MK4S34-V2-12304– : Strategic Marketing

Assessment 1

Rasha Elbanna

R1805D5376972

Tutor: Zaida Rodrigo

Report on live strategic marketing activity / case study.

MBA - Master of Business Administration V2

Module- MK4S34-V2-12304

09/09/2019

FACULTY OF BUSINESS AND SOCIETY

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Table of Contents
ABSTRACT................................................................................................................................................2
1.0 Introduction..........................................................................................................................................3
2.0 Strategic Marketing Plan ...................................................................................................................5
3.0 Aamzon The Mega Online Retailer....................................................................................................8
3.1 Amazon Mission................................................................................................................................8
3.2 Amazon’s Situation Analysis.............................................................................................................8
3.3 Amazon’s Marketing Strategy.........................................................................................................15
3.4 Amazon’s Market Segmentation,Targeting &Postioning Strategy..................................................17
4.0 Amazon’s Marketing Mix.................................................................................................................19
4.1 Products............................................................................................................................................19
4.2 Place.................................................................................................................................................19
4.3 Price.................................................................................................................................................20
4.4 Promotion.........................................................................................................................................20
4.5 People...............................................................................................................................................20
4.6 Process.............................................................................................................................................21
4.7 Physical Evidence............................................................................................................................21
5.0 Evaluation...........................................................................................................................................21
6.0 Conclusion..........................................................................................................................................23
REFERENCES........................................................................................................................................24

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A Case Study:
“The best marketing strategies aren’t top down, they’re outside in, starting with the
customers’ needs and wants.”
Abstract
The main aim of this case study is to critically analyze the statement “The best marketing
strategies aren’t top down, they’re outside in, starting with the customers’ needs and wants.”.
This will be accomplished through evaluating the strategy of the giant online retailer Amazon.
This study main objective is to demonstrate the Amazon successful and outstanding strategies
followed. Amazon’s main intentness is to remain as the No#1 online place to search, purchase,
and compare any product or service available online and therefore establish the best decision.
Amazon.com continues to build up and extend its brand, customer platform and e-commerce
mastery with the desire of constructing customers' preferred online shopping destination, around
the world and the best customer experience.
Key words: Customer centric, Strategic marketing, Customer acquisition and retention.

1.0 Introduction
The top down marketing approach is poles apart from outside in approach. GE’s previous CEO
Jack Welch explained this through defining hierarchical organizations “As places in which
everyone has their face toward the CEO and their ass toward the customer, rather than
considering the focal point as the customer, who defines the organization’s purpose and thus the
value work that it exists to carry out.” Most of the fortune 500 organization in the past
considered the concept of you take what we make rather than consider customer needs or
expectation.

Businesses who fail to place customers as rallying points, are at risk of retirement,
insignificance, misused expense and missed opportunity. Customers have to be part of the story.
If there are no customers the business will not exist. Marketing strategies and decision as well as
creativity is what positions the business within its rivals. In a complex market, businesses are
expected to have a harmony between the internal and external environment to ensure positive
outcome. Business with great performance are the ones which ensure customer loyalty through
granting added value to their customers and considering customer service together with product
quality. In an era, with high pace of technology, the difference in quality of product in

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comparison with another product is minor. Therefore, customer service/ customer support, is
what ensures long term customers relation and brand loyalty. Internally, business should as well
consider employee (internal customer) satisfaction.

