Overview of Amazon and its products and services

This paper provides a brief overview of Amazon and the various products and services provided by it. The company has experienced a great rise in the amount of revenue generated. The use of social media as a promotional and sales tool is said to be the most important factor behind the rise of the company. This paper analyzes how the company makes use of different social media platforms to its own benefit. The introduction of Big Data has proven to be an effective tool for providing companies with a strategic advantage. This paper also discusses how the use of Big Data has  affected Amazon in a positive manner and how it may continue to do so.  

Amazon.com, Inc. is an American company that conducts is business as Amazon and is associated with e-commerce and cloud computing services on a global scale. The company was established on July 5^th 1994 by Jeff Bezos (Amazon, 2015). The company’s headquarters are located in Seattle, Washington in the United States.

In its initial stage, Amazon started out as a website hosting an online bookstore. This soon changed into Mp3, video, audio book streaming/downloading and the sale of electronic appliances, clothing, jewelry and accessories, food, furniture and entertainment appliances. The company is also involved in the production and sale of electronic goods like the Fire TV, Fire Tablets and Kindle e-books. Amazon also produces Echo, which is considered as the world’s largest cloud computing service. The other products of Amazon include the Amazon app store, Amazon Prime, Alexa, Amazon Web Services, AmazonFresh, Amazon Digital Game Store, AmazonWireless and ComiXology.

The company has a primary goal of focusing on the consumers and fulfilling their needs. Apart from this, the company has set an objective to emphasize on the growth and maximization of profit while maintaining a favorable market position in terms of competition. The company wishes to infiltrate potential markets overseas, bring about a change and reduction in the delivery times and providing better customer service. 

 
Amazon has a significant base of hard working, smart and talented individuals employed under the company. As of 2017, the company has 566,000 employees actively working as a part of the company.  

In terms of revenue, Amazon is considered the largest internet based company. The company generated a revenue of US$ 177.86 billion for the financial year of 2017. In the same year, the company recorded a net income of US$ 3.033 billion with a total asset of US$ 131.31 billion and a total equity of US$ 27.709 billion (Amazon, 2015).   

Amazon’s revenue and market position

The official e-commerce website of the company is https://www.amazon.com and https://aws.amazon.com is another website of the company that deals with web services.

Amazon as a company has been efficient in its use of the social media platform. The online shopping website is a popular part of the lives of a large number of consumers all over the world. Amazon makes use of Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, Pinterest and Social Media Influencers in order to communicate with customers, promote and advertise products and services and to facilitate sales (Tuten & Solomon, 2017). The ways by which the company makes use of the various social media platforms are explained below:-

• Facebook – Amazon currently has an estimated 26.6 million likes on its Facebook page. The reason behind the huge number of followers on Facebook is the company’s promptness in answering the doubts and queries of the users/consumers as well as addressing the frustrations and grievances of the consumers (Hajli, 2014). The company is creative in its approach while answering the consumers and makes sure the answers are polite, appropriate, prompt and at times, humorous in nature. Even though it is a difficult and impossible task to reply to all the people, the company still makes it a point to answer as many questions and complaints as possible. The connectivity of a user’s Facebook account with his Amazon account allows him to view product reviews and wishlists posted by his mutual connections or friends from Facebook. In case of promotions, the company uses Facebook effectively to highlight numerous products, offer limited time promo codes and discounts in order to encourage more sales (Kumar et al., 2016). The company also promotes relevant products on certain events to further increase its sales. For example, many gift items and products are displayed on Facebook as promotional content or advertisements on Valentine’s Day. Due to this reason, many of the users who were going to purchase items for that day directly purchase it online and therefore sales takes place (Kumar et al., 2016).
• Twitter –The company lays the same emphasis on the utilization of twitter for sales and promotion just as it does with Facebook. However, in case of twitter, the company is seen to be more creative in its innovative process to provide convenience to its customer. In case a product featured on Twitter has an Amazon Code included, it can be added immediately to the Amazon Cart just by replying with the hashtag #Amazoncart. Amazon currently has 2.77 million followers on twitter. The in house team present in the company makes clever use of user generated content and post images, videos and GIF’s, Vine videos and provides links to live periscope events to increase data traffic. The company maintains different accounts for the different types of services it provides.  The company makes use of light and breezy- visually appealing content style, conducts online contests, promoting, and participating in the latest trends via the use of hashtags in order to acquire new customers (Vinerean et al., 2013).
• Snapchat –In case of Snapchat, the company provides exclusive Amazon codes via the Snapchat stories (Leeflang et al., 2014). This is known as ‘Snap Deals’ and the company is efficient in making use of this technique for the Snapchat social media platform.
• Instagram –In case of Instagram, the company focuses on the use of content that is high in visual appeal. The company frequently uses pictures of animals, since it has a high visual appeal and makes the content have a high sharing rate by users.
• Pinterest – Pinterest acts as an effective form of social media platform for Amazon since it helps in direct sales. The use of sensational and vibrant pictures persuades users to buy the products portrayed (Mohapatra, 2013).
• Social media influencers– Amazon is known to use its influencer program in order to make use of the prominent social media personalities or youtubers to promote their products and services (Tiago & Veríssimo, 2014). The social media personalities receive a commission for the promotional activities they conduct via the posts on their pages or accounts. The Amazon Influencer Program allows a scope for youtubers (who fulfill the criteria) to sign up and promote Amazon products and services and receive a remuneration for it. 

