What Is Amazon.Com? the History and Present Day of Amazon.Com

What is Amazon.com?

Amazon.com, one of the pioneers of e-commerce, was launched by Jeff Bezos in 1994. Bezosâ€™ initial plan for Amazon.com entailed a service that provided customers with access to an extensive selection of books, while eliminating the hassles for Amazon.com, associated with the time and expense required to build physical stores and warehouses, to purchase and house inventory (Hamilton, 2004, pp.42-46).

Related pages in the Wiki:

1. Online Shopping - Amazon.com

The History and Present Day of Amazon.com

Jeff Bezos and Amazon.com did not witness pure success immediately, it was a few years before the e- commerce giant began proving to be the online sensation that was predicted. In 1995, Amazon was just another business willing to try the online market and identified its opportunity to sell books online (Gasson and Cowley, 2001, pp.55-59). However, Amazon.com was not placed in the same category as other businesses trialing online servicing. What distinguished Amazon.com from these other online businesses and what now allows Amazon.com to claim that it changed the world, includes its business model and the ways in which it turned the rules of finance upside down (Gasson and Cowley, 2001, pp.55-59).

After its introduction on the global internet stage in 1994, it was not until 2004, that Amazon boasted its first profitable year (Hamilton, 2004, pp.42-46). To achieve this success, Jeff Bezos manipulated and experimented with many conventional business models to obtain his dream of Amazon.com (Hamilton, 2004, pp.42-46). After looking at the software that was available, Bezos and his colleagues realized that they would have to devise their own programs. So through the process of Amazon.comâ€™s establishment, not only was an online retail service being formed, but also the creation of the sophisticated technology that has enabled the e-commerce and online shopping phenomenon (Hamilton, 2004, pp.42-46).

An initial reason for the choice of books as the first product for sale on Amazon.com was that selling books online provides consumers with a virtually limitless selection of books available for their online perusal or purchase. In 2004, Amazon.com now has 4.5 million books on offer to customers around the world (2004, pp.108). Additionally, the internetâ€™s retrieval and interface technology enables the consumers to search the entire database for books in print (Spector, 2000, pp.27). Books require little need for hands-on product trial (2004, pp.108). â€˜Everybody understands what a book isâ€™, therefore there is no need for product explanation and would be the same as that purchased in a bricks and mortar bookstore and this was one of the fundamental reasons behind Bezosâ€™ choice for an online bookstore (Spector, 2000, pp.29).

Although in 1995, Amazon.com had barely lifted off the ground, there were extravagant visions and expectations set. From the beginning, Bezos knew Amazon.comâ€™s potential and that its future was not limited to only books (Hamilton, 2004, pp.42-46, Spector, 2000, pp.92). One of Bezosâ€™ colleagues was an avid kayaker and Bezos once said:

In the future, when you come to Amazon.com, I don't want you just to be able to search for kayak and find all the books on kayaking. You should also be able to read articles on kayaking and buy subscriptions to kayaking magazines. You should be able to buy a kayaking trip to anywhere in the world you want to go kayaking, and you should be able to have a kayak delivered to your house. You should be able to discuss kayaking with other kayakers. There should be everything to do with kayaking, and the same is true for anything (Hamilton, 2004, pp.42-46, Spector, 2000, pp.92).

That was his vision, amazingly clear and â€˜gigantic in scopeâ€™ (Hamilton, 2004, pp.42-46, Spector, 2000, pp.92).

Amazon.com's sales have been growing gradually. The secret to its success and profitability is customer retention - ensuring customer loyalty and repeat customers. Amazon.com pioneered new technologies, such as collaborative filtering, which suggests products that each individual buyer might like by comparing them to other users's preferences. Also, Amazon.com is continuing to work on further price reductions as well as offering free all-year-round shipping. Therefore, nearly 70% of Amazon's sales are from repeat customers. (Bezos, 1999, pp.24)

About Amazon.com ...

Business Model

As Amazon.com was being established, Bezos was also building a completely new business model and consequently wanted employees who could think on their feet, so initially, Bezos insisted on hiring the brightest, most intelligent and versatile people who could find, even for the packing room (Spector, 2000, pp.125). He wanted people whom could share his vision and were willing to work to achieve it (Spector, 2000, pp.125).

