Marketing Mix Comparison: Alibaba, Amazon & eBay Brand Strategies

This report examines the marketing strategies of online retailers Alibaba, Amazon, and eBay, focusing on the concept of marketing mix and brand community development. It highlights how the rise of online retail has impacted traditional branding approaches, as customers are increasingly drawn to lower prices rather than brand loyalty. The report details the marketing mix of each company, including product, price, place, and promotion, noting the differences in their approaches. Alibaba's success is attributed to its separate portals for B2B, B2C, and C2C interactions, while Amazon focuses on competitive pricing and a wide range of products and services. eBay utilizes a multi-pronged distribution approach and various promotional methods. The report concludes that online retailers are shifting towards a customer-to-customer approach, disrupting existing business models, and suggests future developments may include establishing more physical stores to enhance customer service. Desklib provides students access to this and many other solved assignments.

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Running head: MARKETING MANAGEMENT

MARKETING MANAGEMENT
Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................................2
Discussion........................................................................................................................................2
Branding or brand community issue under discussion.......................................................2
Application of marketing theory to compare and contrast the marketing approaches of
online retailers...........................................................................................................................2
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
References.....................................................................................................................................6
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MARKETING MANAGEMENT
Introduction
The report aims to examine how the concept of marketing mix can be used to compare and
contrast the marketing approaches of online retailers such as Alibaba, Amazon and eBay.
Discussion
Branding or brand community issue under discussion
As stated by Hook, Baxter & Kulczynski (2018) marketing theory identifies that it is very
necessary for a company to enhance the value of their brand and develop brand communities in
order to attract more customers towards the products of the company in order to fulfil their
needs and requirements. According to Baldus (2013) the popularity of online retail has created a
lot of issues regarding brand and brand community for mainly consumer goods companies as
the companies have decreased their budget regarding developing and promoting their brand
and brand communities as due to the low prices offered by online retailers, the customers are
no long attracted towards the brand name and the brand community but are rather attracted as
a result of the low prices of the product offered in online retail platforms. As stated by Chang,
Hsieh & Tseng (2013) in case of physical retail, it is observed that customer select a product
based on the brand value associated with the product and therefore companies, mainly
consumer packaged goods companies, focused extensively on promoting their brand and brand
community in order to gain popularity among their customers but with the onset of online
retailers, the customers are no longer attracted by virtue of the brand and brand community of
the products but are rather more attracted towards low prices offered by the online retailers
which has reduced the physical retail sales of most of the consumer packaged goods
companies.
Application of marketing theory to compare and contrast the marketing approaches of online
retailers
Focusing on the brand/brand community marketing concept of marketing mix it can be seen that
the marketing mix of the various online retailers vary in nature and application due to their
differences in approach.
The marketing mix of Alibaba is as follows:
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Product- The core product of the Alibaba group is their e-commerce portal Alibababa.com and
the portal has uniqueness and recognition to be world’s biggest B2B portal. Other leading online
retailers and e-commerce portals sell their business to their customers whereas Alibaba had
seized the B2B market and is presently market leader in segment. Besides Alibaba.com, the
company has also launched Taobao, which is the largest business to customer and consumer
to consumer e-commerce store in China.
Price- Alibaba follows a very lenient pricing policy and its commission are set to low in order to
allow local business perform their own business which has contributed to the fast growth of the
company. As opined by Elia Ardyan & Bekti Retnawati (2018) the company has a penetrative
pricing policy as a result of their low cost Chinese products. The customer to customer e-
commerce portal of the company Taobao, also hardly charges any fees and most of their
processes are free in nature and the main source of earnings of the company are
advertisements.
Place- Alibaba has extensive reach through various countries worldwide and it has presently
tapped the US market with an IPO and is even currently focusing on developing teams across
numerous Asian nations. As opined by Ha (2016) the main advantage which is associated with
Alibaba is that it is based in China, where bulk manufacturing takes place and therefore
exporters remains ready to do business and importers are ready to import products. Alibaba
exports to 240 nations worldwide from its international B2B portal Alibaba.com.
Promotion- Alibaba heavily promotes its e-commerce portal digitally and as most of services are
digital in world, digital ads of the company are presented throughout the world. As opined by
Kuo & Hou (2017) in China, the company promotes above the line through television and print
media and also promotes below the line through digital advertising and sales promotion.
The marketing mix of Amazon is as follows:
Product- As one of the dominating players in online retailing sector, Amazon provides extensive
variety of products to their customers. Through the continuous expansion and diversification of
the company, the products of the company are not just online retail but even other products and
services in the form of retail services, retail goods, Amazon Prime, consumer electronics, digital
content distribution services, Amazon video, AWS, Amazon publishing, Amazon Fresh, Amazon
Prime pantry, Amazon Dash, Video Direct.
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Price- The pricing strategy which is followed by Amazon is competitive pricing which allows the
company little ways to stay ahead of its competitors. As opined by Kang, Dong-Hee & Gong
(2016) another initiative of the company is to pay by having a premium account which ensures
faster deliveries. The other pricing strategy which is being followed regarding the products and
services of Amazon is market oriented pricing approach, price discrimination approach and
value base pricing approach.
Place- Amazon is a globalised brand which is spread throughout world and the customers of the
company buy products and services from the official website and application of the company.
The company is also currently concentrating on physical retailing by opening physical book
stores in various parts of the world in order to serve their customers in a more effective manner.
Promotion- As opined by Lee & Kang (2013) amazon mainly focuses on web based advertising
and they utilise billboards and other small tools of advertisement. The company is even focusing
on broadcasting TV commercials in its global market, rather than only broadcasting in the
American market. Amazon uses advertising networks online, so that whenever an user checks a
particular product on the website of the company, the user will see the advertisement of the
company even if they visit other website or webpages. The company also promotes its products
and services through search engine marketing.
The marketing mix of eBay is as follows:
Product- As stated by Özbölük & Dursun (2017) the product of e-bay are online retailing and
online auctioning services. The targeted consumers of the company are both buyers and
sellers. The components of product mix of the company are marketplace services, ticket
exchange services and classified services.
Price- As stated by Lai & Yang (2013) the pricing strategy which are followed by the company
are market oriented pricing approach and dynamic pricing approach. In the market oriented
pricing approach, the pricing of the products of the company are set based on the market prices
whereas with the dynamic pricing approach, e-bay meets customer perceptions on sales format
with flexibleness.
Place- ebay maintains its distribution by a multi-pronged approach which consists of different
technologies which enables customers and sellers to conveniently ingress the services from
global business. The places where the products of the company are available are official
website, Mobile apps and Application program Interface.
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MARKETING MANAGEMENT
Promotion- The methods of promotion which are used by the company includes sales
promotion, advertising and public relations. The sales promotion of the company mainly occurs
through discount coupons which help in increasing short term sales. The advertisement also
uses advertising in order to attract customers to their online e-commerce platform. The
company also uses public relations strategy in order to help in promoting the brand and the
company.
Conclusion
Given the above research findings it can be stated that in terms of the three online retailers
identified, that the current issue can be summarized as that all the above mentioned online
retailers are moving from their business to customer approach towards customer to customer
approach which has resulted in disruption of the existing business model of the company.
Alibaba has the most successful approach due to the presence of separate portals for business
to business approach, business to customer approach and customer to customer approach.
Future developments in this area, for online retailers are likely to include setting up of more
physical stores by the online retailers in order to provide more products and services to the
customers in a faster manner.
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References
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