Online Sales - Amazon Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Online Sales - Amazon - Essay Example Amazon's brand has enabled them to pursue differentiation strategy. They have an excellent reputation due to their efficient one-click purchasing system, prompt after-sales service and tight security measures. Amazon are using innovative business models such as e-mail alerts, which deliver value in ways that have not been economically viable in â€Å"traditional† physical settings. Their distinctiveness is evident in their online value proposition "Earth's biggest selection." Their brand, accompanied by reputation and trust is difficult for competitors to imitate, making it a source of sustained competitive advantage. Barnes and Noble previously traditional intermediaries, now conduct business using both traditional and online methods. Due to its large share of traditional consumers and physical store outlets, Barnes and Noble are able to appropriate benefits of EC innovation in a manner that Amazon cannot match. (Kauffman, 2003) Our client is also ideally positioned to adopt any technical innovations Amazon may look to introduce. Crucial to Amazon's competitive advantage has been their ability to build affiliate/associate networks. "Amazon has in excess of 500,000 affiliates, which have links to the Amazon site." (Chaffey, 2004.) They have entered exclusive bookseller relationships with five of the top six sites on the web: AOL, Yahoo, Netscape, GeoCities and Excite. Amazon pays commission on sales referred from these sites. In return brand awareness, traffic and sales for Amazon increase enormously. The methodology selected is questionnaire and previous documents method. Questionnaire form of requirements gathering is best suitable for a large number of people in a relatively short period of time and can be less biased in the interpretation of results. It would largely save time on the vendor’s part but would generate no personal touch on each other’s part. The use of white papers and company financial sales reports are also taken into ac count for the purpose of the gathering the records. This form of requirements gathering takes place when the information is quite large for simple gathering methods.