Amazon was initially founded as a digital bookstore established in the garage of Jeff Bezos.
Amazon company, which was established in 1994, with headquarters at Seattle, Washington and
having 647,500 employees, and considered as one of the Americas best employers Amazon is
currently the world’s dominant online retailer trading in every possible product and/or service
you can imagine, as well as dealing with video and audio streaming, cloud computing,
and artificial intelligence. Today, it is the world's leading online sales company, the largest
internet company by revenue, in addition it is the world's largest supplier of AI assistance and
cloud infrastructure services via its Amazon Web Services arm. Amazon has developed to grow
into a complex environment over the past 20 years. Every individual who at any point entered
into the internet must have spotted an Amazon service. Amazon’s business strategy is so well
organized, structured and visionary that it has diverse and independent income sources which
are by some means interrelated. Behind this gigantic establishment is Bezos’ clear vision and
mission. Its mission is “To offer Earth’s biggest selection and to be Earth’s most customer-
centric company”. Bezos also stated that “We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and
we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer
experience a little bit better.” In addition Bezos developed the slogan "Get Big Fast", which
ensured the company's demand to scale its operations and establish market dominance.

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2.0 Strategic Marketing Planning

Marketing enacts a vital role in the success of any business. A well-structured marketing plan is
what differentiates a business from another. Marketing is a complex activity and cannot be
developed in a blink. A good strategic marketing plan considers both short and long-term vision
of the market together with other various variables of a prospective market. The strategic
marketing operation is a planned systematic formula that aids to intuit and attain goals set by the
business. In addition, it is a way to identify customers wants and therefore creating products/
service that fulfill those needs. Figure below, outlines the steps to a successful strategic
marketing process.

Figure 1: Marketing process overview https://www.smartsheet.com/strategic-marketing-processes-and-planning

Mission: According to Jae k Shim (2012), organization mission is the common / general

purpose of the organization that determines an orientation and a principle to decision making for
all levels of management. Without a clear mission in place, it is illogical for an organization to
establish objectives and strategies. It is the organizational mission that defines the organizational
lines of business, explicates its products and services, and identify the markets it serves at
present and in future with a time frame of three to five years.

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Situation Analysis: By Hitesh Bhasin (2017). States that it is situation analysis that helps you
identify your current position and required action for future progress. He added that Situation
analysis is also a mode of anticipating the outcome of a decision.
Moreover ,environment and people lifestyles are continuously changing, and demands regular
analysis to provide you with overview of company’s position within the business environment,
and displays the available opportunities to be utilized and fortify growth. The situation analysis
consists of several methods of analysis: The 5Cs Analysis, SWOT analysis and Porter five forces
analysis. The situation analysis overviews both the macro-environmental factors which
influences most firms within the environment and the micro-environmental factors that precisely
impacts the firm.
Marketing Strategy: A market analysis is an assessment, identifies how appropriate specific
market would be for your industry. market analysis can be utilized to assess an existing market,
or study virgin or prospective markets. Market analysis offers business with you with a
comprehensive, or effective speculation of markets an organization would be keen to operate in.
Market analysis compromises of various assessment tools, including industry analysis as well as
its overview within a specific market. According to Thomas (2007), Market segmentation is an
important tool to recognize competitive value with its distinction in market analysis. It focuses
on market force and capacity to attain competitive advantage. Likely, market segmentation is the
concept tool to get the force (Thomas, 2007). To explore and classify a respective market, a
market classification or segmentation is required. Market segmentation help locate distinctive
products for particular groups, in accordance to customer wants and product benefits, to optimize
the usage of feasible resources and focus marketing cost and competitive advantages
(Karlsson,2012) . A good market segmentation should be sustainable, accessible, actionable,
measurable, and differentiable (Karlsson,2012). David A. Aaker (2010) identified the following
dimension for market analysis
 Market size
 Market growth rate
 Market profitability
 Industry cost structure
 Distribution channel
 Market trends
 Key success factors

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Marketing Mix: The marketing mix has been defined by Kotler (2000) as "set of marketing

tools that the firm uses to pursue its marketing objectives in the target market". The 4Ps has been
identified as best-known tool for identifying the marketing mix, and was first represented in
1960 by E. J. McCarthy in his book, "Basic Marketing - A Managerial Approach." The 4Ps are:

 Product (or Service).

