Chapter -1

1. Introduction
In 2015, Goat Consulting began offering Amazon Marketplace business services to
brands and manufacturers selling on the Amazon.com marketplace. One of the key
benefits to bringing on a partner like Goat Consulting is that it gives brands and
manufacturers the opportunity to work with experts who devote their entire focus
to the Amazon Marketplace.
This white paper is an introduction to selling on the Amazon.com selling platform.
It discusses what the Amazon Marketplace is, how customers shop on the platform,
competition for the Buy Box and the different business models for selling on
Amazon.com.
We hope that by the end of reading this you have a better understanding of:
● The opportunity of selling on Amazon.com
● How Amazon.com customers shop on the platform
● The different business models for selling on Amazon

1.1. Marketing strategy of Amazon

Amazon marketing strategy
Whilst it does not reveal much about the Amazon marketing strategy approach in
its annual reports, but there seems to be a focus on online marketing channels.
Amazon (2011) states “we direct customers to our websites primarily through a
number of targeted online marketing channels, such as our Associates program,
sponsored search, portal advertising, email marketing campaigns, and other
initiatives”. These other initiatives may include outdoor and TV advertising, but
they are not mentioned specifically. In this statement they also highlight the
importance of customer loyalty tools. They say: “while costs associated with free
shipping are not included in marketing expense, we view free shipping offers and
Amazon Prime as effective worldwide marketing tools, and intend to continue
offering them indefinitely”.
1.2. AMAZON’S BUSINESS MODEL AND STRATEGY

One secret behind Amazon’s business model which is still difficult for people to
understand is the relationship between profit and sales. The lesser the percentage of
sales which is profit, the higher profit the retailer tends to make. This becomes
clearer, if you calculate their sales as a percentage of profit using the data in table
1. Evidences from the table show that Amazon’s profit standing is better when the
profit margins are lower. The simple interpretation of this is that Amazon increases
profits through high sales volume which arises from low margins. According to
GlobalData (2013), this is a strong business model. One of the keys to the
successful operation of this business model is the disintermediation role that the
online retailer plays (Yarow, 2013; Malczewski, 2011). This enables Amazon to
deliver products and services to their clients at lower prices than competitors.
Consequently, everyday low pricing model is a key strategy in Amazon’s online
retailing of products (GlobalData, 2013). The impact of this on sales turnover has
been very astounding (see table 1).
To get higher sales volume, Amazon has aggressively diversified into many
product offerings and services delivery. A theoretical justification for this strategy
is rooted in Ansoff’s 1957 Strategy Matrix (cited in Richardson and Evans, 2007,
p. ii). Although expanding product range can help to increase key customer
accounts as implied in Ansoff’s model; there needs to be better profiling of
customers to track their profit potential because evidence-based researches show
that not all customers or even loyal customers are profitable (Kumar et al., 2009;
Cao and Gruca, 2005). This is why Sprint Nextel fired around 1000 of their 53
million customers (Kumar et al., 2009). Yet, other research clusters (Kazemi and
Babaei, 2011; Carbo-Valverde et al., 2011) stressed the importance of customer
attraction. However, these two perspectives occupy opposite extremes. A balance
in a company’s strategic response to this issue is therefore the most optimal
strategy. Smart organizations therefore reward different customers differently and
at times fire customers who are consistently unprofitable. Contrary to this, all
Amazon’s customers receive customized services (Mirow, 2005). Even though the
company utilizes web services and other technologies to boost customers’ pool
(Annual Report, 2013; Mann, 2013; Lindic et al., 2012; Malczewski, 2011;
Markides, 2006; Hof et al., 1998), we found no evidence of key measurement
strategy in place to determine each customer’s contribution to profitability. This
might have even accounted for Amazon’s rising operational costs (see table 1 and
figure 1). If this weakness is not checked, it might evolve into a big threat that may
further weaken the company’s financial performance.

1.3. AMAZON MARKETING STRATEGY EXPERIMENTS!

Amazon have created their own internal experimentation platform called a

“Weblab” that they use to evaluate improvements to our websites and products. In
2013, they ran 1,976 Weblabs worldwide, up from 1,092 in 2012, and 546 in 2011.
Now many companies use AB testing, but this shows the scale of testing at
Amazon.

One example of how these are applied is a new feature called “Ask an owner”.
From a product page, customers can ask any question related to the product,
Amazon then route these questions to owners of the product who answer.

1.4.From human to software-based recommendations

Amazon marketing strategy has developed internal tools to support this ‘Culture of
Metrics’. Marcus (2004) describes how the ‘Creator Metrics’ tool shows content
creators how well their product listings and product copy are working. For each
content editor such as Marcus, it retrieves all recently posted documents including
articles, interviews, booklists and features. For each one it then gives a conversion
rate to sale plus the number of pages views, adds (added to basket) and repels
(content requested, but the back button then used). In time, the work of editorial
reviewers such as Marcus was marginalized since Amazon found that the majority
of visitors used the search tools rather than read editorial and they responded to the
personalized recommendations as the matching technology improved (Marcus
likens early recommendations techniques to ‘going shopping with the village
idiot’).

1.5. EXPERIMENTATION AND TESTING AT AMAZON.COM

The ‘Culture of Metrics’ also led to a test-driven approach to improving results at
Amazon. Matt Round, speaking at E-metrics 2004 when he was director of
personalization at Amazon describes the philosophy as ‘Data Trumps Intuitions’.
He explained how Amazon used to have a lot of arguments about which content
and promotion should go on the all-important home page or category pages. He
described how every category VP wanted top-center and how the Friday meetings
about placements for next week were getting ‘too long, too loud, and lacked
performance data’.

But today ‘automation replaces intuitions’ and real-time experimentation tests are
always run to answer these questions since actual consumer behavior is the best
way to decide upon tactics.

Marcus (2004) also notes that Amazon has a culture of experiments of which A/B
tests are key components. Examples where A/B tests are used include new home
page design, moving features around the page, different algorithms for
recommendations, changing search relevance rankings. These involve testing a
new treatment against a previous control for a limited time of a few days or a
week. The system will randomly show one or more treatments to visitors and
measure a range of parameters such as units sold and revenue by category (and
total), session time, session length, etc. The new features will usually be launched
if the desired metrics are statistically significantly better. Statistical tests are a
challenge though as distributions are not normal (they have a large mass at zero for
example of no purchase) There are other challenges since multiple A/B tests are
running every day and A/B tests may overlap and so conflict. There are also
longer-term effects where some features are ‘cool’ for the first two weeks and the
opposite effect where changing navigation may degrade performance temporarily.
Amazon also finds that as its users evolve in their online experience the way they
act online has changed. This means that Amazon has to constantly test and evolve
its features.

1.6. AMAZON.COM TECHNOLOGY MARKETING STRATEGY

It follows that the Amazon technology infrastructure must readily support this
culture of experimentation and this can be difficult to achieved with standardized
content management. Amazon has achieved its competitive advantage through
developing its technology internally and with a significant investment in this which
may not be available to other organizations without the right focus on the online
channels.

As Amazon explains in SEC (2005) ‘using primarily our own proprietary

technologies, as well as technology licensed from third parties, we have
implemented numerous features and functionality that simplify and improve the
customer shopping experience, enable third parties to sell on our platform, and
facilitate our fulfillment and customer service operations. Our current strategy is to
focus our development efforts on continuous innovation by creating and enhancing
the specialized, proprietary software that is unique to our business, and to license
or acquire commercially-developed technology for other applications where
available and appropriate. We continually invest in several areas of technology,
including our seller platform; A9.com, our wholly-owned subsidiary focused on
search technology on www.A9.com and other Amazon sites; web services; and
digital initiatives.’

