Retail Operations: Building Competitive Advantage for Amazon

This report explores how Amazon builds a competitive advantage in retail operations through customer service, loyalty programs, and technology. It covers the introduction of Amazon, various types of retailers, the importance of relationship retailing, and ways to build a competitive advantage. The report also discusses how Amazon uses technology to provide a good retail experience.

Retail Operations

Contents
INTRODUCTION.............................................................................................................................3
1) Introduce Amazon, the countries they operate...............................................................................3
2) various types of retailers................................................................................................................3
 Warehouse Retailers: Amazon for example, stocks a wide range of items packed in large
amounts and charge a lower rate than store. They typically sell in volume or in amounts not
found elsewhere............................................................................................................................4
 Convenience Retailer: The selected organization are typically a supermarket store that
mainly offers gasoline—they sell a small variety of food items and auto care goods at a
premium "convenience" price for on-the-go shoppers.................................................................4
 Internet/Mobile Retailer: Even without costs of conventional products stores, internet
shopping websites deliver orders products to retailers at their offices and homes. They typically
sell products at a cheaper price than retail, storing it in factories and building relationships with
distributors, suppliers, and sometimes producers to obtain discounted goods............................4
3) Relationship retailing (customer relations) is important in retailing..............................................4
4) What activities does Amazon undertake in order to provide high-quality service?.......................5
5) Analyse how retailers such as Amazon can build a competitive advantage...................................6
6) Amazon use technology to their advantage in terms of providing good retail experience.............7
CONCLUSION.....................................................................................................................................7
RECOMMENDATIONS.......................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES..........................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Customer service is important in retail sector. This help in brining business and developing
customer base. It is important for management of an organisation that focus over customer services so
effectively able to deliver competitive advantage for an organisation. The organisation taken to
analyse in this report is Amazon. The different aspects covering in report includes introduction of
Amazon, various type of retailers, importance of relationship retailing and ways of building
competitive advantage through consumer services and loyalty schemes.
1) Introduce Amazon, the countries they operate
Amazon.com, Inc. is a global US technology company based in Seattle, Washington,
based on e software, digital media and machine learning (Adivar, Hüseyinoğlu and
Christopher, 2019). Along with Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook, it is one of the Big
Five firms in the United States' information technology sector. They are operating and
distributing their goods and services in an effective manner. They are selling various
diversified products which means that they have their own fashion and other accessories. The
branches of Amazon's Prime Video, Amazon Music, Twitch and Observable offer access and
uploading of footage, songs, and electronic formats. Amazon also operates an Amazon
Publishing distribution branch, Amazon Studios, and an Amazon Web Services cloud hosting
division, which is a film and music studio. It allows e-readers for Kindle, fire smartphones,
fire television, and echo cameras. From the current report, Amazon have earned revenue of
US$386.064 billion in the year 2020 and the turnover in year 2020 is US$321.2 billion.
2) various types of retailers
Different kinds of stores focus on different sales strategies and appeal to different groups
of consumers. They all deliver new experiences, such as direct buying from a retailer or a
diverse selection of products. Everyone else is focused on practicality. Some of the various
types of retailers is mentioned below:
 Departmental store: Department stores offer a huge variety of services that are
organised into various parts in the store by product. Shoes, clothes, beauty goods,
jewellery, kitchenware, and other items can be found in department stores.
 Grocery Stores and Supermarkets: These stores sell a wide range of foods and
beverages, and also some household goods or services appliances on occasion (Berbeglia,
Garassino and Vulcano, 2018)

 Warehouse Retailers: Amazon for example, stocks a wide range of items packed in
large amounts and charge a lower rate than store. They typically sell in volume or in
amounts not found elsewhere.
 Specialty/Outlet Retailers: These cater to a particular market and sell only name-brand
items. Retail outlets, such as Amazon, offer only products that bears their brand image or
is affiliated with it (Choi, Wallace and Wang, 2018)
 Convenience Retailer: The selected organization are typically a supermarket store that
mainly offers gasoline—they sell a small variety of food items and auto care goods at a
premium "convenience" price for on-the-go shoppers.
 Discount Retailer: Discounters offer a broad array of items, many of which are private
branded or generic labels, at relatively lower prices than retail. Clearance sale and expired
products are often sourced at cheaper costs through discount stores as they sell different
products which pass the savings on to customers (Davis-Sramek and et.al., 2020)
 Internet/Mobile Retailer: Even without costs of conventional products stores, internet
shopping websites deliver orders products to retailers at their offices and homes. They
typically sell products at a cheaper price than retail, storing it in factories and building
relationships with distributors, suppliers, and sometimes producers to obtain discounted
goods.
Today’s modern consumers are glued to their tablets, and it's not just to contrast your offers
to those on Amazon while searching your shelf. Customers love that when the business unit is
given the ability to use smart phones to assist them on the production floor. Whether it's
looking up inventory and size details or shipping date, mobile means empowering customers
quicker while they're in your shop (Fisher and Raman, 2018)
3) Relationship retailing (customer relations) is important in retailing
There are various important factors and advantages which will help Amazon as the
main important point is that make your customers happier by delivering various goods and
services in lowest rates as compared to their competitors. They also do activities which will
help them to maintain customer relationship so that they can achieve business objectives.
Strengthen customer loyalty which means that they give various offers to customer so that
they can purchase goods and services. The third is that they improve company performance