Bezos suspected failure in the first few months of operation and unfortunately Amazon.com went broke. At a critical stage for the company and with the doors about to be closed, Bezos did not step down, with his confidence still shining, he was prepared to wait for the world to come around to his idea when it was ready (Spector, 2000, pp.84). After many setbacks, venture capitalists, investors and strategic partnerships (with Target, Toys R Us, Babies R Us and Office Depot) were signed, with a new strategy and business model â€“ Get Big Fast, driven by momentum and enthusiasm to achieve what they set out to do. Jeff Bezosâ€™ â€˜burning passion and raw intelligenceâ€™ enticed Eric Dillon, a stockbroker and venture capitalist into the company, along with many other financiers (Spector, 2000, pp.96). This is when Amazon.com expanded, intensified and most of all, succeeded.

This Get Big Fast strategic imperative drove the company to success by embracing a 'land grab' logic and staking out large areas of online space at the one time, rather than gradually expanding its online presence (2004, pp.108). As recognition of Amazon.com began to expand and fortunes began to grow, with the implementation of their Get Big Fast business model, in a matter of only a few months, Amazon.com went from thousands to millions, and eventually to billions and tens of billions, demonstrating that Get Big Fast was the strategy for Amazon.com. After Bezos achieves profitability, he knows how to use his money to make more money because he knows how to put the money where it is needed. For example, purchasing banners on portals like AOL, creating a variety of offline promotional activities and established partnerships with search engines like Yahoo. (Saunders, 2001, pp.141)

Related pages in the Wiki:

1. ECommerce - Consumer2Consumer 2. ECommerce - Business2Business 3. ECommerce - Business2Consumer

Related pages in Wikipedia:

1. Business Model

Business Strategies

In recent years, online shopping has become extremely popular and many organisations have been covetously observing the online market. But, how does Amazon.com stand head and shoulders above others? Within its major Get Big Fast strategy it pursues many unique strategies. Strictly speaking, there are three strategies that have helped Amazon.com to enhance its competitive advantage, including cost- leadership, customer differentiation and focus strategies (Saunders, 2001, pp.122-123). The first strategy, cost-leadership is pursued by Amazon.com by differentiating itself primarily on the basis of price. Due to this strategy, Amazon.com always makes sure that it offers the same quality products as other companies for a considerably less price. Their second strategy is customer diffentiation. Amazon.com provides current and prospective customers with differentiation though design, quality or convenience and Amazon.com always selects a differentiator that is different among the competitor. So, Amazon.com consumers can recognise and differentiate its product from competitors. The last strategy that it uses, is a focus strategy. This strategy takes one of the two earlier strategies and applies it to a niche within the market (Saunders, 2001, pp.122-123). Amazon.com fouses on outstanding customer service as a niche but not the whole market because each niche has its own demand and requirement.

Amazon.com's Value Proposition

Values play an important role in Amazon.com's succeeding. A value is like a goal and forms an ongoing objective. Amazon.com's values and philosophy is at the center of the organization and often determines the difference between success and failure of the enterprise (Saunders, 2001, pp.141). There are two strong values that are practised by Amazon.com. These include customer satisfaction and operational frugality. These two values complement Amazon.com's operational strategies in achieving and maintaining an effective competitive advantage and encouraging employee and corporate performance. For example, Amazon.com's employees are paid base salaries that are obviously less than competitive rates. So, due to the frugality value, Amazon.com spends much money on branding and business expansion. However, Amazon.com sustains employee loyalty through employees' ownership of company shares. Amazon.com injects a message into the eomployee's minds - when Amazon.com begins to show a profit, their shares will profit too. (Saunders, 2001, pp.141-143)