Round (2004) describes the technology approach as ‘distributed development and

deployment’. Pages such as the home page have a number of content ‘pods’ or
‘slots’ which call web services for features. This makes it relatively easy to change
the content in these pods and even change the location of the pods on-screen.
Amazon uses a flowable or fluid page design unlike many sites which enables it to
make the most of real-estate on-screen.

Technology also supports more standard e-retail facilities. SEC (2005) states: ‘We
use a set of applications for accepting and validating customer orders, placing and
tracking orders with suppliers, managing and assigning inventory to customer
orders, and ensuring proper shipment of products to customers. Our transaction-
processing systems handle millions of items, a number of different status inquiries,
multiple shipping addresses, gift-wrapping requests, and multiple shipment
methods. These systems allow the customer to choose whether to receive single or
several shipments based on availability and to track the progress of each order.
These applications also manage the process of accepting, authorizing, and charging
customer credit cards.’

1.7. AMAZON MARKETING STRATEGY FOR PARTNERSHIPS

As Amazon grew, its share price growth enabled partnership or acquisition with a
range of companies in different sectors. Marcus (2004) describes how Amazon
partnered with Drugstore.com (pharmacy), Living.com (furniture), Pets.com (pet
supplies), Wineshopper.com (wines), HomeGrocer.com (groceries), Sothebys.com
(auctions) and Kozmo.com (urban home delivery). In most cases, Amazon
purchased an equity stake in these partners, so that it would share in their
prosperity. It also charged them fees for placements on the Amazon site to promote
and drive traffic to their sites.

Similarly, Amazon marketing strategy was to charge publishers for prime-position

to promote books on its site which caused an initial hue-and-cry, but this abated
when it was realized that paying for prominent placements was widespread in
traditional booksellers and supermarkets. Many of these new online companies
failed in 1999 and 2000, but Amazon had covered the potential for growth and was
not pulled down by these partners, even though for some such as Pets.com it had
an investment of 50%.

Analysts sometimes refer to ‘Amazoning a sector’ meaning that one company

becomes dominant in an online sector such as book retail such that it becomes very
difficult for others to achieve market share. In addition to developing,
communicating and delivering a very strong proposition, Amazon has been able to
consolidate its strength in different sectors through its partnership arrangements
and through using technology to facilitate product promotion and distribution via
these partnerships. The Amazon retail platform enables other retailers to sell
products online using the Amazon user interface and infrastructure through their
‘Syndicated Stores’ program.

For example, in the UK, Waterstones (www.waterstones.co.uk) is one of the

largest traditional bookstores. It found competition with online so expensive and
challenging, that eventually it entered a partnership arrangement where Amazon
markets and distributes its books online in return for a commission online.
Similarly, in the US, Borders a large book retailer uses the Amazon merchant
platform for distributing its products.

Toy retailer Toys R’ Us have a similar arrangement. Such partnerships help

Amazon extends its reach into the customer-base of other suppliers, and of course,
customers who buy in one category such as books can be encouraged to purchase
into other areas such as clothing or electronics.

Another form of partnership referred to above is the Amazon Marketplace which

enables Amazon customers and other retailers to sell their new and used books and
other goods alongside the regular retail listings. A similar partnership approach is
the Amazon ‘Merchants@’ program which enables third party merchants (typically
larger than those who sell via the Amazon Marketplace) to sell their products via
Amazon. Amazon earns fees either through fixed fees or sales commissions per-
unit. This arrangement can help customers who get a wider choice of products
from a range of suppliers with the convenience of purchasing them through a
single checkout process.

Finally, Amazon marketing strategy has also facilitated formation of partnerships

with smaller companies through its affiliates program. Internet legend records that
Jeff Bezos, the creator of Amazon was chatting to someone at a cocktail party who
wanted to sell books about divorce via her web site. Subsequently, Amazon.com
launched its Associates Program in July 1996 and it is still going strong.

Googlinghttp://www.google.com/search?q=www.amazon.com+site
%3Awww.amazon.com for sites that link to the US site, shows over 4 million
pages, many of which will be affiliates. Amazon does not use an affiliate network
which would take commissions from sale, but thanks to the strength of its brand
has developed its own affiliate program.

Here, the Amazon marketing strategy has created a tiered performance-based

incentive to encourage affiliates to sell more Amazon products.

1.8. AMAZON MARKETING STRATEGY COMMUNICATIONS

In their SEC filings Amazon state that the aims of their communications strategy
are (unsurprisingly) to:

1. Increase customer traffic to our websites

2. Create awareness of our products and services
3. Promote repeat purchases
4. Develop incremental product and service revenue opportunities
5. Strengthen and broaden the Amazon.com brand name.

Amazon also believe that its most effective marketing communications are a
consequence of their focus on continuously improving the customer experience.
This then creates word-of-mouth promotion which is effective in acquiring new
customers and may also encourage repeat customer visits.
As well as this Marcus (2004) describes how Amazon used the personalization
enabled through technology to reach out to a difficult to reach market which Bezos
originally called ‘the hard middle’. Bezos’s view was that it was easy to reach 10
people (you called them on the phone) or the ten million people who bought the
most popular products (you placed a Super bowl ad), but more difficult to reach
those in between. The search facilities in the search engine and on the Amazon
site, together with its product recommendation features meant that Amazon could
connect its products with the interests of these people.

Online advertising techniques include paid search marketing, interactive ads on

portals, e-mail campaigns and search engine optimization. These are automated as
far as possible as described earlier in the case study. As previously mentioned, the
affiliate program is also important in driving visitors to Amazon and Amazon
offers a wide range of methods of linking to its site to help improve conversion.

For example, affiliates can use straight text links leading direct to a product page
and they also offer a range of dynamic banners which feature different content
such as books about Internet marketing or a search box.
Amazon also use cooperative advertising arrangements, better known as ‘contra-
deals’ with some vendors and other third parties. For example, a print
advertisement in 2005 for a particular product such as a wireless router with a free
wireless laptop card promotion will feature a specific Amazon URL in the ad. In
product fulfillment packs, Amazon may include a leaflet for a non-competing
online company such as Figleaves.com (lingerie) or Expedia (travel). In return,
Amazon leaflets may be included in customer communications from the partner
brands.

Our Associates program directs customers to our websites by enabling independent

websites to make millions of products available to their audiences with fulfillment
performed by us or third parties. We pay commissions to hundreds of thousands of
participants in our Associates program when their customer referrals result in
product sales.
 Revenue Net income Total Assets
Year Employees
in mil. USD$ in mil. USD$ in mil. USD$

2007[136] 14,835 476 6,485 17,000

2008[137] 19,166 645 8,314 20,700

2009[138] 24,509 902 13,813 24,300

2010[139] 34,204 1,152 18,797 33,700

2011[140] 48,077 631 25,278 56,200

2012[141] 61,093 −39 32,555 88,400

2013[142] 74,452 274 40,159 117,300

2014[143] 88,988 −241 54,505 154,100

2015[144] 107,006 596 64,747 230,800

2016[145] 135,987 2,371 83,402 341,400

2017[146] 177,866 3,033 131,310 566,000

2018[147] 232,887 10,073 162,648 647,500

2019[148] 280,522 11,588 225,248 798,000

 2020[149] 386,064 21,331 321,195 1,298,000

In addition, we offer everyday free shipping options worldwide and recently

announced Amazon.com Prime in the U.S., our first membership program in which
members receive free two-day shipping and discounted overnight shipping.
Although marketing expenses do not include the costs of our free shipping or
promotional offers, we view such offers as effective marketing tools.