 Place.
 Price.
 Promotion.
In services marketing, an expanded marketing mix is used, typically comprising 7 Ps, which
includes the original 4 Ps in addition to process, people, and physical evidence
Implementation and Control: Planning would be absurd without implementation as well as
control. Marketing control is the action of observing the proposed plans as they progress and
modify when required.

Figure 2 Marketing planning process https://www.smartsheet.com/strategic-marketing-processes-and-planning

3.0 Amazon The Mega Online Retailer

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Amazon is one of the largest electronic commerce website currently on the Internet. The online
jumbo honors itself on its outstanding business-to-business, business-to-consumer, and
consumer-to-consumer association. Amazon deals with new and used goods, as well as rents,
multiple products ranging from books, electronics and computers to clothing, toys, and
gardening tools. Amazon’s existence in the online shopping industry is well established and
recognized.

3.1 Amazon’s Mission

A brand promise according to Benjamin Warsinske (2017) is a strategic tool that conveys to
customers what to expect when intermingle with your product or services. The mission statement
of Amazon.com has consistently focused on its prime core, ‘The online Amazon.com customer’.
Amazon’s mission clearly states that

“We seek to be Earth’s most customer-centric company for four primary customer sets:
consumers, sellers, enterprises, and content creators.”

Founder Jeff Bezos in full view intimated that, the Amazon.com mission statement is the
inspiration, that drives his leadership decisions recurrently in the company's history. According
to Bezos “Customer focus is a cultural issue” and he expresses it as a differentiator for Amazon.
The chief element of success is its approach to its customer. According to Amazon CEO Bezos,
“Our customers are loyal to us right up until the second somebody offers them a better service”.
Moving towards Amazon’s brand promise, it is pursuing by all manner to supply wide selection
of products and services to customers with the minimal strain. Moreover, Amazon is setting the
foundation for its future plans to one day haul and deliver packages and cargo for others as well
as itself. Amazon’s promise to its customers is what leads the strategy forward.

3.2 Amazon’s Situation Analysis

Identified opportunities

Amazon is a singular enterprise, on the top of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies

list because it has continued to be smart and powerful even after attaining the current level of
achievement. Good Returns on Capital’s investor. Amazon.com is comparatively efficacious at
accomplishment of new projects and yield good returns on capital expenditure through
developing new revenue streams. Establishment of Strong Brand Portfolio within the past years

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through Amazon.com investment in building a strong brand portfolio. A strong brand portfolio is
highly beneficial when the organization wants to extend into new product categories and
innovation of new products. The SWOT analysis of Amazon.com below emphasizes this fact.
Programmed activities contributed in uniformity of quality to Amazon.com products and has
enabled the company to extend and cut down depending on demand conditions in the market. In
Addition to that, Amazon investment in manpower through training and learning programs
resulting in high skilled personnel. Moreover, such investment leads to highly motivated
employees.
5C’s of Marketing Analysis

1. Company

The history of Amazon is inspirational from a garage to a Fortune 500 company. From birth to
present day the company has expropriated new companies and expanded in terms of product
lines as well as geographical. Jeff Bezos set down the business plan for Amazon as part of his
entrepreneurial dreams. The company was originally an online bookstore that sold solely on
Netscape and America Online websites (DataMonitor360). During the 1990’s, the company’s
slogan was “Earth’s largest bookstore” (Stone, 2011). Amazon continues to variegate their

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products. Currently, Amazon is a Fortune 500 company and is notorious for its extensive variety
of products and online sales on its trademark website, www.amazon.com. Their products
compromise of books, DVDS, CDs, software and electronics, apparel, furniture, toys, food, and
more. All of these products that are purchased and marketed include merchandise that has been
purchased for resale from vendors as well as products offered by third party sellers. It executes
business-to-business, business-to-consumer, and consumer-to-consumer sales. In addition, the
business culture of Amazon continuously aims for innovation in every move and aspect.
According to founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, technology is highly essential to endorse its focus on
the customer. Amazon states

"We work to earn repeat purchases by providing easy-to-use functionality, fast and reliable
fulfillment, timely customer service, feature-rich content, and a trusted transaction
environment.”