Customer Service

Amazon.com prides itself on customer service and aspires â€˜to be the earthâ€™s most customer centric companyâ€™ (Guglielmo, in Schlegelmilch, Diamantopoulos and Kreuz, 2003, pp.17-33). A study (Saunders, 2001, pp.101-105) shows that more than half of Amazon.com's customers are repeat customers. This success is based on customer-value proposition, which is conducted by Bezos. For instance, in his customer-value proposition, he suggests that vistors to the Amazon.com site must leave with a positive impression, while also providing potential buyers with reasons to visit the virtual store again. Besides that, he also expounds that Amazon.com needs to perform as promised, such as punctual delivery. As a result, Amazon.com can strengthen its customer satisfaction. With Amazon.comâ€™s aim to â€˜make its â€˜bricks-and-mortarâ€™ competitors irrelevantâ€™ (Gallivan, in Schlegelmilch, Diamantopoulos and Kreuz, 2003, pp.17-33). Three fundamental value improvements are offered to their customers to achieve this: reduced prices, a wider selection of titles, and a dramatically improved purchasing convenience (Anderson, in Schlegelmilch, Diamantopoulos and Kreuz, 2003, pp.17-33). Amazon.com also focuses on additional elements that customers want, such as concentration of quality, reliability, security and availability of product. Amazon.com's customer loyalty was established from the beginning and continually improves due to the focus and efforts made by Amazon.com in continual customer service improvements. In short, Amazon.com always focuses on its customers and this is one of reasons that has aided in its success.

Customers were of primary importance throughout the establishment of the Amazon.com interface. Amazon.comâ€™s customer interface was developed to facilitate each userâ€™s shopping experience and provide a hassle free online shopping environment that encouraged their return. Many elements of the customer interface contribute to the siteâ€™s ease of use. These include tailoring of the website for each individual user, extensive links to other dimensions of the site as well as links to outside internet content and the websiteâ€™s ability to perform financial transactions.

Related pages in the Wiki:

1. ECommerce - Payment 2. ECommerce - Security

Related pages in Wikipedia:

1. Web Services

Customer Interface

Amazon.com stands not only as a supreme leader of online shopping, but also as a pioneer of Web (Baxley,2003, pp. 381). This successful and well-defined website to run Amazon.com's business strategies and processes. The home page of Amazon.com reveals that Amazon.com is the Web's lagest and most influential retailer. This is because Amazon.com provides a variety of informaton such as new releases, product details, related partners' links and so on. The quantity of content can help Amazon.com to attract more consumers from different backgrounds and have different demands. Amazon.com attempts to establish new demands to consumers as well. Consumers may use Amazon.com to purchase an item that they need. However, while they open the home page of Amazon.com, the "Amazon.com Visa Card" advertisement may grab their attention and unconsciously affect them. As a result, some consumers might unconsciouly realise that they might have the demand of Visa Card and therefore register as a user.

As with all web applications, the success of Amazon.com's interface is based on two strong models and they include the conceptual model and structural model. The conceptual concept is based on the concept of a reference catalogue. Amazon.com uses magazine style-catologues on its website and it appropriates them to Amazon.com and this allows Amazon.com to arrange its product categories. In addition, this model implies the presence of several methods for finding specific products, such as a table of contents and multiple indexes (Baxley,2003, pp. 382-389). The conceptual model of a reference catalogue not only gives users a clear understanding of what the site offers and how it organised, but also provides a solid foundation on which the interface can grow and develop (Baxley, 2003, pp. 382-389). The website exploits one of the Web's exclusive resources: a community of users. Amazon.com allows its users to review and rate products, in effect democratizing the book-buying experience in a way unimaginable before the advent of the Web (Baxley, 2003, pp. 382-389). Another model is the structural model. Because of its huge content in its web page, its structural model looks like a hub. The center of the hub contains the product details and category index pages and the spokes link to functional areas, such as checkout and account management. Amazon also uses the structural model as a guide for its checkout process and another hub for its account management area (Baxley, 2003, pp. 382-389). So, due to this model, Amazon.com can establish a effective One-Click Ordering system and consumers can purchanse the products without going through the troblesome checkout process.

The Importance of Amazon.com

Most people think of Amazon.com as an e-tailer, and value it for how it sells products and distributes them. Those people make the fundamental mistake of comparing Amazon.com with other retailers and direct-marketing companies. Amazon.com was the virtual bookstore to emerge on the web and set the standard for online retailing(Alsop, 2001, p.48). Amazon.com pays much attention to their customers' experience. For example, it was the first online retailer to feature the â€œreaders who bought this, also boughtâ€¦â€? device, listing three other titles in the same subject area or books by the same author that are similar to the preferences of other users of Amazon.com(Seybold, 1998, pp.126).