Marcus, J. (2004) Amazonia. Five years at the epicenter of the dot-com juggernaut,
The New Press, New York, NY.

Round, M. (2004) Presentation to E-metrics, London, May 2005.

www.emetrics.org.

1.9. FINANCES
Amazon.com is primarily a retail site with a sales revenue model; Amazon takes a
small percentage of the sale price of each item that is sold through its website
while also allowing companies to advertise their products by paying to be listed as
featured products. As of 2018, Amazon.com is ranked 8th on the Fortune
500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.

For the fiscal year 2018, Amazon reported earnings of US$10.07 billion, with
annual revenue of US$232.887 billion, an increase of 30.9% over the previous
fiscal cycle. Since 2007 sales increased from 14.835 billion to 232.887 billion,
thanks to continued business expansion.

Amazon's market capitalization went over US$1 trillion again in early February

2020 after the announcement of the fourth quarter 2019 results. Amazon's total
employees now number 798,000.
1.10. 25 TYPES OF MARKETING STRATEGIES

A right marketing strategy plays an important role in the success of a business.

Every company chooses and spends a lot of money for the right
marketing strategy to boost their sales. Powerful companies opt for more than
one marketing strategies.

Let’s first learn about why businesses spend millions in the marketing of
their products.

 Right marketing technique increases the visibility of the product.

 People become familiar with your product, thus, they start trusting you.
 Marketing creates loyalty for the brand for both prospects and existing
customers.
 Marketing builds the credibility and authority of the brand in the market.
 Effective marketing positions a brand as an expert in the market.
 Motivates customers to move through the purchase decision making.

You might need more than one business marketing strategy to keep your business
growing. Different market strategy can be used to target different audience at
different stages. In this article, you will learn about the
different types of marketing strategies.
1) Business-to-consumer strategies 

B2C market strategy is for those companies which market their products directly to
consumers. These types of businesses can work online or in store. A business-to-
consumer strategy is consumer driven. You must know your customers inside-out.
There preferences of social media, where they live, and how much money they
earn.

2) Employee marketing strategies

The strategy of this marketing type is to overtake its employees as potential

customers and brand ambassadors. We all know that companies provide employee
discounts as a part of their deal. Mostly, employees buy from their employees as
long as they are getting the best deals. In this way, employees become the advocate
of the company.

They not only come to work and get paid, but they promote your products and
thus, help you to generate revenue. They will recommend your products to their
family, friends, and acquaintances. they might share about your products on social
media and can refer potential employees. Therefore, never make a mistake to
ignore your employees while building a market strategy. They can be loyal
customers of your business if treated right.
3) Business to Business Strategies

Business-to-business marketing takes place when a business markets its products

and services to another business.

For instance, you produce equipment of machines, you are doing a business-to-
business space. It requires a different approach than business-to-consumer
marketing because there several more steps involved in it. You need to find out the
decision makers and find out ways to persuade them to business with you. to do
this, you need to build a relationship with them by providing superlative services.

4) Direct selling

There are few products which can be sold by meeting your customers face-to-face
and providing them a demonstration of your products. For example, if you selling a
product used at home. You can call a group of customers in one person’s home and
can provide a demonstration about how that product works.

There are companies like Amway, Vestige, Avon which apply direct

selling marketing strategy to build their businesses. This market strategy is less
expensive but works for a few products and it requires sales skills and
an extrovert personality to convince your customers to buy products.
5) Cause Marketing

Many companies opt for this marketing technique to boost their sales. People get
drawn towards the businesses which are working for a cause. They feel good
knowing that their money is being used for a good cause. Therefore, there is no
harm to opt for this strategy which benefits you as well as the community. To do
this, you need to get into a partnership with a charity organization.

You can choose the cause of providing education to orphan children. For this, you
can partner with an orphanage or an NGO working for this cause. Later, you can
let your customers know so that they can add to a donation by purchasing things
from you.

6) Earned Media/PR

In the modern era, there is hardly a person who isn’t aware of this type of
marketing strategy. Companies pay a lot of money to promote their products on
various media platforms like newspaper, television, social media etc. They even
pay celebrities to promote their products. People trusts earned media than any other
sort of promotion.
7) Co-branding and affinity Marketing

By using this marketing strategy, you share your customers with businesses that
compliment your own business. For example, if you are selling Yoga related
products like a yoga mat, yoga pants etc. you can tie up with a famous yoga
instructor to promote your products by sharing a percentage of profit with them.

If you follow yoga instructors on Instagram you must have seen them promoting
products of certain brands. It is clear that co-branding or affinity marketing
represents a partnership between two businesses with similar interests. They aren’t
competitors to each other. Hence, there is no fear of losing your customer base.
Affinity marketing refers to creating a product with another business to boost its
sales.

8) Internet Marketing

Internet marketing includes various marketing from social media, blogs, email,
vlogs to landing pages. Any type of marketing that you conduct on the internet is
called internet marketing. However, internet marketing requires a strategy that how
and when you post your posts and how you encourage people to purchase your
product.
9) Point-of-purchase marketing

Point-of-purchase marketing strategy includes placing your product where

customers make the most purchase. You must have noticed that many small
products are being placed near the cash counter. This is done intentionally so that
people make an impulse purchase. In addition to this, you must have experienced
cashier who tried to sell your product. This is another example of POP marketing.

10) Word-of-mouth Advertising:

Traditionally, word-of-mouth advertising was limited to face-to-face praise of the

product. Nowadays, the method of this type of marketing has been changed.

When people mention your services or products on their social media page and
give a positive review, they are doing word-of-mouth advertising of your business.
You can also pay some review bloggers to write reviews about you. These days
people have a tendency to read reviews about everything before making a
purchase.
11) Paid media advertising:

Paid media advertising is the best solution to grow your business fast. Obviously,
you will have to liquidate capital to get results. But there is Return of investment
on every penny you spent. Followings are the types of paid media advertising.

 Paid search
 Paid social
 Television and radio commercial
 Display advertising
 Print ads
 Billboards

This type of marketing requires planning and specific goals for every

ad’s performance. In case, your advertising is not working, don’t keep wasting
your money instead think about some other ways to market your product.

12) Storytelling:
Storytelling is an emotional way to reach your audience. You can produce personal
stories, brand stories or a story of one of your customers after taking their
permission. There is one more trend of saying a story in exactly six words. Here
writer requires great writing skills to create a short meaningful story. This type of
marketing strategy helps you to win the trust and loyalty of your customers.

13) Referral Program:

This type of marketing strategy makes the use of your existing customers to get
new customers on board. You pay some incentive or benefits to your customers if
they ask their friends to buy your product or service. People usually do word-of-
mouth marketing to get the benefit. The amount you pay to them is quite small in
front of the returns you are getting. Find the way to keep the track of referrals done
by your customers before giving them benefits.

14) Growth Hacking:

This type of marketing strategy is used to gain resurgence in the audience in a short
span of time by hacking into one of the internets from many types of marketing
strategies. There are many professionals who can do this job for you in return for
money. One method is to try several types of marketing strategies simultaneously.
You can get a huge amount of data by following this technique.