means that they can enhance their business so that they can retain the customer and build
customer experiences. The another is that they should create successful marketing campaigns
with a higher ROI which means that they post their campaign on social media and other
channels so that they can attract customer in order to buy their products from online (Glaeser,
Fisher, and Su, 2019). This lead to increase customer retention rate which help chosen
organization to accomplish the goals and objectives of organization. This means that they
advertise the product continuously which means it help them to encourage repeat sales and
return to their customers. In this they can build the customer experience and maintain cordial
relationship with so that it become easy for respective organization to attract them in an
effective manner. This lead to enhance the productivity and sales of an organization which is
Amazon. Customers can use credit card points to pay for Amazon purchases through this
Amazon customer loyalty strategy. Customers can purchase with points accrued on other
eligible credit cards as well, but they can get the best value for the money if they spend points
received on Amazon's own credit card. With the help of this they can attract customer so that
visit to their online stores and avail the offers and purchase goods and services.
4) What activities does Amazon undertake in order to provide high-quality service?
Quality of service usually means the contrast of a customer's service needs with respect to
success of a business. A company with a high standard of service quality can satisfy
consumer demands and compete effectively in its particular organizations at the same time.
There are many activities Amazon take to offer best quality services which are as follows:
 Answer as fast as possible: Time is among the major variables in successful customer
support, particularly if a customer requires anything time critical. In two days, dealers
will generally answer the messages. Amazon chooses third-party sellers' uninvited texts.
To do so, e-mail priorities and alerts refresh advertising e-mail settings (He, Xu and Wu,
2020)
 Build a community that understands how and when to communicate: Amazon
ensures the vision is internalised by individuals inside the organisation. Regardless of
how they are an entrant or a management, many Amazon employees will undergo two
days of telephone preparation. The aim is to make them understand how to listen, not just
that it makes them provide programmes that are of good quality.
 Give the customers the power of DIY: Amazon has a very thorough yet convenient
information centre that allows users to learn a few things in depth. There still are
numerous products underneath the roof, but the choice of surfaces is smooth, visually

attractive and in keeping with the buying process on the website, in which the consumers
browse by section or desire. Customers preserve things and feel encouraged to pursue
their own options with seamless support and customer service routes.
5) Analyse how retailers such as Amazon can build a competitive advantage
There are various loyalty programs of Amazon which means that they have conduct
various loyalty programs which help Amazon to gain competitive advantage and build
customer experiences (Luzze, 2021)
 The first loyalty programs are better customer services which will help them to remain in
competition in business environment. If excellent customer support were an Olympic
event, Amazon would win gold. Amazon's quality of service is basically a loyalty
programme by itself, with its high energy on user satisfaction and a better customer
service. These are a few of Amazon's strategies for providing excellent customer service
such as order delivery speed, returns are often free, purchase and checkout procedures are
simple. The second loyalty scheme is Amazon prime which means that they are the one
who launch this which help them to gain competitive advantage from these schemes. Free
delivery or same shipping on consumer goods, free access to digital music and film
content, unique individual deals based on search history, including Whole Foods
discounts are only a few of the advantages and functions that keep members involved.
Members have been conditioned to receive discounts and bonuses from other reward
schemes, as well as when shopping at other retailers. The another loyalty schemes are
Amazon moments and contribution awards which means that instead of providing points
or incentive tiers, retailer organizations include a special gift of gratitude in the form of an
online or actual gift, such as a health and beauty item or digital material. These pleasant
surprises promote Amazon customer loyalty by providing customers with yet another
incentive to shop with the company. With the help of this customer do not want to
purchase products from other e-commerce website rather they Amazon by introducing
such schemes and products attract customer so that they do not want to buy from others.
The main competitive advantage of Amazon is that they are known for its comfort and
free delivery, but at fair prices, it has a wide variety of products too. With no hate backs, a
simple search and a huge pool of reviews, Amazon becomes an option for the numbers of
consumers. In other words, it can be said that the selected organization maintain their
demand and supply so that they can retain the customer attention.

