Executive Summary
The internet age has brought with it a revolution in business. It has been a departure from the age-old “manual” way of conducting business to an automated and computer generated applications which ensure that the producer, the retailer and the consumer are interlinked by the internet. As a result of the “internet revolution”, e-businesses have now emerged. These businesses conduct all their activities online, starting from marketing, advertising, display of products and even payment for the goods and services by the consumer (Kessler, 2003). This has reduced the expenditure and the time taken when marketers have to visit all the countries in the world marketing their products and meeting their current and prospective consumers.
This paper will interrogate the whole question of e-business, e-marketing, which are known collectively as internet business or internet marketing. The first part of the paper will single out the bookselling industry and make a discussion on the gains that the industry has made in regard to the use of internet in marketing it. In this case, part one of the paper will be interested in analysing the roles that internet might have played in the way that the industry operates and in any case discuss the impacts that have been inculcated into the affairs of the business by internet. Such roles will be either to the negative or a positive. Positive in the sense that internet has brought a positive improvement and reformation to the operations of the business and negative in the sense that internet may only have contributed in subtracting from the gains that the industry had made, which is not likely in this case. The case study has been chosen as amazon.com to aid in this discussion.
Part b of this report will discuss two e-businesses that have been able to make use of internet in marketing of their products and the gains that they have been able to make as a result. For purposes of clarity, the two businesses are Abebooks.com and Dell.com, both of which are e-businesses.
The report will then make a conclusive statement on the gains made by internet marketing of products in comparison with the times when there were no computers.
Part A: The Roles that Internet has played in book-selling industry: the example of Amazon.com
Book selling industry has been tremendously boosted by the emergence of internet as a way of marketing books. Authors and booksellers can now sell their books online and also market them. When authors sell their books and other reading material online, they give the consumers an opportunity to review their books and get feedback from them. The authors can then embark on implementing the feedback comments received from the customers and readers of the material for the success of the industry. At the time when there were no internet, it was very difficult because the authors and sellers of the material had to physically meet their customers and this made the authors and sellers of the material register very big loses (Laudon & Guercio Traver, 2014). They also wasted their time having to travel all over the world or spend a lot of money in making television or newspaper adverts so that their customers may read the books. This section will take an example of a firm that has contributed a lot in growing this industry, the Amazon.com.
Book selling has been a successful industry ever since the introduction of internet and the facilities that arise therein it has been possible for authors to make huge profits, as a result, of selling their books and other materials online because of the subscription fee to the website and make arrangements for their materials to be marketed online.
In this industry, books are displayed on the website of the firm marketing them and their prices are indicated accordingly. Whenever there is a promotion for the books, the former prices are also indicated as against the new promotional prices so that the buyers of the books and other written material are attracted and enticed to buy them.
Thru the internet still, customers and readers of the books are able to make reviews for the books and leave them at the comments section of the website for the author and the booksellers to take the necessary steps to either make improvements for the services or as accordingly recommended by the readers. This practice has enhanced the bookselling industry because readers and authors do not have to come into a physical conduct with each other. All that they are required to do is to log into the website that sells and displays the books and choose from the available books on the online store. After having a book of their choice, they can then make a bid for the same and the payment is also made online. There is no contact between the seller, the author and the buyer.
This practice has enabled readers to read books online and also buy them online. Some websites that deal in book selling include amazon.com, Abebooks.com, and a number of other websites. A case study of how amazon conducts its online marketing will suffice to summarise this section.
Amazon’s online store:
Amazon.com does not have any physical store for its products. This is not to mention that it has the biggest book repository in the world where all kinds of books by various authors are stored. Such books are sold online and also reviewed by customers online. The idea behind having an online store has saved the business lots of funds which it uses in other developmental activities (Stone, 2013). The online store contains all kinds of goods and services that the business trades in. As a result, the business displays its goods and services online, and the prices for the various products are also quoted against the particular product.
As for promotions, the business indicates when a certain product is undergoing the promotion and in such a case indicates the former price of the product and the new price, as a result, of the promotion. This has enabled its customers to remain loyal to the business. As for books, the business reserves a section where customers and books readers can make their comments and reviews concerning the book. The reviews enable the other readers to have a view of what is contained inside the book and, therefore, buy what they are sure of.