Amazon has proclaimed its commitment to four principles: customer obsession rather than
competitor focus, dedication for invention, assurance of operational excellence and long-term
thinking. These principles portray roots of Amazon’s competitive advantage.

2. Collaborators:
These include suppliers, distributer and alliance and partners
Distribution: Amazon is headquartered located in Seattle, Washington, but the company has
branches, distribution centers, and customer service centers extended all over the globe (“Global
Locations”). Amazon aims to ensure the availability of all products in their fulfillment centers
unceasingly to guarantee customers can make transaction at any time. In North America alone
the company manages 54 fulfillment centers. This figures excludes the subsidiary companies that
Amazon possess like diapers.com. The Phoenix, Arizona branch is one of the biggest, with the
equivalent size of 28 football fields (Dickey, 2012).In addition “Amazon Fulfillment Center
Network” extends outside north America , covering the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Czech
Republic, Poland, China, Japan, and India operating an estimated number of 51 fulfillment
centers, Moreover amazon has established distribution facilities location based on state tax
consideration to avoid sales taxes to consumers in most states.

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Partners: As Amazon developed, its share price growth has facilitated partnership as well as
acquisition with a great deal of companies in various fields. Marcus (2004) depicts how Amazon
partnered with Drugstore.com (pharmacy), Living.com (furniture), Pets.com (pet supplies),
Wineshopper.com (wines), HomeGrocer.com (groceries), Sothebys.com (auctions) and
Kozmo.com (urban home delivery). In most cases, Amazon invested to acquire shares with
partners, so it would participate in their prosperity. Moreover, Amazon would demand fees for
positioning them on the Amazon site therefore ensure promotion and traffic to its site. Amazon
Marketplace, as well permits Amazon customers and other retailers to market their new and used
books and other goods parallel to the regular retail listings. Likewise, a partnership approach is
the Amazon ‘Merchants@’ program that allows third party merchants

The AWS Partner Network (APN) is the global partner program for technology and consulting
businesses which supports Amazon Web Services to construct solutions and services for
customers. The APN helps companies build, market, and sell their AWS promotions through
delivering valuable business, technical, and marketing service. Around the globe amazon has
attracted thousands of APN partners with a majority of fortune 500 companies, Moreover,
Amazon chooses high quality APN partners.

Suppliers: As Amazon has become a fact as the No:1 mega online retailer , its influence across
industries from delivery to cloud computing and brick-and-mortar retail expands, leaving
suppliers in a position of losing negotiation power. Amazon’s is clear as Suppliers recorded
increase in sales by 4.3 % year on year in Q2 2019, sequentially sales grew by 42.57 %.On the
other hand, Amazon Com Inc's cost of sales declined by % year on year, sequentially cost of
sales grew by 7.13 % in Q2. Moreover, Amazon is toughening its standards and is recently
forcing suppliers for brand registry.
3. Customers:
Amazon is one of the leading online retail platforms worldwide, offers users not only a global
shopping experience but many value-added services. Amazon identifies, the so called three
consumers as sets customers, seller customers and developer customers. Amazon Prime, a fee-
based membership loyalty program where members obtain free or discounted express shipping,
in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan. Reports has reflected Amazon’s
promise on mainly focusing on costumers. Latest reports have recorded 310 million active