15) Networking Events

Yes, internet marketing will get your audience. But there are other marketing
techniques too that you cannot do from behind the computer screen. For this, you
need to step out in the real world and organize some networking events to get
prospects who might enjoy your services. For example, if you are providing an
online course, you can set up a booth where people can reach you and you can
share knowledge with them about your course and encourage them to take the
course by providing them additional discounts.
16) Content Marketing

People enjoy participating in contests. You can use online platforms like Facebook,
Instagram, YouTube or other online platforms to run contests. Organizing contest
is the best way to direct traffic to your website and optimize the conversion rate.
You can keep digital devices or travel tickets as prize money.

17) Retargeting

Using this type of marketing you target people who have shown interest in your
business before. For example, Facebook let you place a pixel on your website. A
user will see the ad of your product on Facebook if he/she has recently visited your
website.

As they already know about your brand, they will recognize it and there are high
chances for them to get convert. There are other retargeting platforms too like
Instagram, YouTube etc. where you can retarget your prospects.

18) Search Engine Marketing

Everyone wants their content to appear first in a search engine using search engine
optimization (SEO). Search engine marketing can help you generate a massive
return on investment. To do this, you need to have unique, creative, value-driven
content so that your content appears appealing to search engine. You can learn
online how to use search engine optimization to market your products and services.
19) Social Media Marketing

Businesses make the use of social media platforms to share value-rich content and
directing traffic to their websites and landing pages, thereby, improving brand
awareness and multiplying customers. social media marketing strategy works
better if you know how to use hashtag, links, images, and videos to increase
engagement.

20) Content Marketing 

This type of strategy involves sharing the content that you write of your blog or
landing pages to social media platforms. It is one of the effective marketing
strategies because it gets organic traffic to your blog and convert visitors into loyal
followers. You need to upload value-rich data constantly to keep your followers.
Therefore, you should plan your content months in advance.

21) Social media and viral marketing

It is unpredictable that what kind of content will go viral through social shares,
email, search engine etc. however, getting your business in the eyes of your
audience is one of the best methods to increase your business. There are a few
ways that you can try to make your content viral on the internet such as

 Post visual posts like images and videos.

  First, build your audience and then release your content.
 Produce content on a trending topic.
 Encourage your followers to share your content.
 Share emotional, inspiring, or entertaining content.
 Give an incentive for every video share.

This is the oldest type of marketing strategy. Where rather than sending emails you
send postal mail to your prospect. There is one glitch in this type of marketing
strategy that you can’t do cold-call. You need to have a list of qualified prospects
who will not let your email go waste.

23) Inbound Marketing

This type of market strategy is effective when you want to build a positive
relationship with your prospect audience without spending too much money. This
includes marketing strategies which attract your customers to your business like a
magnet. You can make your presence visible on social media use an email list to
share free content. As people have become blind to television advertisement these
days. This type of marketing strategy will surely get their attention.

24) Influencer Marketing
25) Behavioral Marketing:

In the present time, businesses can generate more data than ever before in history.
Behavioral marketing exploits this advantage to target specific consumers. By
tracking IP address, cookies, and web histories you can make sure that your
audience is viewing your content at the right time.

On BCG matrix Amazon have certain businesses which are cash cows while others
are stars & question marks. E-books, movies on demand & Amazon prime are
practically cash cows giving the maximum margins to Amazon. In fact, Amazon
was a book store before it started electronics. Kindle, VOD (Video on demand) &
Amazon web services are question marks because with the advent of technology
these services have become obsolete & have low demand.

Chapter-two
2.1. Company profile and company Overview
Company Profile of Amazon – The world’s largest online retailer

You must have been buying a lot of products from Amazon. Who is not lured by so
many exciting offers presented by Amazon? All of us are growing fanatic for
online shopping because of its cool and exciting benefits.

An online platform which is becoming successful day by day,  towards which we

are growing more and more addicted and which we all are using so often, we
should have a craving to know about its company profile.
2.2. Introduction
Amazon India launched its operations in June 2013. The company soon launched
its website Amazon.in which is offering customers a wide variety of choices in
apparel, groceries, household items, books, movies, television shows and almost
everything that a person requires.

On the very first day of its operations, the company received more than 10,000
orders. Amazon India is a subsidiary of US-based e-commerce giant Amazon Inc.

The parent company Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994. The company
wanted to explore other countries for sales increment and the growth of the
company.So it did not limit its operations to the United States, and soon launched
its operations in other countries. Amazon looked upon China as a lucrative option
because of its huge market, well-developed infrastructure, and internet
connectivity.
Hence, earlier Amazon expanded its operations to China. However, it did not prove
to be that much fruitful that it expected because of the stiff competition by local e-
commerce companies such as Alibaba. So it further expanded its operations and
looked for some viable options. The Amazon analyzed India as a country having
great potentials and it was sure that India will turn out to be fruitful for its growth.
Hence, Amazon came to India and launched its operations here in 2013.

In a very short span of time, Amazon India has acquired an eminent position in the
Indian e-commerce space and has become a major shopping giant for millions of
customers. Amazon India is currently offering millions of products on its platform
and has millions of registered users.

2.3. An overview of Amazon

Amazon’s popularity is widespread around the globe. It has over 310 million
active users and 100 million subscribers worldwide. Being the world’s leading
online retailer, Amazon bags many achievements, eye-popping profits, and
successful launches.

Let’s discuss this online retail giant in a little depth and understand the company’s
business scenario with the help of Amazon SWOT analysis.

Jeff Bezos laid the foundation of Amazon in 1994. Originally, the company started
as an online bookstore but soon converted to a top online retailer selling almost
everything from A to Z just like its logo says.

In July 2020, Amazon reported a 43.4% increase in North American sales

and 33.5% worldwide revenue growth in the second quarter of 2020. Online sales
of groceries have tripled as consumers went online in large numbers to buy food
during the coronavirus pandemic, and Amazon increased its grocery delivery
capacity by 160%. What can we learn from studying Amazon's marketing strategy?

I've highlighted the Amazon marketing strategy case study in my books for nearly
20 years now since I think all types of businesses can learn from their digital
business strategy, their response to the pandemic is impressive but not entirely
surprising for a brand which is 'customer obsessed'.

From startups and small businesses to large international businesses, we can all
learn from their focus on the customer, particularly at this time, 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 digital marketing strategy since they use digital
marketing efficiently across all customer communications touch points in
our RACE marketing planning framework:

 Reach: Amazon's initial business growth based on detailed approach to SEO

and Ad Words targeting millions of keywords.
 Act: Creating clear and simple experiences through testing and learning.
  Convert: Using personalization to make relevant recommendations and a
clear checkout process that many now imitate.
 Engage: Amazon's customer-centric culture delights customers and keeps
them coming back for more.

2.4. SWOT Analysis of Amazon

Amazon’s Strengths – Internal Strategic Factors

1. Strong brand name – As a global e-commerce giant, Amazon has a strong
position and successful brand image in the market. 

2. Brand valuation – According to Interbrand’s Global Brand Ranking 2020,

Amazon is ranked at #2 position (Apple at #1 and Google at #3), with a brand
value of $200 Billion.

3. Customer oriented – Amazon caters to a large number of customers for

everyday needs at inexpensive prices. This has made it a customer-oriented brand.

4. Differentiation and Innovation – Amazon frequently brings creative ideas

and innovative additions to its product line and service offerings like ambitious
drone delivery service and Withings Aura Smart Sleep System.  This creates a
differentiation from other companies.

