Marketing strategy of amazon

Marketing strategy is necessary in every business. No matter how rich a certain business is, its resources are always restricted. Thus marketing strategy provides a certain business to allocate his resources properly in order for his business to be more productive. Marketing mix is also essential in the marketing field, and it is basically the reason why the marketing mix (4 P’s) is tackled under marketing strategy. The four essential P’s are the product, the price, the place, and the promotion. Without considering these four essential P’s ones business is doomed to fail. A marketing manager needs to have enough knowledge in order to better determine how to properly organize this marketing mix.
This paper aims to focus on whether the Amazon.com is doing a great marketing strategy. It is a well-known fact that many businesses aims on promoting their products in order to receive better responses from their customers. The necessity of promoting their products are included in the marketing mix and thus a business that knows how to promote his product well would succeed most likely than those who do not have any knowledge in product promotions. Going back to the strategy of amazon.com many wonders why they promote their new products side by side with used and old products.
There are people who question the rationality behind this because people think that most consumers would tend to buy things which are cheaper compared to the newer and more expensive items particularly books. Thus, this paper aim to analyze what was the reason behind this particular strategy of amazon.com, whether their strategy is effective or not and the like.

Amazon.com is one of the most famous e-commerce companies. Amazon.com sells their products via internet thus making it more convenient for people who do not have enough time to do their shopping outside their homes. Jeff Bezos started amazon.com in 1994 and up to now amazon.com is still continuing with their business. Amazon.com started by selling books online but as of today they are no longer limited on selling books via the internet. Amazon.com’s products ranges from cd’s, dvd’s, books, clothes, cars, etc. The Amazon.com is a little off the track with their marketing strategy.
For one, they are willing to ship products ranging from $25 or more for free. Such shipments could be very costly even from an established business as Amazon. However, in spite of the losses of Amazon.com they are still well-liked by their customers due to their good services and customer satisfaction is very important in every business. Thus, in this regard Amazon.com shows good marketing strategy in terms of pleasing their customers. However this particular aspect where amazon.com is good at is very short-lived.
The strategy Amazon found to reconstruct their selves is by contacting retailers and asking them to sell some of their products at Amazon. Thus, companies such as Gaps, Circuit City Stores Inc and the like sell some of their products at Amazon as well as on their own websites. This particular strategy raised Amazon’s profit to 22%. However, business experts saw that Amazon’s sale could still grow by the year of 2008 if they would improve some aspects on their websites.
By doing this Amazon could draw more retailing companies to join forces with them. Their website had also gotten so full to the point that shopping online on Amazon is no longer as convenient and as easy as it used to especially since so many url’s links customers from one website to another. Thus, if only Amazon.com would try to lessen the mess their website is in then the better their business would be.
In terms of using the 4 P’s Amazon.com is doing fine in the price part since their prices are very reasonable added to the fact that they gives free shipment for some products. Amazon.com could also be found nationwide because they have opened stores on different countries such as Japan, Germany, etc. This particular strategy is good because it allows them to cover customers in a wide-range basis.
However, Amazon.com shows difficulty in promoting most of their products because their website is not very organized. Searching for your desire product could be very strenuous for many insignificant links appears one after another. In terms of products they may be doing alright for they sell products with qualities however, their promotion of their product is not really good and thus they should focus on their marketing promotion to in order to attract customers and other retailers more. (Behr).
Amazon.com has certain advantages though as mentioned earlier especially on their venture to merging with other retailers. They are also one of the most well-known on the e-commerce aside from the fact that they are managing to compete head on with other well-known businesses such as IBM, Microsoft, etc.
In terms of selling old books side-by-side with new ones, Amazon has a good reason for that one too. Amazon.com aims to cater to the needs of different kinds of consumers. There are those who want new things no matter how expensive those things may be. However, there are those who does not really care on whether they are buying something old or new as long as they could afford the price. Thus in this regard Amazon.com is doing a great strategy by catering to the needs and wants of different kinds of consumers.
By showing old books side by side with new ones they are also making it easier for their customers to better analyze which one they would pick. For example if Book A costs $15 if it is new and $13 if it is old and used then I would better analyze the pros and cons of buying a new book to that of buying the old one especially if the price difference is only $2. Overall this particular strategy of Amazon could be looked at in different light. However, this particular strategy may be serving Amazon’s purposes well and thus in this regard I think that showing your customer new products as compared to new ones is a good strategy.
In a way it is the same as shopping in a certain shop wherein you ask for a particular book whose price is $25 and your money is only $20. Part of a business strategy is to provide an alternative thus it would be of no surprise if the saleslady would ask how much money you have with you and when you say $20 she would tend to show you a copy of the same book although the second one is used but in a lower price as compared to the new book. I am sure that Amazon is using this particular tactic in the same light as the hypothetical saleslady did.
Reference:
Behr, Mary E. “Case Study: Amazon.Com.” 2003.