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Sarah's Second Analysis
Amazon.com Analysis
Amazon.com is one of the largest internet vending sites in the world. It boasts 36 product categories to choose from ranging from books and music to pet supplies and automotive parts. Amazon’s story is one of small beginnings, but major success as a result of adaptation in order to accommodate a larger and more internet-based customer. This success story is a perfect example of Roger Fidler’s principle of Mediamorphosis and the “technological evolution of communication media.” (Pg. 38)
Amazon was founded by a man named Jeff Bezos in 1994 and was originally based out of his garage. Bezos’ original idea was just to start a bookstore. With the help of Nick Hanauer and Tom Alburg, who invested $40,000 and $100,000 respectively, Amazon was able to go online and fund a welcoming website with better hosting capabilities. Soon, Bezos had customers from all around the U.S., and not just from his home state of Washington. Bezos, delighted with his success, decided to allow sellers to make reviews of their own books in order to keep customers coming back. This move greatly increased Amazon’s success. With this human touch, people began thinking of the site as more of an online community and not merely a place to buy things. When the company went public they added CDs, movies, software, electronics, video games, toys, and home improvement items to their inventory. For the next couple of years, Amazon’s profits continued to skyrocket; however, in 2001 the company reported a huge loss in profits and had to lay off over a thousand workers. Bezos had to adapt again. He came up with the idea of allowing large companies to sell their products through his site. His idea worked and since then Amazon.com has expanded to allow the sale of items from Target, Toys R Us and Old Navy, among many other well known companies.
According to the concept of Mediamorphosis, when newer forms of media emerge, the older forms usually don’t die, they merely continue to evolve and adapt. Fidler uses the radio as an example: “As TV began its grand ascent, general-audience radio went into a steep decline that led some analysts to predict the eminent death of the medium. But radio didn’t die. Nor was AM entirely subsumed by FM. Instead, AM adapted and through the adoption of new technologies and marketing strategies has steadily become more competitive with FM.” (Pg. 38-39) Amazon encountered similar experiences. When a little garage-based bookstore wasn’t doing well, an investment put the company on the most successful tool available, the Internet, and there it became increasingly successful. Later, when customers began doubting the strength of the company, Amazon had to merge/slightly morph with other strong companies and adapt once again to a changing audience.
Amazon’s success is probably also due to its ability to create a user-friendly website early on. Although the site contains a vast amount of products and capabilities, it is organized incredibly well. All customers and personal vendors must have a membership (and doing so takes only a few minutes). A customer with a product to purchase in mind can either click on one of the 36 categories listed along the side of the site’s home page, or they can search for it at the top. Once they choose their product they can decide whether they want to purchase it as new or used, and if they choose to buy it used, they see their choices from cheapest to most expensive. Each used product comes with the name of the seller, the product’s condition, ratings of the seller and comments about the product made by the seller. As the customer chooses items for purchase, they go into that member’s individual “cart,” making the whole experience seem like an easy and enjoyable trip to the grocery store (by the way, groceries are available on amazon.com, over 18,000 non-perishable items). And if a customer wants to wait on purchasing one or more of their chosen items, they can choose to save that item to purchase at a later date. If they are looking to purchase music, they can hear samples of music they are interested in. At any time, the customer can look at the items in their cart and make changes to it. The site also offers the option to view other available products that are similar to the ones in their cart.
Once the purchase is finalized and paid for, the customer is sent email confirmations that their purchase has been processed and is even given tracking numbers that allow them to track the status of their purchase at any time online. This incorporation of the email and internet, two things that are vital components of everyday life of the company’s customers, is another adaptive act by Amazon in order to keep the company up to date and successful. All purchases are delivered straight to the location specified by the customer (Amazon boasts the ability to ship to virtually any address in the world), and always within the estimated delivery date. With the site’s continual updates and expansions Amazon.com continues to be one of the world’s most popular online vendors.
schilmeran |
Latest page update: made by schilmeran
, Mar 10 2007, 5:50 PM EST
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