Amazon.com should also be thought of as a technology company. It may be the only company to have mastered the use of technology in serving individual customers(Alsop, 2001, pp.48).Amazon.com tracks what its customers purchase and then uses that information to satisfy and meet customer expectations. Since Amazon.com investigated security software, it was among the first website to accept credit card purchases over the Internet. After customers purchase from Amazon.com, they receive an confirmation email within a few minutes of order processing. Amazon.com was the first online company to initiate proactive order confirmation. And it was the first online company to realize that customers would welcome proactive e-mail notifications about things they are looking for. When customers sign up to receive notifications by topic or by author, they will begin receiving e-mails from Amazon.comâ€™s 'Eyes' service(Seybold, 1998, pp.129).

It is no doubt that Amazon.com is a new company founded by a visionary who understood that the real opportunity was in using the technology to build long-term relationships with customers(Alsop, 2001, pp.48). Amazon.com's importance can be obsreved through a comparision with a physical bookstore. Such a comparison will reveal that there is a0 limited selection of books in an actual bookstore whereas Amazon.com can list a huge catalogue of titles, and is much easier to search among them online.

Future of Amazon.com

Jeff Bezos wants Amazon.com to be the place for consumers to find almost anything they want--whether Amazon itself sells the products or simply takes a cut from other merchants selling on its Web site. Says Bezos: 'We want to build something the world has never seenâ€™ (Bezos, 1999, pp.24). Now, customers can buy many items from Amazon.com, however because of the rapidly changing e-market, the quantity of products for sale on Amzon.com is not enough. There were a few million new shoppers to the Web in 2002, which helped bolster those sales, most of the sales are coming from people that already shopped online, that love the convenience of it, want to stay away from the malls, took advantage of the free shipping promotions and spent more of their total shopping dollars online than in 2001 (interview, 2002, pp.1). Therefore, customer retention is so important for amazon.comâ€™s future. Amazon.com will create strategies to maintain its customers. Customers of the future will demand more convenience and privacy. Interactivity will be the norm rather than a one way pushing of information (Krishnamurthy, 2003, pp.403). For example, Dell can customize computers in response to customers' online requests. In the future this service will not only be restricted to personal computers. A customised order may in the future be placed at Amazon.com for a book comprised of six chapters on Russian stamps from six different books, or a CD with 12 tracks that the purchaser specifies, or a pair of pants cut to your measurements (Willis, 1998, pp.55). Amazon.com is not as developed in online delivery servies. Someday a customer might be able to order a book as a multimedia file to download to a CD. It's happening with software and other print media such as magazines so why cannot Amazon.com(Willis, 1998, pp.55). Also, Amazon.com needs to begin using the Net to enhance production and distribution. Multichannel retailing will be the norm in the future (Krishnamurthy, 2003, pp.407). Amazon.com will form partnerships with bricks-and-mortar retailer, the number of companies that will take the bricks-and-clicks approach will increase and online shopping will be viewed as one channel for gathering information (Krishnamurthy, 2003, pp.407). Consumers shop at stores that they trust and like. Therefore, brand strength will br paramount in this sector. Incumbents will have a strong advantage and will be hard to dislodge. The unique brand position of Amazon.com will be its biggest strength. Amazon.com will be attempting to occupy marketshares from their off-line competitors. Price reductions and year round and free shipping continues to aid Amzon.com in sustaining its competitive advantage and maintaining market share.

In all, Amazon.com has clearly and admirably demonstrated how quickly a business can develop and grow in the internet environment (De Kare-Silver,1998, pp.38). Amazonâ€™s failures, success and achievements have had a profound influence on virtually every sector of business in the world (Spector, 2000, pp.xiii). Consequently, through its actions and own experimentations, Amazon.com has established a model for future online retailers to follow and experiment with themselves.