The company, therefore, operates an online store for its products and services where even the display is conducted. The customer only needs to log into the company website, search for the product of their choice and make a bid for the same. The administrators of the website are, therefore, kept busy all through because they are supposed to communicate with their customers on the other end. The payment is also made online and, therefore, the essence of the term e-commerce. There is no physical conduct. It, therefore, follows that the goods and services are readily available for those who can access the internet and see them. This is an advantage to the business as it does not need to make use of its time; resources and energy trying to traverse the world and meet customers physically. Internet has, therefore, enabled the business to have a world outlook because its services are enjoyed everywhere as long as there is the the internet connection.
Part B: comparative analysis of two competing industries in this industry
Introduction:
In order to be successful in e-commerce, any business entity interested in this area must ensure that it perfects in such areas like marketing and sales, procurement, financial services, customer service and intermediaries. This is because, for any business, these are the most important components that have to be put into consideration. As for business models, e-commerce is interested on such models as business-to-business (B2B), business-to-customer (B2C), customer-to-business (C2B) and customer-to-customer (C2C) as a result, the e-commerce model adopted by any e-commerce business should be seen to incorporate any or all of these models (Nissanoff, 2006). This section will present a comparative analysis of two competing e-commerce businesses which could be seen as posing a threat to amazon.com. The section will discuss the e-marketing mix strategies that the businesses make use of, the products they offer, the comparative prices and also the communication models they use to communicate among themselves and also with their customers and suppliers.
1. Dell.com
Dell is an American technological firm based in Round Rock, Texas as its headquarters. The firm is a leading manufacturer, distributor and marketer of world’s high demand technological equipment such as computers and other technological equipment. It has a website located at http://www.dell.com/. The firm, therefore, is a developer, the seller, marketer, and repairer of computer related equipment from all over the world. It was named after its founder, Michael Dell. It is rated as one of the largest corporations in the world dealing in computers and other technological material (Ziegler, 1999). The firm not only produces manufactures but also repairs and markets its own products. Unlike Amazon, which only deals in e-marketing of a wide range of products, dell has specialized in a high-demand area of producing technological materials and marketing them. The firm has an e-commerce business platform whereby the management and other personnel of the firm interact with their consumers and marketers from all over the world. It is the sixth largest private company in Texas. The laptop section of the firm is the fastest growing out the many technological sections that the firm operates. The firm is also the largest firm out of the private firms in terms of employing people to work for the company (Dell, 1999). Every year, the company employs more than 14,000 people from Texas to work for it and this rate as the highest number ever to be attained in Texas.
The firm has a price advantage over other firms and this makes it to attract many customers to buy its products form most parts of the world. In order to minimize the production and inventory costs in its production process, the firm makes sure that its crucial products are manufactured close to the customers (Dell, 1999). This is a policy that has not been adopted by a numerous American firms and therefore gives dell a competitive advantage over the other firms. The firm has, therefore, been able to expand its horizons to reach virtually all parts of the world and therefore to command a large market. Such firms have not done this as amazon, with whom this report is comparing.
Dell conducts the activities of assembling, installing software, functional testing and quality control all under one roof. Comparing this with Amazon, that only conducts marketing of its products online and not as many other activities as are done by Dell, Dell has a competitive advantage over these other firms (Ziegler, 1999). This tells why it registers a lot of profit at any given year and is also able to employ many Americans and other people from all parts of the world.
The firm also provides protection services to third parties when they face natural disasters that threaten their products and services. On top of this, the firm has an online service whereby its personnel interact with their customers to sort out any problems that they might have faced when either accessing the services offered by the firm or even buying any of their products. A consumer service that is also offered by the firm is available online, and customers are free to raise any issues that they may have faced during their interactions with the firm. All this is done online (Dell, 1999). There is also an online service christened “online troubleshooting service” and “Dell Pro Support” whereby all problems that arise during the operations of the firm are sorted online. The company does not leave anything to chances bearing mind that there is stiff competition in the market.
All this shows how internet has made it possible for the firm to conduct its operations without many problems. For example, the firm has been able to reach out to its customers from all over the world without having to meet them physically, and this has made it register a tremendous increase in the amount of sales it makes. Furthermore, on top of marketing its products online, the company utilizes other marketing strategies such as television, magazines, catalogs, newspapers and radio. This is done so that the firm reaches as many people as possible in its marketing agenda.