Big Data has experienced a significant growth over the last 3 years. It has become quite popular for the companies because of the advantage it provides in giving the companies a competitive edge. With the growing reliance on technology by business organizations, the collection of individual data takes place from mobile devices, surveillance systems, sensors, computers and so on. This data which is collected is utilized by the companies to know valuable information about the individual consumers and provide them with better customer service (Sagiroglu & Sinanc, 2013).

The strategic advantages of big data can be explained better by stating the following scenario as an example:–

 Mr. Jones has been an Amazon Prime subscriber for almost an year. He recently started having problem while signing in to his account. Due to this reason, Mr. Jones put in a request for service on the official website of Amazon. Within minutes of putting in his service request, an Amazon employee via a telephone call contacted Mr. Jones. The employee greeted him and stated the current problem he is facing in his Amazon Prime account and resolved the issue within a few minutes. This brought a great satisfaction to Mr. Jones since the problem was resolved in a short time. A customer service request is usually a nightmare for consumers and is quite a lengthy process, which requires the customer to provide his name and other personal details for verification. In case of Mr. Jones however, the Amazon employee knew exactly what was wrong and what problem needed to be resolved and did so with a no nonsense attitude and prompt approach. This was possible because of the availability of the required user data of Mr. Jones to the Amazon employee.   

As is evident from the example, the company was greatly successful in providing a favorable customer experience. The company was effective in using the collected individual data for providing a great customer service experience and strengthening the bond of the consumers with company as well as increasing the goodwill of the company. The use of big data has allowed the companies to provide the employees with the right tools to serve the consumer needs in a seamless way without the need for individual form filling. It shows the customer that the company cares about his needs and keeps a record of vital information on him so that the consumer may feel comfortable while stating the problems he is facing. The consumers experience a sense of control due to this reason, which has a positive impact on the establishment of business relationships and company brand value.

Amazon’s use of social media to promote, advertise, and facilitate sales

Amazon Prime being an online streaming service, the company could have set up the system in a way that they are notified when a customer is experiencing problems with his/her account. This would allow the company to react faster and contact the consumer without him having to put in a service request.

The use of Big Data by Amazon may be helpful to the company in achieving strategic advantage, but from the perspective of a potential consumer, it is an issue of great concern. Big Data consists of the collection of all the personal information of a potential consumer. In case of a cyber attack or hacking, this data is prone to get leaked and the confidential information of an individual may land in the wrong hands (Katal, Wazid & Goudar, 2013). Therefore, the collection of personal information may be beneficial to the company but remains a threat to potential consumers. 

Conclusion

Therefore, the conclusion can be drawn that social media platforms have emerged as an important tool for business organizations to conduct their promotional activities and maintain their competitive position. The wide reach of social media and its effective usage by Amazon has helped it emerge as one of the leading electronic-commerce websites globally. The recent trend of using Big Data analytical has proven to be efficient in gaining a database of valuable information collected from both existing and potential customers. However, the risk factor still remains as the data is vulnerable to leaks and cyber attacks, during the event of which all private information of an individual may be compromised. 

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