See also:

 Amazon - 1 Click Shopping

 Amazon - Branding

 Amazon - Business Model

 Amazon - Corporate Culture

 Amazon - Customer Interface

 Amazon - Customer Review Program

 Amazon - Customer Service

 Amazon - Effective Web Applications

 Amazon - History And Development

 Amazon - International store

 Amazon - Online advertising and promotion

 Amazon - Partnership

 Amazon - Practice Technologies  Amazon - Public Relations

 Amazon - The Associates Program

 E-Commerce

 Online Shopping

 Companies - Google

Reference List

Alsop, S.(2001) â€œI'm betting on Amazon.comâ€? Fortune, New York, vol.143, no.9; pg. 48, 1 pgs, retrieved 8 September, 2004, from http://proquest.umi.com.gateway.library.qut.edu.au/pqdlink?Ver=1&Exp=09-08- 2009&FMT=3&DID=71502315&RQT=309&clientId=14394

Baxley, B. (2003) Making The Web Work, USA: New Riders, ISBN 0735711968

Bezos, J.(1999) â€œShowed the world how to deliver anal-retentive customer service on an e-commerce Web site. Ambition: To create the online place where people can find anything they want toâ€? Business Week, New York, no.3648, retrieved 8 September, 2004, from http://proquest.umi.com.gateway.library.qut.edu.au/pqdlink?Ver=1&Exp=09-08- 2009&FMT=3&DID=45219041&RQT=309&clientId=14394

De Kare-Silver, M. (1999) e-shock, London: Macmillan Press Ltd, ISBN 0814404979.

Gasson, C. and Cowley, J. (2001) â€œMissing the Storyâ€? New Statesman, vol.130, no. 4534, retrieved 31 August, 2004, fromhttp://search.epnet.com.gateway.library.qut.edu.au/direct.asp? an=4359879&db=afh.

Gilpin, K. (2003) â€œTrends Bode Well for Online Shoppingâ€? The New York Time, retrieved 8 September, 2004, from http://www.csulb.edu/~mwolfin/Trends.pdf

Graham, S. (2004) The Cybercities Readers, London: Routledge, ISBN 0415279550. Hamilton, D. ( 2004) â€œAmazon.com,â€? Searcher, vol. 12, no. 6, retrieved 31 August, 2004, from http://search.epnet.com.gateway.library.qut.edu.au/direct.asp?an=13385322&db=afh.

â€œInterview: Carrie Johnson Discusses This Yearâ€™s Online Shopping Trends and Where It Will Lead for Future Use of The Internetâ€? Washington, D.C., 2002, pg. 1, retrieved 8 September, 2004, from http://proquest.umi.com.gateway.library.qut.edu.au/pqdlink?Ver=1&Exp=09-08- 2009&FMT=3&DID=352241861&RQT=309&clientId=14394

Introduction to e-business (2004) New South Wales: McGraw Hill, ISBN 7777772570.

Krishnamurthy, S. (2003) E-Commerce Management:Text and Cases, Louiseville:Transcontinental Printing,Inc., ISBN 0324152523.

Rayport, J. and Jaworski, B.(2002) Case in e-Commerce, New York:McGraw-Hill/Irwin/marketspaceU, ISBN 0072500956.

Saunders, R. (2001) Business The Amazon.com, UK: Capstone Publishing Limited, ISBN 184112155X.

Schlegelmilch, B., Diamantopoulos, A, and Kreuz, P. (2003) â€œStrategic innovation: the construct, its drivers and its strategic outcomes,â€? Journal of Strategic Marketing, vol. 11, no.2, retrieved 31 August, 2004, from http://search.epnet.com.gateway.library.qut.edu.au/direct.asp?an=10779277&db=bsh.

Seybold, P.(1998) Customers.com:How to create a profitable business strategy for the internet and Beyond,New York: Time Books, ISBN 0812930371.

Spector, R. (2000) Amazon.com: Get Big Fast, New York: Harper Collins, ISBN 073226796X.

Willis, Clint.(1998) â€œDoes amazon.com really matter?" Forbes, New York, Apr 6, 1998, retrieved 8 September, 2004,from http://proquest.umi.com.gateway.library.qut.edu.au/pqdlink?Ver=1&Exp=09-08- 2009&FMT=3&DID=27745146&RQT=309&clientId=14394 Group members:

Stephanie Spann 14:25, 27 Aug 2004 (EST) Sharon Tse 14:26, 27 Aug 2004 (EST) Jason Er 14:28, 27 Aug 2004 (EST)

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 About M/Cyclop Consumer2Consumer

Consumer2Consumer (C2C) or as it is sometimes referred to Peer2Peer (P2P) exchanges involve all transactions between and among consumers. These transactions can also include third party involvement, usually in the form of those who facilitate the marketplace â€“ such as EBay.com. C2C exchanges can include classified ads (the Trading Post online), music and file sharing, career and job websites (Seek and CareerOne) and also personal services such as dating websites (Lavalife).