5. Cost Leadership – Amazon doesn’t incur costs in maintaining physical retail

stores by selling everything online. With economies of scale, Amazon efficiently
controls its costs and lowers its inventory replenishment time. The company has
formed numerous strategic alliances with many companies like Evi Technologies,
Thalmic Labs, Shoefitr, The Orange Chef etc. It has a strong value chain system
which also helps in maintaining a low-cost structure.

6. Largest Merchandise Selection – Amazon owns extensive product mix which

attracts online customers to make their majority of purchases from it rather than
other online retailers. As of 2018, Amazon has sold 562.3 million products in its
Amazon.com Marketplace. 

7. Large number of third-party sellers – Due to the high traffic volume on

Amazon’s sites, a large number of third-party sellers have joined the platform of
Amazon to sell their own merchandises. The data from Fulfillment by
Amazon (FBA) reveals that there are more than 2 billion items available from
third-party sellers.

8. Go Global and Act Local strategy – This strategy has benefitted Amazon the
most. Amazon develops partnerships with local supply chain companies that help it
in competing against domestic e-commerce rivals. It understands the local needs
and launches its services as per the country’s culture.

In India, for example, it has launched a market campaign “Aur Dikhao” to

encourage users to search more of its products.

9. Large number of acquisitions – The successful acquisitions of Whole Foods,

Zappos.com, woot.com, Junglee.com, IMBD.com, and many others have produced
significant revenues and profits for Amazon.

10. Involved into 3 key business – Amazon Marketplace, Amazon Web

Services (AWS), and Amazon Prime are 3 key businesses of Amazon which work
and support each other. As a whole, they generate massive profits and advantages
for the company.

11. Market Leader – With over $1 Trillion market capitalization and above $386

billion annual revenues, Amazon is truly a market leader in online retail industry.

12. Superior logistics and distribution systems – Amazon uses highly efficient
logistics and distribution systems. It even has fixed rates for different delivery time
periods. Thus, it executes reliable, secure, and fast delivery of goods and products
to the customers.

13. Minimum pay raise to $15 per hour – Amazon is among the first companies
in retail to raise its minimum hourly pay to $15. In
comparison, Target pays $12 per hour, Walmart pays $11 per hour,
and Costco pays $14 per hour. 

2.5. Amazon’s Weaknesses – Internal Strategic Factors

1. Easily imitable business model – Online retail businesses have become quite
common in this digital world. So imitating Amazon’s business model for rival
firms is not so difficult. A few businesses are even giving Amazon a tough time.
These include Barnes & Noble, eBay, Netflix, Hulu, and Oyster etc.
2. Losing Margins in Few Areas – In few areas such as India, Amazon has faced
losses. It’s free shipping to customers can be one of the reasons that expose the
risks of losing margins in some markets.

3. Product Flops and Failures – Its Fire Phone’s launch in the US was a big
failure while its Kindle fire device didn’t even grow well.

4. Tax Avoidance Controversy – Tax avoidance in Japan, UK and US has

sparked negative publicity for Amazon. President Trump criticized Amazon over
taxes on social media.

5. Limited brick-and-mortar presence – Amazon owns very limited physical

stores. This sometimes hinders to attract customers buy things which are not
sellable on online stores.

6. Vox published negative reports related to employees’ treatment and workplace

conditions against Amazon in July 2018. Poor air conditioning, timed bathroom
breaks, and constant video surveillance are few of the negative remarks made by
the employees. Such things affect the market reputation of Amazon.

7. Declining consumer safety – As its offerings increase, it is becoming a

challenge for Amazon to vet each product and guarantee the highest level of safety.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently had to order Amazon
to remove a wide range of pesticides and unsafe products on its platform.  

8. Unfair use of third party data – Engaging in unfair trade practices undermines
trust and increases legal risks. Amazon is facing antitrust charges in the European
Union for collecting and using data from third-party to compete against them. If
found in violation, Amazon can be fined up to 10% ($28 Billion) of its 2019
annual revenue ($280 Billion). 

10. Overdependence on distributors – Relying on distributors exposes Amazon

to a wide range of issues. One of its main distributors (German Logistic Group
– Deutsche Post DHL) can leverage its position to renegotiate terms.

11. Employees Strike – Strikes can grind Amazon’s operations to a halt. In

Germany, Amazon employees went on strike due to unsafe working
conditions and paralyzed operations in six distribution centers.  
2.6. Amazon’s Opportunities – External Strategic Factors
1. Amazon can gain the opportunity to penetrate or expand its operations
in developing markets.

2. By expanding physical stores, Amazon can improve competitiveness against

big box retailers and engage customers with the brand.

3. Amazon has the opportunity to improve technological measures and

organizational policies to reduce counterfeit sales. One case of counterfeit sales
came into light when Amazon sold a fake My Critter Catcher. The product was
sold for $1 less than the original product.   

4. Can do backward Integration by expanding its production of in-house brands

such as Amazon basics to differentiate its offerings and improve profit margins. 

5. More acquisitions of e-commerce companies can increase the company’s

market share and reduce the competition level.

6. Self Driving Technology – Amazon recently acquired California-based self-

driving startup Zoox Inc for whooping $1 Billion. It can now leverage autonomous
technology to exploit the increase in demand for ride-hailing services or use it to
improve its delivery network.

7. Launch of electric rickshaws in India– Amazon pledges to make a positive

impact on the environment. With this vision in mind, Amazon plans to
deploy 10,000 electric rickshaws for delivery in India by 2025. 

2.7. Amazon’s Threats – External Strategic Factors

1. Few controversies have caused a dent in Amazon’s brand image. People
critically reacted and boycotted Amazon sites in 2010 when they found that it’s
selling the book “The Pedophile’s Guide to Love & Pleasure: a Child-lover’s Code
of Conduct.”

2. Government regulations can also threaten the business proceedings of Amazon

in some critical countries. Amazon does not ship to Cuba, Iran, North Korea,
Sudan, and Syria.
 3. Links to exploitative labor – Amazon is one of three retail giants facing
scrutiny from the US State Department for maintaining supply chains and labor
sources associated with human rights abuses. This exposes the ecommerce giant to
reputational, economic, and legal risks.

4. Increasing cybercrime can affect the network security system of the company.

5. Aggressive competition with big retail firms like Walmart and eBay can give

Amazon a tough time in the future. In addition, now Amazon competes with the
following companies:

 In Video Streaming Service: Apple TV+, Netflix, Disney+

 In Logistics: FexEx
 In Self Driving Technology: Tesla, Uber, Ford
6. Imitation is simple as many new entrants are coming up in the market usually
with the same business model of Amazon.

7. Fake Products – The increase in counterfeiting and fake products threatens

Amazon’s profits. The company recently filed a lawsuit against New York-based
online retailer for allegedly counterfeiting Valentino shoes, a luxury Italian shoe
brand offered by Amazon. 

8. Economic Recession – Amazon is not immune to an economic recession. If

economic uncertainty worsens, it can impact Amazon’s sales. 

9. Fake reviews – Amazon has an overwhelming amount of fake reviews, and the

problem has worsened in recent times due to the pandemic. Product reviews are a
critical indicator of quality and authenticity, and customers rely heavily on reviews
to make purchases.

According to the Financial Times investigation, Amazon has deleted over 20,000

fake 5-star reviews from its top UK reviewers.

2.8. Amazon.com mission and vision

When it first launched, Amazon’s had a clear and ambitious mission. To offer:

Earth’s biggest selection and to be Earth’s most customer-centric company.

