Supply Chain Challenges and Opportunities for Amazon's Mixed Offering

Operations Management 1 | P a g e
Operations Management

Operations Management 2 | P a g e
Table of Contents
1. Discuss the supply chain challenges faced by an online retailer like Amazon that seeks to
move to a mixed offering that includes both online and offline (brick-and-mortar store) retailing.
3
2. Discuss the supply chain opportunities for an online retailer like Amazon that seeks to move
to a mixed offering that includes both online and offline (brick-and-mortar store) retailing..........4
3. Can amazon replace or change the service benefits its customers gain from online retailing,
with an offline retailing environment, and how?.............................................................................5
References........................................................................................................................................6

Operations Management 3 | P a g e
1. Discuss the supply chain challenges faced by an online retailer like Amazon that
seeks to move to a mixed offering that includes both online and offline (brick-and-
mortar store) retailing.
Amazon’s supply chain management is known as the most effective and efficient and plethora of
multinational corporations follows Amazon’s strategies and their supply chain management in
order to attain positive outcomes. Amazon is a behemoth player of e-commerce industry and it
has set up its effective presence through Amazon Go in the offline market. Amazon is one of the
largest retailers in the global retailing industry and their supply chain strategies are considered as
the major factor for their success, growth and development. Amazon offers numerous delivery
options to its customers and they have also introduced Amazon Prime services under which
customers can subscribe for the Prime services on monthly or yearly basis. In that time period,
customers are not required to pay extra amount for the fast delivery services. Their delivery
options have helped the organization to make its distinctive image from its competitors and it has
also helped the organization to develop brand loyalty amongst the target audience (McFarland,
2018).
Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos is one of the most efficient and effective leader of this era and with
his unique leadership style, he has lifted Amazon towards the leading position in the global
retailing industry. He always believes that quality is the major factor through which customers
could be attracted and retained for longer period of time. In relation to this, organization has
introduced their offline stores named Amazon Go to beat their local competitors such as small
and mediums sized retailers. With regards to this, it is bit difficult for the organization to manage
supply chain for both online as well as for offline stores (Amazon.com, 2018). In relevance to
this, following challenges are faced by Amazon in relation to the supply chain in order to
manage both online as well as offline channels:
 Inventory visibility: Inventory identification, management and tracking are key factors
to attain success in the Omni-channel retailing. In terms of maintaining the efficiency of
supply chain, organization is required to deal with inventory, location accuracy and
visibility of suppliers in an effective manner. In online retailing, after placing order,
organization takes appropriate time to pack the item and deliver it to the consumer while