Case study MISHOP OPENING CASE Note: This case is for the purpose of class discussion only to further understand the course topic. This case should not be handed out to students as a hand out but rather as a reference for the instructor during class lecture. AMAZON.COM: AN Online Bookstore Amazon operates quite differently from a traditional bookstore. When you enter a traditional bookstore, you may ask for help, but it is more likely that you will stroll around browsing the shelves. Even if you are looking for a specific book you’ve been looking for, you may pick it up and discover that you like it more or less than you had anticipated. Depending on the bookstore, you might talk to a staff member who can discuss the book with you or can steer you to another book of interest. In many bookstores, you can stop for a cup of coffee as you browse through some books, or meet an acquaintance. Amazon, which was launched in 1995 as the first major bookseller on the World Wide Web, touts itself as the earth’s biggest bookstores. To shop at Amazon, you log on to the Web, type its uniform resources locator (URL), which is amazon. You have now entered a virtual bookstore that can sell you any of 2.5 million books, even though it has no apparent physical location and actually stocks very little inventory. If you know the books you want, you can find information about it immediately. If you are not sure which book you want, you can enter an author’s name or a title and receiver a response that helps you find what you might want. In some cases, you can look at a book review or even a simple chapter to make sure that you are ordering what you want? The way Amazom provides value for its customers is quite different from the approach of traditional stores. The number of books in its online catalog is more than ten times larger than the number of books at the largest chain store, and the readily available information about those books more detailed. It gives discounts on some items, just as most chain stores do, but it charges a shipping fee and always has a delay for shipping. It keeps its costs low by carrying little inventory, and fills orders by obtaining the books from several wholesales, packing them, and shipping them to customers from a central facility. Although Amazon started out as an innovator, it soon faced growing completion as other bookseller responded their own online bookstores. In May 1997 Barnes & Noble opened its own online bookstores. Barnes & Noble argued that Amazon’s assertion amounted to false advertising because it keeps only a few hundred titles in stock at any given time. “(Amazon) isn’t a bookstore’s at all” Barnes & Noble’s claimed. “It is a book broker making use of the internet exclusively to generate sales to the public”. Barnes & Noble’s new Web site trumpeted itself as “the World’s Largest Bookseller Online”. Wide access to online stores has only existed for several years, so the ramifications of this type of commerce are not yet clear. What is clear, however, is that online stores can provide information that may not be readily available from typical bookstores and can also replace the social aspect of going to a bookstore with the convenience of shopping at home. In the mid-1990s, there was growing concern that Wal-Mart, and other superstores would overwhelm small merchants in small-town shopping areas. Today, traditional merchants of many types face a similar threat through the new options online commerce provides for consumers.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 09:07:07 +0000
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