Today, with business users of its Amazon Web Service representing a new type of
customer, Amazon says:

this goal continues today, but Amazon’s customers are worldwide now and have
grown to include millions of Consumers, Sellers, Content Creators, Developers,
and Enterprises. Each of these groups has different needs, and we always work to
meet those needs, by innovating new solutions to make things easier, faster, better,
and more cost-effective.

20 years later, Amazon are still customer-centric, in fact, in the latest Amazon

Annual report, Jeff Bezos of Amazon explains what he calls True Customer
Obsession:

"There are many ways to center a business. You can be competitor focused, you
can be product focused, you can be technology focused, you can be business model
focused, and there are more. But in my view, obsessive customer focus is by far
the most important. Even when they don’t yet know it, customers want something
better, and your desire to delight customers will drive you to invent on their
behalf."

2.9. Amazon Customers

Amazon defines what it refers to as three consumer sets customers, seller

customers and developer customers.

There are over 76 million customer accounts, but just 1.3 million active seller
customers in its marketplaces and Amazon is seeking to increase this. Amazon is
unusual for a retailer in that it identifies “developer customers” who use its
Amazon Web Services, which provides access to technology infrastructure such as
hosting that developers can use to develop their own web services.

Members are also encouraged to join a loyalty program, Amazon Prime, a fee-
based membership program in which members receive free or discounted express
shipping, in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan.

2.10. Competition

In its 2017 SEC filing Amazon describes the environment for our products and
services as ‘intensely competitive’. It views its main current and potential
competitors as:
1) Online, offline, and multichannel retailers, publishers, vendors, distributors,
manufacturers, and producers of the products we offer and sell to consumers and
businesses;

(2) Publishers, producers, and distributors of physical, digital, and interactive

media of all types and all distribution channels;

(3) web search engines, comparison shopping websites, social networks, web
portals, and other online and app-based means of discovering, using, or acquiring
goods and services, either directly or in collaboration with other retailers;

(4) Companies that provide e-commerce services, including website development,

advertising, fulfillment, customer service, and payment processing;

(5) Companies that provide fulfillment and logistics services for themselves or for
third parties, whether online or offline;

(6) Companies that provide information technology services or products, including

on- premises or cloud-based infrastructure and other services; and

(7) Companies that design, manufacture, market, or sell consumer electronics,

telecommunication, and electronic devices.

It believes the main competitive factors in its market segments include "selection,
price, availability, convenience, information, discovery, brand recognition,
personalized services, accessibility, customer service, reliability, speed of
fulfillment, ease of use, and ability to adapt to changing conditions, as well as our
customers’ overall experience and trust in transactions with us and facilitated by us
on behalf of third-party sellers".

For services offered to business and individual sellers, additional competitive

factors include the quality of our services and tools, their ability to generate sales
for third parties we serve, and the speed of performance for our services.

2.11. From Auctions to marketplaces

Today, competitive prices of products are available through third-party sellers in
the ‘Amazon Marketplace’ which are integrated within the standard product
listings. A winning component of the Amazon marketing strategy for marketplaces
was the innovation to offer such an auction facility, initially driven by the need to
compete with eBay. But now the strategy has been adjusted such that Amazon
describe it as part of the approach of low-pricing.

Although it might be thought that Amazon would lose out on enabling its
merchants to sell products at lower prices, in fact Amazon makes greater margin
on these sales since merchants are charged a commission on each sale and it is the
merchant who bears the cost of storing inventory and fulfilling the product to
customers. As with eBay, Amazon is just facilitating the exchange of bits and bytes
between buyers and sellers without the need to distribute physical products.

2.12. Amazon Media sales

You may have noticed that unlike some retailers, Amazon displays relevant
Google text ads and banner ads from brands. This seems in conflict with the
marketing strategy of focus on experience since it leads to a more cluttered store.
However, in 2011 Amazon revealed that worldwide media sales accounted for
approximately 17% of revenue!
E-commerce companies in India are struggling to step up during the COVID-19
pandemic as the country's chaotic lockdown poses further challenges on their ability to
operate, with market leaders Amazon.com Inc. and Walmart Inc.'s Flipkart India Private
Ltd. expected to suffer significant losses in 2020.

Online retailers operating in India were forced to suspend operations hours after a 21-
day nationwide stay-at-home order was announced March 24 due to a lack of clear
guidelines and a mass exodus of employees in anticipation of lockdowns. Most of
Amazon's more than 60 fulfillment centers across the country were reportedly shut for
the first few days. In some states, delivery workers were not provided passes to make
deliveries and some reportedly were even beaten by the local police for flouting the
lockdown.

By the time the confusion eased toward the end of March, e-commerce companies were
staring at a huge backlog of deliveries, particularly for the essential items most sought
after by consumers during the present crisis.

Recounting the challenges, Hari Menon, CEO of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.-backed
online grocery company BigBasket, tweeted April 21 that many of the migrant workers
that comprise a large portion of its staff left for their villages just as demand surged.
"That was something we didn't anticipate, and which meant we couldn't pick orders and
deliver them in sufficient numbers to satisfy the 3-6x increase in demand," Menon said.

Amazon, Flipkart hit hardest

Forrester Research estimated that the lockdown has resulted in a $1 billion loss in online
sales in India as of April 14, in stark contrast to China and the U.S., where e-commerce
has grown during the shutdowns. An extension by another three weeks prompted the
company to slash its full-year outlook for the growth in the Indian e-commerce market
to flat from its earlier projection of 5%.

Chief among e-commerce companies' woes is a ban on the sale of high-margin

nonessential goods, including electronic items key for work and study from home,
which has been extended in step with the lockdown. Nonessential items account for
about 90% of sales for Amazon India and Flipkart, and electronic items accounted
for nearly half of all online sales in the country in 2019.

Amazon and others have reportedly called on the government to expand the list of
essential items to include electronic goods, saying that the continuous shutdown of
online sales could hurt consumers and small businesses operating on the platform.

There were fewer than 1,000 active sellers left on Amazon India as of March 26 out of
nearly 600,000 marketplace sellers on the platform after the company halted orders for
nonessential items, according to e-commerce intelligence service Marketplace Pulse.
Amazon-backed Cloud tail India, one of the largest sellers on Amazon's India
marketplace, reportedly has delayed payments to brands and suppliers.

"It's difficult to fulfill the loss in smartphones and fashion ... and too early talk about
pent-up demand with the impact from job losses," said Satish Meena, senior forecast
analyst at Forrester Research.

Amazon and Walmart have bet big on India, whose e-commerce market grew at a
compound annual rate of 36% from 2017 to 2019, the fastest rate among all major world
economies in the past three years, and is estimated to have reached $40 billion in 2019.

Their Indian operations, however, have come under intense regulatory scrutiny over
alleged anti-competitive practices like deep discounting and selling their own inventory,
which is prohibited under the country's foreign investment rules. New Delhi in February
2019 updated rules to exempt food and groceries from the prohibition.

The two behemoths are now faced with the challenge of significantly scaling up their
grocery delivery services. So far, India's hyper local online grocery sector has marginal
penetration of online retail, but the segment grew 106% year over year in the first
quarter of 2019, according to consultancy RedSeer. Big Basket and Grofers India Pvt.
Ltd. accounted for 80% of the market, and Amazon and Flipkart just 5%.
This has fueled talks of consolidation and investment in niche grocery delivery
platforms. Restaurant delivery service Zomato reportedly is interested in acquiring the
Soft Bank Corp.-backed Grofers in a deal that would value the company at about $750
million. Alibaba invested another $50 million in BigBasket in April.