In C2C networks, consumers sell goods and services to other consumers. There are millions of sellers with different items to sell and an equally large number of buyers. Finding each other can incur quite a high cost to both buyer and seller, and thus this is why intermediaries like eBay are so important. They simply mediate between consumers who want to buy and sell, and take small cuts of the sellers profit as a fee for bringing their customers to one marketplace.

Consumer2Consumer e-commerce has given online shopping and trading a new dimension. While this sort of trading is prevalent in the offline world (garage sales, etc) it was not expected to take off so well online, due to the anonymity of users.

The advantage of consumer to consumer e-commerce is most often the reduced costs and smaller â€“ but profitable â€“ customer base. It also gives many small business owners a way to sell their goods without running a highly profit draining bricks-and-mortar store. The most effective consumer to consumer businesses involve items such as handmade gifts, personal artwork, clothing design, and collectables.

Bibliography

Queensland University of Technology, School of International Business (2004) Introduction to e-business Australia: McGrawHill & QUT Custom Publication, ISBN 7777772570.

Melanie Mackrodt 13:19, 3 Sep 2004 (EST) Catherine Cherry 13:49, 8 Oct 2004 (EST

Business2Business

Business2Business or B2B activity refers to all e-commerce transactions that can occur between two organisations. This includes purchasing and procurement, supplier management, inventory management, channel management, sales activities, payment management, and service and support.

B2B transactions occur when businesses buy and sell goods to and from each other. â€œIn 1999 B2B commerce was estimated to be about $1.3 trillion by 2002.â€? (School of International Business, 2004, p.36) Basically this e-commerce strategy works in a way that allows businesses to have more buyers, and then equally there are more sellers with goods available to these buyers. It is not all about outside consumers. Sellers can learn from each other and even produce complimentary goods, to corner a bigger market share.

The main disadvantage of the high number of buyers in sellers is that unlike in C2C commerce, they are all fragmented. Buyers will not know who all the sellers are, and sellers will not know who all the buyers are. This fragmentation results in both parties having to trawl through millions of web pages trying to find each other. This, in turn, can often increase transaction costs, because the cost-per-customer is increased. It costs more money for both parties to find or attract each other.

Bibliography

Queensland University of Technology, School of International Business (2004) Introduction to e-business Australia: McGrawHill & QUT Custom Publication, ISBN 7777772570.

Melanie Mackrodt 13:20, 3 Sep 2004 (EST) Catherine Cherry 13:49, 8 Oct 2004 (EST)

When conducting business over the Internet, there are several different transaction or business models that exist within the world of E-Business. One of the most common models in E-Commerce is the Business-To-Consumer (B2C) model. In B2C transactions, online transactions are made between businesses and individual consumers. Businesses sell products and services through electronic channels directly to the consumer (Bidgoli, 2002, p.50).

B2C E-Commerce involves what is known as electronic retailing or e-tailing. E-tailing involves online retail sales. E-tailing makes it easier for a manufacturer to sell directly to a customer, cutting out the need for an intermediary (retailer). With B2C transactions there is no need for retailers and therefore, no need for a physical store from which to distribute products. An electronic or Web storefront refers to a single companies Web site where products and services are sold. Customers can browse online catalogs or electronic storefronts when it best suits them (Turban et al. 2002, p.82). Amazon.com is an excellent example of a B2C company. Here, customers can browse catalogs when they want, place an order and the product of service will be delivered directly to them.

According to Turban (2002, p.83) the main things which are browsed and sell well over the Internet include:

1. Computer hardware and software: While hardware is most popular, more and more people buy software online as well. Dell and Gateway are the major online vendors of computer hardware and software, with more than $15billion sales in 2002.

2. Consumer electronics: The second largest product category sold online. Digital cameras, printers, scanners, and wireless devices (mobile phones) are some of the electronics bought online.

