Questions:
1. Role of internet marketing in the modern marketing?
2. Benefits of internet marketing?
3. Benefits to customers of a business using internet marketing?
4. Benefits and opportunities to the business of using internet marketing within the marketing mix of Amazon?
5. Efficiency and effectiveness of the internet marketing of Amazon?
6. Challenges of globalization faced by Amazon while using the internet marketing as a business tool?
Answers:
Introduction
Amazon is a well known E-commerce business who uses internet marketing for their activities and it’s headquartered at Seattle in Washington (Agwu, 2012). It is known for its internet based marketing who started its operations from opening a book store via online.
Later, it expanded its activities selling apparels, furniture, footwear, and electronics made available to the end customers so that they can avail the services through online and make the payment by various modes of structure (Wartchow, 2012). Amazon make efforts to satisfy their customer base by providing 24/7 assistance so that they feel relax while shopping where different offers are provided to the customers and the feedback is also attained of the customers if any problem arises in handling of the product.
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Role of internet marketing in the modern marketing
With the rapid growth in the technology in internet, it has become a regular affair to search everything with the help of internet (Angelo, 2012). Amazon has helped a lot to the customers because they can save time which is wasted in the offline stores.
Internet marketing has played a vital role in the modern marketing because it helps in saving time of the consumers and they get to view many more varieties at the same time and evaluate the alternatives (Brewer, 2011). The access to internet has made the life of individuals easier because they can easily get each and every information by a single click on the desktop.
2. Benefits of internet marketing
Internet marketing has lots of benefits in the present world as because nowadays everyone are interested to view the products online and make the final purchase which is much hassle less as compared to other offline stores(Gupta, Massisimo and Koontz, 2013). Individuals are more comfortable sitting at one place and can make an elaborative research for the products for which they are interested.
Even the companies who engage their operations with internet facilities can reduce cost because staff members are not required who need to show the products as well services to the customers (Vaidyanathan, 2012). Warehouse expenses also reduce as well as transportation cost which make it easier for the company to carry on the business operations in an effective manner. Internet marketing has a become a recent trend and consumers tend to use more for its uses and the various benefits it actually serve.
3. Benefits to customers of a business using internet marketing.
Customers are highly benefited with the usage of internet marketing where they do not need to travel or have physical presence in stores and carry a huge sum of rupees to pay for the same. Individuals can easily access to the Amazon site and just evaluate at various goods like accessories, clothing, footwear as well as electronics (Roberts and Zahay, 2013).
Payment system also helps the customers because they have various options to pay that is, they can either pay by cash on delivery or by debit card (Hoag, 2012). Cash on delivery is the way by which consumer can make the payment after receiving the goods in proper condition. Loss of theft or defective pieces is solved by the company very easily to handle the queries of the customers.
Listed some of the benefits which the customers get by the usage of internet marketing in case of Amazon.
- Customers easily can get all the updates by the use of internet marketing through various sites like, email, advertisement and they can use their either tablets or smart phones to remain updated with the current scenario of the market (Świeczak, 2012).
- Customers feel comfortable comparing between different alternatives sitting at one place rather than moving from one store to another.
- Transparency in information is an important factor in the internet marketing because all the information is visible to the entire user which makes the system crystal clear about all the product specifications as compared to offline stores.
- Pricing which are shown in the online marketing sites are transparent and everyone fall in the same category of pricing and no biasness is encouraged which usually common in offline stores.
- Customers can easily access to the information where they can get information of their track of purchase and they are independent to select own convenient delivery dates.
- 24/7 assistance are provided to the customers if they select shopping from online because that makes them shop any part of the day and time which can help them lot in their personal busy schedule.
4. Benefits and opportunities to the business of using internet marketing within the marketing mix of Amazon.
The marketing mix of Amazon Company is very unique and these are elaborated in the following manner:
- Product- The product provided to the end consumers can be in the following sections like, clothing, accessories, footwear, electronics and consumer can easily select from the following items and make the final purchase.
- Price- The price varies from one product to another and main focus is done on delivering the product at the best price. Different range of prices is there so that different class of people can easily select their price structure. There is option in the site where one can filter the range of the price and can easily look at the products of various brands which are made available at the competitive price.
- Place- There is no definite place for this company as the delivery has been done at customers door step so that the customers do not face any kind of problem regarding that. Address are mentioned by the customer while making the purchase and the person are responsible to deliver the goods at the convenient place of the customer where they just need to pay the price for various goods which are made available by the company.
- Promotion- The promotion is done on a wide range by the company by way of television advertisements, newspaper, email ads etc. efforts are made by the company so that they are aware the various goods that are made available to them at the best suited price.
5. Efficiency and effectiveness of the internet marketing of Amazon.
In the present scenario, internet marketing plays an important role which ultimately leads to the efficiency of the internet marketing where everyone wants to save time from their busy schedule (Internet currency, 2012). No one is actually interested in wasting time to visit the store because people are so busy with their routine work.
Effective marketing is attained by this company because they provide many offers and discounts at regular intervals which actually attract the customers to a wide variety (Juon, Greiling and Buerkle, 2012). Amazon has recently launched a Big Billion Day which was a huge success where customers could get the product at a very less cost and they were happy with such huge amount discounts and offers. Efforts are made by this company to get full information of the current trends and provide the customer with the best of its available services.
6. Challenges of globalization faced by Amazon while using the internet marketing as a business tool.
Globalization in the present world had direct impact with the internet facilities which are provided by the company and it basically act an effective marketing tool which means that people are interested to view the products on an online basis because it saves time and much more important thing is that individual can easily evaluate among various alternatives which are provided by the company.
Amazon, too faces various challenges by its competitors like, flip cart, snap deal etc whose business operations are same and they give a stiff competition to this company as a offensive attack.
Various offensive and defensive strategies are used by this company so that to retain in the business operations for long period of time (Markov and Lazic, 2012). Amazon faced various challenges while launching the Big Billion Day because it was success for large amount of people but many were disappointed too at the same time as they did not get the product due to server error. This drawback was taken up by the competitors and they updated the technology of network problem and started with the policy of Amazon (Pentina and Koh, 2012). Every business get through various drawbacks but Amazon has proved to be the best in the shopping sites as people started relying for it for the delivery purposes which is important to maintain the growth in the future run.
Conclusion
This study actually deals with the internet marketing and how far it is effective in the modern world. Amazon is one of the Ecommerce sites that are responsible to provide adequate services to its customer base as well as solving their issues as far as possible.
Amazon always provides lots of discounts and offers which make the customers to view more of its products but at the same time it has to face stiff competition from other e commerce sits like flip cart and snap deal. Any defects or late delivery will be properly taken care of the Amazon team because they are known to solve the problem by replacing the product if any defects are noticed.
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