In comparison with other firms for example Amazon, Dell has an upper hand in achieving its marketing goals because first of all, it has specialized in one area and that is technology. Furthermore, it makes use of a mixture of strategies and channels to market its products unlike Amazon that makes use of online services and no more. This sends a wake up call to Amazon to consider its marketing options so that they match those of Dell and also to remain relevant in the market in the middle of this stiff marketing competition.
2. Abebooks.com
Abebooks.com is an online bookstore which is based at Victoria, British Columbia in Canada. The firm does not publish its own books. Rather, it invites writers and sellers of books, journals, magazines, audio books, illustration art and vintage photographs to pay a predetermined subscription fee in order to be allowed to enlist their books for sale on the website (Gehman, 2005). The firm was incorporated as a corporation in the year 1995, but it was not until 1996 that its website was launched. As indicated earlier, the website displays all kinds of written work as long as the seller or the author of the work agrees to pay a subscription fee.
The books that are displayed for sale could be used books, rare books, new books or even those books that are out of the sale in other websites. The firm, therefore, ensures that it keeps these books in circulation and does not allow to end up in a situation where all the copies will be completely out of circulation. This has enabled people be sure of getting a copy of any book that they are looking for. Just like Dell, the firm has specialised in the nature of the services that they offer to their customers unlike in amazon where all kinds of products are available. However, the firm has one big drawback in the sense that it does not market its own products. It only depends on third parties to subscribe on the website and have their work posted for consumers to view them. This may be very dangerous to the business because they are not assured of supply, demand and circulation of the products.
Their appropriate prices accompany the online bookstore. As such, any book, journal, magazine or audio book has its price indicated and what the customer is required to do is to make a bid for the book, and they are awarded after which they agree on the manner of payment for the same. However, unlike Dell which offers free shipping services for the equipment purchased by their customers and also offering free bonuses including free dell printers and personal computers, look at the Abe books website does indicate anything to this effect. This means that there is stiff competition from dell and were the two firms dealing in the same products, it would be very difficult for Abe books to cope with the competition.
A look at Dell website also indicates that the firm has a well-reasoned CSR initiative such as reducing the amount of greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere with a lot of commitment. This is conspicuously missing gat the Abe Books website and this could pose a serious competition to the firm.
Regarding the pricing of the books, magazines and other written material, the website comparatively charges more than other websites like Amazon.com, and this could be attributed to the fact that the website only markets the work of other people and various sellers. It does not market its own products and the subscription fee that is paid has to be compensated by the sellers and the authors by charging more for their products. This could make customers shy away from the website, and this sends a wake up call for the managers of the website to consider conducting some reforms on the marketing strategy so that they maintain and retain their customers.
All this has been possible because of the availability of internet because were internet not present, it would not have been possible for the firm to reach as many people that it has been able to reach via the internet. This shows how internet has revolutionized businesses and to be particular e-commerce and e-business.
Part C: Conclusion
This paper has made the proposition that internet has revolutionised the way businesses are conducted in this computer era. Many businesses have resorted to conducting all their activities and operations over the internet .these activities include marketing, sales, payment services, procurement and also display of goods and services. Most businesses have even changed to full e-businesses where all these activities are conducted online, and the business personnel does not have physically to meet the consumer of their services (Timers, 2000). Whereas this has been made possible by the availability of internet from all over the world, the absence of internet at any time of the day or year may pose a threat on the manner in which these businesses are conducted especially the ones that are e-businesses. All the operations come to a standstill and the firm registers big loses. It, therefore, calls upon the firms to consider having a variety of marketing options like Dell does and not depend solely on the internet. When the internet or computers develop a problem, it becomes difficult for the businesses to function.
In this regard, the report started by exploring the manner in which Amazon.com conducts its marketing and other operations online, it being an e-business. Later on, the report interrogated two other e-businesses and those are Dell and Abe books in order to make a comparative analysis on the way the two businesses are conducted about their marketing strategies. An allusion has also been made to Amazon.com that has operated as the reference e-business in this report. As such, the paper has explored the whole idea of e-business and in particular e-marketing with a special focus on three businesses i.e. amazon, Dell and Abe Books.
Lastly, that paper has explored the challenges that the firm may encounter when it relies only on e-marketing and then it happens that there is a breakdown of computer. This may cause the firm to register big loses and therefore the need to have a variety of marketing strategies like having television advertising, magazines and newspapers as a backup. This would enable the firm to mitigate against any loss that may be occasioned by failure of machines.
References
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