billion, and in the first quarter of 2012 the total sales were $13.18 billion
(Amazon, 2012). In terms of profits, Amazon’s total profits in 2000 reached $656 million
(Williamson, 2001). However, during the fourth quarter from the same year, profits were around
$5.8 million (Krishnamurthy, 2002). To illustrate, Figure 2 shows Amazon’s profits (orange line) from
2007 until the end of 2011; as shown, the profit decreased from approximately $130 million in the
first quarter of 2010 to $50 million in the last quarter of 2011.

6. Design and layout analysis and findings

Design and simplicity both are important factors for end users. Four interviewees indicated that
Amazon did not have a simple design; for example, one of the interviewees said, “The problem with
their design is the huge number of links on the home page, which confuses consumers”, and
another interviewee mentioned that Amazon did not have a good interface. Specifically, he said
that it needs to be more colourful in order to be cosier for the eyes, and assigning every group of
relevant things a specific colour would make it easier to find products.

However, nine interviewees indicated that Amazon’s design was very simple, comfortable to the
eye, easy to use and consistent with colours. According to one interviewee, the website design is
great, which balances the response time to the request to load the page and the attractive look.
Moreover, one user pointed out that Amazon’s design is great and very easy to use, and he would
like to not make it complicated like Facebook.
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Two interviewees pointed out that the design is not complicated and not so easy at the same time.
According to the first interviewee, “The customers need to read more and make some efforts to
make a payment or set an address or even understand some promotions”. In addition, from a
designer’s view, he argues that it is not easy for the designer to suggest the best design for what
they plan to provide, as designing must work under some conditions such as type of product,
culture and target age. To conclude, Amazon needs to maintain its current colours, because any
change will affect the users who are happy with the current interface colours; the users who do not
agree with the current design are few.

7. Conclusion and recommendation

To sum up, since Amazon’s founding and recent expansion, Amazon has increased the number of
departments and sections it offers, improved its services, expanded its branches around the world
and improved services and features such as design, search inside the site, payment, delivery and
customer support. In addition, interviews with customers show that they have some requirements
and proposals for improving Amazon. In terms of design, some suggested decreasing the number of
links on the home page and changing the colour to be more comfortable to the eye. In terms of
features, some interviewees suggested adding guiding customers to find the intended item in a
store close to them to buy and get it directly, and adding short videos about products in order to
give clear product information. In terms of payment and security, a significant number of customers
suggested adding PayPal as a payment option, and some suggested improving the security of the
website through adding Verified by Visa with each order. In addition, a significant number of
customers recommended adding different languages to the website and improving the support
team by having different language speakers there. Consequently, Amazon can implement some of
these suggestions—which differ from customer to customer—because some of its competitors
offer the same proposed features, and Amazon would be able to sweep its competitors because it
provides what customers need.

8. References
Amazon Details Available at: < http://www.amazon.co.uk/ >

Amazon History & Timeline available at:

<http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-corporateTimeline >