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customers on its platform. Since, amazon provides product review from previous customers, this
has lead 90% using amazon would not purchase an item with less than 3 stars. Amazon’s
website Key includes editorial and customer reviews; manufacturer product information as well
as Web pages tailored to individual preferences. Remarkably, 56% of consumers express their
satisfaction, as Amazon displays a realization of personal preferences and needs on a regular
basis. A survey made showed that people first search on amazon has moved higher from 44% to
55% over the past year .In addition ,90% of consumers use Amazon to price check a product, 
72% of consumers visit Amazon for product ideas or discover new products, and 56% of
consumers visit Amazon prior any other site.
4. Competitors:
Despite the fact that Amazon is one of the major companies in the industry, eBay is following
behind to display its existence. Similarly, Smaller companies like Overstock and Bidz are able to
survive against the giant Amazon and to steal some of its business as well. Although, eBay only
takes up 3 percent of market share, but they still manage to strongly compete. Below are tables
comparing Amazon’s competitors in terms of revenue, sales, profit market share, number of
employees that reflects how Amazon remains on a solid ground in front of its competitors

Figure 3: 2013 per share Data (HOOVER)

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Figure 4: 2013 Growth (HOOVER)

Figure 5: 2013 Key Numbers(HOOVER)

Figure 6: 2013 Annual Sales and Net Profit Margin (HOOVER)

5. Climate:
With the continuous expansion and growth of Amazon, Amazon begins to face concerns
associated with its expansion, mainly increase in government scrutiny on data usage, size, and tax
practices. Moreover, Amazon could be imposed by antitrust action or a change in corporate tax
laws, it could lose part of its competitive edge. According to amazon reports fear of government
creating Unfavorable Changes that jeopardize the Business Existing and future laws and
regulations may impede our growth.

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SWOT Analysis

SWOT ANALYSIS

INTERNAL FACTORS
STRENGTHS (+) WEAKNESSES (-)
   

 Brand Name  Distinct noncompliance/violation

 Customer Centric Strategy matters
 Largest online retailer  Recurrent technical disruptions of
 Multitudinous product offer Amazon’s web provider
 Numerous services provided to costumer  Low markup business
 Structured & well-planned distribution chain  Reliance on third party delivery
and logistics  External companies post on Amazon’s
marketplace (risk of product quality)
 tax avoidance scandal in the UK
EXTERNAL FACTORS
OPPORTUNITIES (+) THREATS (-)
   

 Increase in online customers  Intense competition for e-

 Growing e-commerce and e-reader commerce and e-reader markets
market  Risk of Foreign exchange
 Growing significance on digital fluctuations
advertising businesses  Hackers
 Growing interest in cloud technology
 Acquisition opportunity
 Geographical expansion

3.3 Amazon’s Marketing Strategy:

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To ensure success of a marketing plan depends on setting clear and realistic objectives. The
marketing team should set SMART objectives, which are Specific, Measurable, Achievable,
Realistic (given the available resources) and Time constrained (to be achieved by a given date).
As mentioned earlier the main objective is "We work to earn repeat purchases by providing
easy-to-use functionality, fast and reliable fulfillment, timely customer service, feature-rich
content, and a trusted transaction environment.”
Amazon’s business strategy is centered on a primary purpose to continuously relate the
digital and brick-and-mortar shopping experience to ensure involvement with every
purchase made. The aim is not just selling volume but the purpose is to become integral
in people daily lives. This exhibits challenges as well as opportunities for retailers who
are required to stay tuned with continuous trend change, support a customer-centric
culture and utilize data and convert it to action.
Amazon has set marketing strategy that is focused on six pillars: it offers products and services,
has a customer-friendly network, balances easily from small to large, utilize its partner’s
products and services, benefit from existing communication systems, and utilizes universal
behaviors and mentalities. The logic is simple, since the products and services are offered online
the advertising naturally be viewed. Amazon’s marketing techniques takes place primarily online
and with a strong assurance of quality to the marketplace
Amazon marketing strategy incorporates five components: Amazon Marketing Services,
Amazon SEO (Search Engine Optimization), Reviews, Direct marketing, and Affiliate
marketing.
Amazon provides board for sellers to optimize their product pages. Amazon believes
that people who visit Amazon website are already in a “shopping” mindset. It would be
imperative to ensure the product page fit to accept new shoppers.
Amazon is a platform with a 12 million-plus products. It would be the role of the seller to
identify this primed audience and optimize their product page to grab potential buyers through
Product images, Product Description Product key features, Products linking. Nevertheless,
Amazon has introduced Enhanced Brand Content (EBC) as a way to “upgrade” your Amazon
product descriptions for no additional cost. Earlier EBC was reserved to products sold through
Amazon and seller in the Vendor program, but recently this feature was unlocked to all sellers