6) Amazon use technology to their advantage in terms of providing good retail
experience.
Technology, which combines resources for the creation, use and sharing of knowledge,
has as its principal goal to simplify activities and solve a large number of human problems.
As technology advances, they must emphasise how good it is for our existence as it's much
more comfortable. There are various technologies which are used by Amazon in order to
provide good retail experience which is mentioned below:
 Amazon Dash Button: The Dash Button has started as a unit operator about a bundle of
rubber that should have been placed around the home. The Amazon Prime owners. Each
button was a brand name requirement for the household. To customise deodorant or raser
knives, the consumer just pushed the dash button.
 Amazon Fresh: Amazon Fresh's affiliate enables customers to position food orders for a
wide range of fresh products, brand-name prepared products and prepared to-eat Amazon-
branded foods in some regional markets. In two hours, a truck will carry the shipment.
 Amazon Prime Air: Autonomous vehicles, also called drones, are the corporation's
asset. Although these systems remain in conflict, the organisation is hopeful that drones
will be seen to be more favourable than drones used to spy or deploy weapons.
 Amazon Fire TV: For the package and pin, the subscription sector calculates the market
share independently. Amazon's Fire TV box in the US has a 28.5% market share, but 57%
of the switch market. It has earned great feedback from the industrial analysts because of
its flexibility: A Fire TV box is streaming live television which enables consumers to see
thousands of people queuing series and movies. It is also a commonly known game
device.
 Passive tags: The power from the RFID reader is used by a passive tag to transfer away
and forward data; the label stays asleep and does not move details.
 Battery Tags - Some RFIDs are batteries, meaning that details can be sent and received
despite having to be triggered by an RFID reader.
CONCLUSION
The Amazon.com is an enterprise with far more questions over employees and
excellent services. It provides consumers with every commodity. The Amazon website is
capable of providing a wide range of merchandise. Furthermore, it makes the difference of
broad shopping environment easy and easily findable, facilitating and FAQ websites. They
created a customer company that makes consumers return to the Amazon. They also help

clients to develop the item. Amazon has left loyal buyers indebted to Amazon for its excellent
structured online purchasing programme.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Amazon should create and run a Business2 replacement for dealers, manufacturers,
distributors, and retailers to use. Develop a successful company-wide differentiating approach
to succeed and thrive in the long-term market. Amazon should broaden publicity to improve
awareness of brands, such as TV publicities, publications, and other forms of advertisements.

REFERENCES
Books and Journal
Akter, S. and Wamba, S. F., 2020. How to tackle global retail apocalypse using strategic
omnichannel management?. Journal of Strategic Marketing. 28(5).
Bei, Z., Gielens, K. and Dekimpe, M. G., 2018. Retail entry and exit. In Handbook of
Research on Retailing. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Ekinci, E. and Baykasoğlu, A., 2019. Complexity and performance measurement for retail
supply chains. Industrial Management & Data Systems.
Guimarães, P. P. C., 2018. The transformation of retail markets in Lisbon: an analysis
through the lens of retail gentrification. European Planning Studies. 26(7). pp.1450-
1470.
Kaufinger, G. G. and Neuenschwander, C., 2020. Retail Apocalypse? Maybe blame
accounting. Investigating inventory valuation as a determinant of retail firm
failure. American Journal of Business.
Morrison, G. and Marcotte, D., 2019. Looking to the future of commerce: Retail
transformation as connected consumers embrace smart homes and smart
stores. Journal of Brand Strategy. 8(3). pp.241-249.
Russell, R. S. and Taylor, B. W., 2019. Operations and supply chain management. John
Wiley & Sons.
Slack, N., 2018. Essentials of operations management. Pearson UK.
Steynberg, L. and et.al., 2020. Higher education's role in capacitating retail businesses' well-
being, resilience and efficiency post-COVID-19. The Retail and Marketing
Review, 16(3), pp.19-31.
Upham, F., 2019. 11. Privatizing Regulation: The Implementation of the Large-Scale Retail
Stores Law. In Political dynamics in contemporary Japan (pp. 264-294). Cornell
University Press.
Yousef, L. S., 2021. Majid Al Futtaim Retail–Carrefour’s Successful Big Transition to
Online Presence. In Corporate Success Stories in the UAE: The Key Drivers Behind
Their Growth. Emerald Publishing Limited.
Zhai, J., 2020, November. Application of Smart Retail Mode in Suning. Com.
In International Conference on Machine Learning and Big Data Analytics for IoT
Security and Privacy (pp. 60-67). Springer, Cham.
Zhang, J., Onal, S., Das, R., Helminsky, A. and Das, S., 2019. Fulfilment time performance
of online retailers–an empirical analysis. International Journal of Retail &
Distribution Management.