2.13. Local stores thrive

By mid-April, Indian consumers were still facing difficulties in ordering groceries

online, although the situation had improved, according to a survey by online social
community platform Local Circles. But, by then, they had already turned to the
neighborhood mom-and-pop shops, also known as kirana stores. These are often just a
phone call away and have been far more effective in fulfilling customers' requirements.

According to Euromonitor, India has 12.8 million traditional stores, compared to over
7,000 modern stores, of which domestic conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd.-owned
Reliance Retail Ltd. operates 736 stores across the country.

"India has a very large number of small retailers. Those small retailers actually end up
providing the kind of convenience that e-commerce can provide. It is probably faster and
it is personalized," said Abheek Singhi, managing director and senior partner at Boston
Consulting Group.

Bottlenecks in deliveries have led to e-commerce and FMCG companies exploring

several avenues, including kirana stores, as a means of reaching out to consumers, but
these initiatives have had their share of challenges.

Amazon tried to tap into kirana stores with its grocery delivery app Prime Now to help
with order fulfillment. But due to a lack of adequate access to inventory, the project
failed and Amazon India folded Prime Now into its main services during the lockdown.

On April 22, Reliance Retail agreed to link its e-commerce platform JioMart, which is
working to bring the country's millions of stores online, with Facebook Inc.-owned
WhatsApp as part of a $5.66 billion deal with Reliance's internet unit Jio Platforms Ltd.
The tie-up will allow consumers to buy goods from local stores using the messaging
platform and is expected to embolden the Indian conglomerate's ambition to take on
Amazon and Flipkart.

ITC Foods Ltd. has partnered with pizza delivery chain Domino's Pizza Inc., while
Marico Ltd. partnered with food delivery platforms Swiggy and Zomato to deliver their
food and grocery products. But the push has largely suffered due to a lack of delivery
personnel and fears after a delivery rider tested positive for COVID-19.

Flipkart has tied up with Tata Consumer Products Ltd., Spencer's Retail Ltd. and Uber
Technologies Inc. for grocery delivery during the lockdown. Still, analysts believe that
the sector needs significant investment to ensure fast-moving consumer goods, or
FMCG, reach customers on time.

"Local kiranas have made a comeback. It is going to be an important channel going

forward. People want to patronize local businesses when they come out of the situation.
Localization is going to be a big rival of everything," said Soumya Mohanty, chief client
officer for the South Asia insights division at Kantar. "The FMCGs will think through
different alternate ways beyond the Amazons of the world to be able to reach
consumers."
 Chapter No.3

3.1. Title:
Project Report on Amazon Marketing Strategy and Its Triumph during Covid-19

3.2. Statement of Problem:

Strategy is an ever-growing business, forming the core revenue of multiple organizations.

Despite its ubiquitous presence the decision of choosing the perfect advertisement has always
been a challenge. There are multiple tenets to target this problem and at Amazon we have
various kinds of Strategies that amazon take in to consideration during pandemic Covid-19.

3.3. Objectives of study

The purposes of the study are to:

a. The identify the existence Strategies of Amazon .

b. Ascertain the the new Strategies during the Covid- 19

c. Find out whether Pandemic Covid-19 has any impacts on the effectiveness and

productivity of Amazon.

d. Find out how Amazon handled the Pandemic Covid-19 during year.

e. To suggest some strategies for such incidents in the future.

 3.4. Significant of the Study:

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

3.5. Sample Size:

In order to find out the different strategies followed by the Amazon during pandemic Covid-19
during year so I determined 60 as the sample size for the research.

3.5. Research data collection

The data has been collected in two methods as follows:

 Primary data:

Basically the primary data is the data that can be collected for the first time. For this research
primary data is collected through the direct meeting with the employees of organizations, and with
some employers in order to discuss and understand the policies, procedures, for the best allocation
of organizations’ resources, in specific human resources in order to clearly specify the rights of
every employee working in an organization. This collection has been done based on the
responsible replies and responses to the questionnaire. this process helped us to analyze the
demand of both organizations and workforce of them.

 Secondary Data:

Actually all kinds of researches have secondary data in it so that data is already published and
searched by someone else earlier, therefore the same thing is included in this research too, but the
sources of these data is based on the topic for the further details and explanations. Secondary data
sources were newspapers and manuals on the subject matter which gave the researcher
information about the impacts of stress on employees’ effectiveness and productivity in the
organization, internet as well as other relevant publications were also taken into consideration.

3.6. Limitation of study

I. Due to constraints of tie and many others resources this study is confines to manager and
officers of MAGNASOFT Pvt. Ltd

II. The opinions, behavior and attitude of the respondents reflected in this study are restricted
to the duration of the resources and are subjected to change with passage of time.

III. Restriction of some areas and sources to collect data.

 Chapter-four
4. Data analysis and Interpretation

4.1.Table: Age of the Respondents

Details No of Responses % of Responses

18 to 25 29 28.7%
25 to 35 49 48.5%
35 to 45 20 19.8%
Above to 45 4 4%
Table 4.1

Analysis: the table shows that 29 respondents are between the age of 18-25, 49 respondents are
between 25-35, 20 respondents are between 35-45 and 4 respondents are above 45 years old.
 50
45
40
35
30
25 Column2
20
15
10
5
0
18 to 25 25 to 35 35 to 45 above to 45

Graph4.1

Interpretation: Figure 4.1 indicates that, majority of the Customers 48.5%were of the ages
ranging from (25-35) years, whilst 27.8%were between the ages of (18-25) years. However, it was
also found from the study that majority of the respondents were of the ages ranging between (25-
35) Years.

4.2.Table: Occupation of the Responders

Details No of. Responses % of Responses

Student 33 32.7%
Employee 47 46.5%
Business 21 20.8%
Total 101 101%
Table 4.2

Analysis: The table shows Total number of respondents is 101 from this 33 student respondents,
47 Employee respondents and 21 respondents as business.
 Occupation
Student Employee Business Other
1%

21%
32%

46%

Graph4.2

Interpretation: Figure 4.2, it can be seen that 32% of the respondents were Students, 46% are job
holder employee, 21% are Business sector .The Majority of respondents is employee 46%.

4.3.Table: Gender of the Responders

Details No of. Responses % of Responses

Female 50 48.5%
Male 49 49.5%
Prefer not to say 2 1%
Table 4.3

Analysis: The above table demonstrates that 50 respondents are Female and 49 respondents are
Male for finding the Amazon organization.
 Gender
Female Male Prefer not to say
2% 1%

49%
48%

Graph 4.3

Interpretation: It can be seen that out of the 101% respondents, 49% were Females and 48%
were females. The data suggests that there was a vast difference between the number of males and
females used for this Amazon Company.