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through Seller Central under Advertising. Therefore, as a seller on Amazon, you would prefer to
be on the top customer search.
Amazon’s search algorithm is referred to as A9. A9 is a subsidiary of Amazon, that handles SEO
for the company. It declares that “We manage search and advertising technologies that are
scalable, highly available, and cross-platform for our parent company, Amazon, and other
clients.” In this context, Amazon product page ranking depends primarily on two factors
relevance and performance.
Likewise, Amazon guides sellers for continual improvement by keeping them in close contact
with customers through reviews, complaints and FAQs to learn what customers love and not-so-
love about their products. This creates a strong customer connection that would keep retailers
focused on what customers wants and needs and improve customer experience. Particularly,
maximizing data, i.e. exploit every customer interaction, data, behavioral insights etc. to build a
more individualized customer experience.
Amazon’s CRM strategy combines transactional, demographic and behavioral data to deliver
accurate  systems and technology to construct more serviceable customer profiles. Utilize data
and technology enhance customer experience by tendering more personalized experiences.
Amazon is continually improvement strategy aims for perfection and employs millions to
analyze complications on the website and create solutions 
Amazon’s prime marketing strategies is veritably free. Permission marketing a concept
introduced in 1999 by marketing expert Seth Godin. Permission marketing, a non-traditional
marketing technique that advertises goods and services when advance consent is given. Amazon
takes advantage of this technique in the form of email marketing. Amazon tailors marketing
emails, delivers it to consumers determined from purchase behavior. This type of direct
marketing attracts prospective consumers in an extremely cost-effective manner. In addition,
Amazon, regularly places advertisements on the left margin of Google’s search to drive
potential consumers to amazon website.
Amazon utilizes Affiliate marketing which is marketing products through an affiliate as
Buzzfeed. In return for your product is shared for a small fee. If users click and buy. It’s a win-
win situation that drives sales, gathers reviews, and build awareness.

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3.4 Amazon’s Market Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning Strategy.

Acquisition
The Process of Segment Acquisition is crucial in the world of business. This process plays a role
in organizational success, as customers are considered as the heart of any business. Therefore,
business managers concentrate on acquiring the “right” customers” as well as retaining the
existing customers, through effectively recognizing their needs and wants (Thomas, 2001). An
effective Acquisition Strategy would require to be mindful of the following: Targeting -
Awareness generation and product positioning - Acquisition Pricing - Trial - Usage Experience
and Satisfaction - Post-introductory pricing and the creation of long-term value for the product or
service. Amazon has achieved this by their high level of focus on customers and customer
activities.
Segmentation
John (2017) argues that “Amazon segmentation targeting and positioning practices are
associated with targeting the widest customer segment. The retail giant does this with the
application of multi-segment and adaptive positioning techniques”.
E-commerce segmentation involves building identities who would buy in a specific way &
specific products.
Demographic Segmentation
This is a common way of segmentation. Amazon generally utilizes
demographic & psychographic segmentation to fragment the markets. Amazon as well targets
the middle & upper class people who are familiar with basic technology but or prefer online
shopping rather than physical outlets.
Demographic data includes basic features of each customer, including age, gender, language,
geographical region. Age is one of the largest ways to segment Amazon consumers. The largest
age group of online shoppers is those between the ages of 31 to 44 with the least likely being
those who are 66 or older.

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Figure 7: Major Market Segmentation From https://amazonsituationanalysis.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/screen-shot-2014-07-

26-at-4-29-05-pm.png

Interest-based Segmentation
Web site gathers information about customers' interests, and utilizes this data to build solid
segments.