3. Sporting goods: It is difficult to measure the exact figure as there are only a few e-tailers that sell sporting goods exclusively online. 4. Office supplies: Sales of office supplies at officedepot.com alone reached over $2.3billion in 2002. B2C sales of office supplies are increasing rapidly, all over the world.

Other things which sell well over the Internet include:

5. Books and music 6. Toys 7. Health and beauty 8. Entertainment 9. Apparel 10. Cars 11. Services 12. Others

According to Bidgoli (2002, p.59) there are five major activities involved in conducting B2C E-Commerce. These are:

1. Information sharing: A B2C E-Commerce model may use some or all of the following applications and technologies to share information with customers:

 Company Web site

 Online catalogs

 E-mail

 Online advertisements

 Message board system

 Newsgroups and discussion groups

2. Ordering: A customer may use electronic forms similar to paper forms or e-mail to order a product or service.

3. Payment: There are a variety of options. These include:

 Credit cards

 Electronic cheques

 Digital cash

4. Fulfilment: The fulfilment function could be very complex depending upon the delivery of physical products (books, videos and CD's) or digital products (software, music, electronic documents). Fulfilment is responsible for physically delivering the product or service from the merchant to the customer. 5. Service and support: Is more important in E-Commerce than traditional business because E- Commerce companies lack a traditional physical presence and need other ways to maintain current customers. Examples include:

 E-mail confirmation

 Periodic news flash

 Online surveys

 Help desk

 Guaranteed secure transactions

 Guaranteed online auctions

These five activities all need to be used in conjunction with one another for a B2C business to be successful.

According to Patton (2001), the main reason that there is such a hype about B2C businesses is that they are quickly gaining in size and market capitalization and therefore, pose a threat to traditional brick and mortar businesses. "In many ways, these dotcoms seemed to be rewriting the rules of business â€�? they had the customers without the expenses of maintaining physical stores, little inventory, unlimited access to capital and little concern about actual earnings" (Patton, 2001).

E-Commerce and in particular, B2C businesses, have proven to be extremely successful over the past few years. Not only do the actual businesses reap the benefits, but so do the potential customers. With the every increasing number of E-Commerce B2C businesses evolving, the future for traditional, physical businesses is not looking positive. As the possibilities created by E-Commerce continue to expand, so will the number of emerging B2C businesses.

===Reference List:===

1. Amazon.com 2004. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/subst/home/home.html/102-3454156- 3210563 (accessed October 2, 2004).

2. Bidgoli, H. 2002. Electronic Commerce: Principles and Practice. USA: Academic Press. ISBN 0120959771.

3. Dell.com 2004. http://dell.com/ (accessed October 2, 2004).

4. Officedepot.com 2004 http://www.officedepot.com (accessed October 2, 2004).

5. Patton, S. (2001, August 27). The ABCs of B2C. The E-Business Research Ctnter. http://www.cio.com/ec/edi/b2cabc.html (accessed October 15, 2004).

6. Turban, E. King, D. Lee, J. and D. Viehland. 2002. Electronic Commerce: A Managerial Perspective. 3rd Ed. USA: Prentice Hall. ISBN 0131230158. 7. WIKIPEDIA: The Free Encyclopedia. 2004. www.wikipedia.org (accessed October 2, 2004).

Business Strategies

Amazon.com's Value Proposition

Customer Service

Related pages in the Wiki:

1. ECommerce - Payment 2. ECommerce - Security

Related pages in Wikipedia:

1. Web Services

Customer Interface

The Importance of Amazon.com

Future of Amazon.com

Also, Amazon.com needs to begin using the Net to enhance production and distribution. Multichannel retailing will be the norm in the future (Krishnamurthy, 2003, pp.407). Amazon.com will form partnerships with bricks-and-mortar retailer, the number of companies that will take the bricks-and-clicks approach will increase and online shopping will be viewed as one channel for gathering information (Krishnamurthy, 2003, pp.407). Consumers shop at stores that they trust and like. Therefore, brand strength will br paramount in this sector. Incumbents will have a strong advantage and will be hard to dislodge. The unique brand position of Amazon.com will be its biggest strength. Amazon.com will be attempting to occupy marketshares from their off-line competitors. Price reductions and year round and free shipping continues to aid Amzon.com in sustaining its competitive advantage and maintaining market share.