Amazon and Best Buy are two very popular retailing sites on the net. Amazon specializes in books but offer practically anything at discounted prices; Best Buy offers mainly consumer and household goods at bargain prices. Essentially, amazon is a bookstore while Best Buy is a discount warehouse club. As such, the two are positioned differently and thus target different customers especially with regard to the customers’ sense of priorities. However, the two companies follow a similar approach to selling and delivery with a few key differences. As with most e-commerce sites, links related to the customer’s account, order status, cart, and similar items are situated on the upper right side corner. Obviously, this is for the quick viewing of these important matters. One thing going in favor of Best Buy is that it has a customer service button. Amazon’s contact us info is not as easily accessible. If one is a Buy does the same but to a much lesser and useful extent as it tries to keep the layout clutter to the minimum.
Design
Best Buy has a cleaner and more organized look between the two sites. It even has landing or introductory page for its home page. Its color scheme is more comfortable to the eyese. Its use of models wearing uniforms in corporate colors project a very corporate and organized image. Meanwhile, Amazon’s web page is much more cluttered than that of Best Buy. However, it seems to be the more functional and more effective of the two. For one thing, it does not waste visitor’s time with introductions. It offers its customers (especi ally registered ones) what the site perceives as possible items of interest to the visitor. In sum, while Best Buy has a neater look but this has resulted in limited communication. A customer has to go from one page to another in order to find what he wants. Amazon crams a lot information into every page. However, most of the information are relevant to the visitor so the customer can easily go quickly to what he wants. Amazon targets a more focused buyer who knows what he is looking for.
Credibility
Clearly, amazon enjoys much greater credibility than Best Buy. Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, has been honored as “man of the year” by such magazines as Time (Ramo) and Fortune (Mangalindan and Burke). It pioneered the whole concept web retailing as we understand it today. It has made significant contributions to the world e-retailing and e-books. It even developed the Kindle which Apple had adopted the concept for its i-Pad (Burke). In spite of criticisms (Charman-Anderson), the reviews provided by customer remain very helpful. Best Buy cannot boast of any such thing. Most news about Best Buy are coming mainly from the company itself.
Conclusion
Amazon clearly is the better website than Best Buy. Being the pioneer and being founded way ahead of Best Buy in 1996 (amazon), amazon seems to have a deeper understanding of its customers and its business. Its founder was recognized precisely because of amazon’s accomplishments and contributions to e-commerce. Meanwhile, Best Buy has the better looking website. Amazon’s however, while not looking as great as that of Best Buy, is the more functional website, responding the needs of the customer.
Works Cited
amazon.com. amazon.com. 1996–2012. Web. 6 Dec 2012. < >
Best Buy. Best Buy. 2003–2013. Web. 6 Dec 2012. < >
Burke, Doris Burke and JP Mangalindan. “Amazon's Jeff Bezos: The Ultimate Disrupter.” Fortune. 3 Dec 2012. CNNMoney. Web. 6 Dec 2012. < >
Charman-Anderson, Suw. “Fake Reviews: Amazon's Rotten Core” Forbes 28 Aug 2012. Web. 6 Dec 2012. < >
Mangalindan, JP. “2012 Businessperson of the Year: 1. Jeff Bezos.” Fortune 30 Nov 2012. CNNMoney. Web. 6 Dec 2012. < >
Ramo, Joshua Cooper. “Jeffrey Preston Bezos: 1999 Person of the Year.” Time 27 Dec 1999. Time. Print, Web. 5 Dec 2012. < >