Engagement-based Segmentation
Amazon’s segmentation is extracted from actual purchase behavior rather than what people has
been reported as their interest. Amazon’s micro-level segmentation targets each customer
individually, enabling the company to transform visitors into long-term, high-value customers.
This is dynamic development of customers changing habits of spending money day after day.
Customer Segmentation with Amazon Pinpoint
Amazon Pinpoint permits this segmentation using a set of filters fulfilled by user engagement
data, data derived from external sources, and data derived from other AWS services (such
as Amazon S3 and Amazon Redshift). Amazon Pinpoint empowers real-time, dynamic
segmentation, which results in less work segmenting and more time building better products.
Positioning
Positioning is "the place a brand occupies in the mind of its target audience” (Andrei, P et al ,
2010) Amazon has efficiently positioned itself as a Glocal (Go global Act local) e-commerce
giant in which an individual can purchase anything & get it delivered anywhere, even in remote
areas. Moreover, Amazon has positioned itself as the best price in market.

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4.0 Amazon’s Marketing Mix: 

Kotler (2005) states that, if the marketing mix strategy is well established this would help
companies to gain their marketing objectives, recognize the position of the product in its target
markets and offer customers with value.
Amazon marketing mix (Amazon 7Ps of marketing) comprises elements of the marketing mix
that consists of product, place, price, promotion, process, people and physical evidence.
4.1 Product
Amazon products consist of four categories:
Amazon websites that facilitates hundreds of millions of products to be sold by Amazon and by
third parties with various product categories. In 2017, majority of items sold in Amazon
worldwide was from third-party sellers. As mentioned earlier, Amazon allows retailers to post
and sell used products, as well as rent products through its platform.
Electronic devices such as Kindle e-readers, Fire tablets, Fire TVs, and Echo3, Media content
etc. A vast range of products and services, including cloud-based services that can be utilized on
content production.
Amazon Web Services (AWS). This section delivers a broad range of global compute, storage,
database, and other service offerings. AWS provides developers and enterprises of all sizes,
including start-ups, government agencies, and academic institutions. In 2017 alone, Amazon
Web Services (AWS) claimed over 1400 services and features.
The e-commerce giant in 2017 has penetrated fresh food market through acquisition of the
Whole Foods Market the. Amazon also continues its expansion and product diversification
ranging from retail goods and services, such as Amazon fresh, video, web services, prime, digital
content distribution, etc. (Fadikar, 2010).
4.2 Place
Originally, Amazon existed with no physical stores and it primarily depended on online sales due
to e-commerce identity of the business. In 2015, the online retail giant has joined physical retail
when it opened half-dozen bookstores” gadget emporia”. Moreover, Amazon also has an
alternative store format that operates in a cost-effective manner. The centralized pickup location
reduces shipping expenses. Prime members launched grocery order online and pick up from any
store. Prime Free Same Day and Prime Free One Day services are available in more than 8000
cities and towns. Prime Now service is available in more than 50 cities in 9 countries. Therefore,

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Amazon managed to control from place all of the transaction channels, coverage, assortments,
locations, inventory, transportation and logistics (Mars Library, 2014).
4.3 Price
Amazon applies “low price guarantee” model and sets out their payment, pricing, and promotion
info clearly on their website. Pricing strategies used by Amazon involves penetration pricing,
price skimming, psychological pricing, product line pricing, promotional pricing and
geographical pricing strategies. Amazon pricing strategy is cost leadership; Cost leadership is the
basis of Amazon pricing strategy. Amazon’s strategy generally is to regularly reduce prices to
beat competitors for all products. Additional Amazon obtains fixed fees, a percentage of sales,
per-unit activity fees, interest, or combination of both depending on accepted seller programs.
However, Amazon sometimes puts different prices for the same product (price discrimination).
Ferguson (2017) demonstrates this through comparing Amazon’s price for a product in the UK
and USA. This strategy adapts prices depending on market conditions but is also achieved
through value-based pricing strategy which evaluates product value and market
preferences. Amazon offers a refund policy, if the price of a purchased product reduces within a
seven days of delivery date (Elliot, 2013)