4.4.Table: Know about Amazon Responders

Details No of. Responses % of Responses

Yes 93 92.1%
No 0 0%
Maybe 8 7.9%
Total 101 101%
Table4.4

Analysis: The table shows that 93 respondents That They are know about Amazon and 8
Respondents for they maybe know about Amazon.
 Amazon
Yes No Maybe

8%

92%

Grahp4.4

Interpretation: Figure 4.4 The majority of the respondents (92%) report that they are maximum
number of people they know about Amazon.It is comforting to note that the majority of
respondents

4.5.Table: Amazon User’s Responders

Details No of. Responses % of Responses

Yes 83 83%
No 3 3%
Maybe 14 14%
Table4.5

Analysis: The table shows that 83 respondents That They are Using Amazon and 814
Respondents for they maybe use Amazon and less respondent 3.
 Amazon User
Yes No Maybe

14%
3%

83%

Graph4.5

Interpretation: Figure 4.5 The majority of the respondents (83%) report that they are maximum
number of people they are using amazon. It is comforting to note that the majority of respondents

4.6.Table: How often do you use Amazon Responders

Details No of. Responses % of Responses

Less 16 16%
More 21 21%
Mostly 64 64%
Table4.6

Analysis: The table shows that 64 respondents That They are Using Amazon Mostly and 21
Respondents for they using Amazon more and less respondent 16
 How often uses of Amazon
Less More Mostly

16%

21%

63%

Graph4.6

Interpretation: Figure 4.6 The majority of the respondents (63%) report that they are maximum
number of people they are Mostly using amazon. It is comforting to note that the majority of
respondents.

4.7.Table: During Covid-19 period, did Amazon reach you with

their new marketing strategies?101 responses.
Details No of Responses % of Responses
Yes 75 75%
No 15 15%
Maybe 10 10%
Table4.7

Analysis: The table shows that 75 respondents That They are Using Amazon Mostly and 15
Respondents for they using Amazon more and less respondent10.
 80

70

60

50

40
Series 3

30

20

10

0
Yes No Maybe

Graph4.7

Interpretation: Figure 4.7 The majority of the respondents (75%) report that During Covid-19
period Amazon reach to the people they are maximum number of people they are Mostly
respondents regarding this .It is comforting to note that the majority of respondents.

4.8.Table: Which new marketing strategy of Amazon attracted you

most?

Details No of. Responses % of Responses

Advertisements strategy 22 22%
Delivery Strategy 11 11%
Promotional strategy 11 11%
Discounts strategy 74 74%
Table4.8

Analysis: The table shows that 74 respondents on Amazon Discount strategy ,22 respondent on
Advertisement strategy ,11 respondent on delivery strategy and 11 promotional strategy .
 Amazon Strategy During Covid-19
Advertisements strategy Delivery Strategy Promotional Strategy Discounts strategy

22%

56% 11%

11%

Graph4.8

Interpretation: Figure 4.8 the majority of the respondents (56%) that they are attracted by Amzon
discount strategy during covid-19 period .Maximum number of people they are Mostly
respondents regarding on discount strategy and advertising strategy .It is comforting to note that
the majority of respondents.

4.9.Table: Through the pandemic period was not favorable for

mostly of the business entities, Amazon did well.
Details No of Responses % of Responses
Strongly agree 72 72%
Agree 23 23%
Neutral 6 6%
Disagree 0 0%
Strongly Disagree 0 0%
Table4.9

Analysis: The table shows that 72 respondents strongly agree, 23 respondents agree, 6
respondents and 0 respondents disagree & strongly disagree.
 Amazon Strategy did well
Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree

6%

23%

71%

Graph4.9

Interpretation: Figure 4.9 shows that 72% of respondents are strongly agree with business
entities where as 23% are only agree and 0% is disagree and strongly disagree.

4.10.Table : During the COVID-19 period, Amazon increase a good

number of discount offers.
Details No of Responses % of Responses
Strongly Agree 64 64%
Agree 26 26%
Neutral 14 14%
Disagree 0 0%
Strongly Disagree 0 0%
Table 4.10

Analysis: The table shows that 64 respondents are strongly agree with the discount offer, 26
respondents agree where as 14 people are neutral and non of respondent is disagree.
 Amazon Offer During Covid-10
Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree

14%

26%
60%

Graph4.10

Interpretation: Figure 4.10 shows that mostly customers of amazon are happy with the discount
offered where as none of the respondent reply as disagree and strongly disagree.

4.11.Table: Are you satisfied with the strategies of Amazon on COVID-19

period?

Details No of Responses %of Responses

Yes 69 69%
No 7 7%
Maybe 24 24%
Table 4.11

Analysis: The table shows that 69 respondents says yes and 7 respondents reply no and 24
respondents says maybe.
 Satisfied strategy during covid-19
yes no Maybe

24%

7%

69%

Graph 4.11

Interpretation: Figure 4.11 shows that 69% of respondents are optimistic about the amazon
strategies during Pandemic Covid-19 where as 7% respondents are not and 24% of the respondents
are not sure about it.

12.Table: Was there any other scopes to do better as a well known business
entity?

Details No of Responses % of Responses

Yes 20 20%
No 65 65%
Maybe 15 15%
Table4.12

Analysis: The table shows that 20 respondents says yes and 65 respondents says no where as 15
respondents are not sure about.
 Scope of entity
Yes No Maybe

15%
20%

65%

Graph4.12

Interpretation: Figure 4.12 determined 65% of the respondents define the amazon as the best
business entity where as 20 % of the respondents believe there another scope available rather than
amazon and 15% of the respondents are not sure about it.

Chapter-fifth
5.1 FINDINGS

Major findings of the study are:

• There is evidence to the Strategy of amazon that most of the customers used the products
during the pandemic Covid- 19

• The minority of the have issues with Amazon products and services

The few customers of Amazon does not care for its product and they sometimes do not like
Using during the Covid-19.
 • The majority of the respondents range between the age 18 and 25, implying that the services
of amazon is good during covid-19

• The majority of the customer reported to Utilize the products during the covid-19 .

• The majority of respondent reported to get online delivery of the products during the period.

• The majority of respondents who are young and highly interested in amazon role played
during covid-19

• There was evidence of good supervisor-subordinate relations. There was very little
interpersonal conflict, which could create a good mood for productivity.

5.2. Conclusion

However, it is important that Amazon thread with caution if it wants to outlast its
critiques. Good as Amazon’s business strategy appears, its debt financing strategy
constitute a threat even though its good side cannot be totally dismissed. Taking
the gearing ratio analysis (see table 2) as a point of reference, there is an inverse
relationship between excessive debt financing and profitability. It will make great
business sense if Amazon can rethink its excessive debt financing by keeping it
within reasonable limits. Although competitors are making some smart moves that
may likely upset the e-commerce market, Amazon still stands a good chance of
sustaining its current success if it continues its process/product innovations.
Amazon can also leverage its good technologies to do better customer profiling.
Tracking the profit returns of each customer will enable Amazon to build more
profitable customer base and reduce rising operational costs. Finally, poor working
conditions in the company’s warehouses is equally a must watch.

We have covered what the Amazon Marketplace is, how customers shop on the
platform, competition for the Buy Box and the different business models for selling
on
Amazon.com.
We hope that you have a better understanding of:
● The opportunity of selling on Amazon.com
● How Amazon.com customers shop on the platform
● The different business models for selling on Amazon

5.3. SUGGESTIONS

Based on the findings of the research, it is recommended that the following measures be put in
place to help Amazon company o manage better service during such kind issues

• The organization must conduct a needs assessment for its Customers.

• Management must conduct an analysis of the organizational mood and climate toward the
products and services

The supervisors and managers of all amazon branches must overlook toward the more quick
delivery to the customers.

• Time management training should be given to delivery section

 • Managers should facilitate an employee skill audit that will help to place customers that feel
more satisfied

• Managers should revise their decision making strategy.

• An Employee Assistance Program has to be introduced for early identification and

intervention on problems so that productivity levels increase.

5.4.BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Frost, P.J. (2003). Toxic emotions at work. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

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Website

Wikipedia (2012). Occupational Stress. [Online] Available from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/occupational_stress. [Accessed: 24 May 2012].