4.4 Promotion
Amazon’s marketing is primarily online and with a strong proven quality to the marketplace. Pay
Per Click Advertising one of the Amazon’s methods of advertising, which was not highly
beneficial, but the company continues to purchase such advertisements. As mentioned above The
company regularly places advertisements on the left margin of Google’s search page. Amazon
depends primarily on permission marketing through sending marketing emails to customers.
4.5 People
Amazon’s global workforce is over 613,000 employees worldwide according to its latest
quarterly earnings report, not including the 100,000 temporary employees the company hires for
the holiday season.
Amazon states on its official website
“Our diverse perspectives come from many sources including gender, race, age, national origin,
sexual orientation, culture, education, as well as professional and life experience. We are
working to develop leaders and shape future talent pools to help us meet the needs of our
customers around the world”.

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People includes ones involved to deliver the product to the customer., the ones who deliver the
service on the website, or the ones who deliver the product to various destinations and any
person involved in the process as a whole. Amazon’s employee’s benefits vary by location, the
number of working hours, length of employment, and job status such as seasonal or temporary
employment.
Unfortunately, the guardian (2019) has announced, the dark side of bad working conditions at
amazon. Employees claimed workers are overworked, pressured with frivolous disciplinary
actions and security lines at the exit cut into breaks and extended work shifts, unpaid.
4.6 Process
To purchase products added to the cart after passing through SEO and various products page
customer needs to select the checkout action. The checkout is a five step Purchase Process with
the following functions:
1. Identify they client
2. Choose shipping address or adding new address
3. Select mode of payment
4. Overview/recheck of the entire order(cart)
5. Confirm and place order
6. Receive confirmation email
The checkout procedure can be ceased at any step or can choose to check out later. In all these
steps Amazon throughout these process insures high levels of security and privacy.
4.7 Physical Evidence
Placement of website web page on other web pages. They have their position with certain
keywords which to facilitate visitors to come and visit that website.

5.0 Evaluation
The marketing plan is a cycle that begins and ends with evaluation. The final stage in the
marketing plan is to evaluate results of the marketing activities against the original objectives
and targets. Continuous evaluation helps the marketers to continuously focus on reviewing or
introducing new activities to achieve objectives.
Overall Sales
Sales has always been the main indicator on the success of any marketing strategy. Amazon’s
sales. Amazon has reported earnings for its first fiscal quarter of 2019, including

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revenue of $59.7 billion, net income of $3.6 billion, and earnings per share of $7.09

(compared to revenue of $51.0 billion, net income of $1.6 billion, and earnings per

share of $3.27 in Q1 2018)

Market Share

The figure below shows that Amazon continues to be on the peak of the market of

e-commerce business in the United States As well as Internationally

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MK4S34-V2-12304– : Strategic Marketing

Customer Satisfaction
Customers ranked Amazon #1 for the ninth consecutive year in customer satisfaction held by
ForeSee Experience Index: US Retail Edition. ForeSee identified that customers ranked Amazon
highest in satisfaction with the online experience and also put Amazon significantly on the top
for the mobile shopping experience. 
6.0 Conclusion
Since Amazon’s establishment in the 1990’s has recorded exceptional expansion and growth. It
is of no doubt that the marketing strategy in pace has proven it efficiency by all means. Amazon
continuous to be a cost leader within its business. It is crucial for Amazon to continue focusing
on the research and development of superior and more pioneering techniques of serving to the
customer, to preserve its market leadership in the online business and as well remain the No#1 to
millions of its loyal customers around the globe. Amazon need to find a fast solution to
challenges faced with governmental regulation that can be a threat to its business or at least
affect profit margins.

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