Background to the Company

The report helps in throwing a light on the entire marketing analysis of Amazon Company which is situated in Australia. The different kinds of marketing concepts and theories will be used in order to analyse and identify the position of Amazon Australia in the entire competitive market. Additionally, the different strategic options are required to be analysed for Amazon which will be helpful in gaining competitive advantage in the market.

Amazon.com is doing business as Amazon which is an American electronic ecommerce and cloud computing organization which is running as a franchise store in Australia. The industry in which it is operating in the online shopping industry. The founder of the company is Jeff Bezos and there are various kinds of products which are being sold by the company in the entire worldwide(Amazon.com.au2018). Furthermore, in the present this has been seen that Amazon has now opened a physical store named Amazon Go which is a small format grocery store and the revenue earned by the company in the year 2017 has increased to US$177.86 billion till the year 2017.

Villeneuve and Pasquier (2017), has hypothesised that the marketing strategy is defined as the aspect which should be drawn from the research of the market in an efficient manner. The entire focus is on right product mix as this will help in achieving the maximum potential of profit and helps in sustaining the business in an efficient manner. The different marketing strategies of Amazon relies on different six pillars which are as follows:

• Using the interface which is customer friendly in nature
• Using the communication system which is existing in nature
• Scaling easily from small to large (Villeneuve and Pasquier 2017)
• Using and exploiting affiliation of the different products along with services

In the figure below, this can be seen that the annual global expenses of Amazon have been increasing in a consistent manner during the past seven years which is exceeding USD 10 dollars till the year 2017. This is inclusive of the different kinds of advertising along with promotional costs which is being amounted to USD 3.8 billion to USD 6.4 billion in the year 2015 and 2016.

Lee and Kotler (2015), commented that the marketing strategy of Amazon integrates number of targeted online marketing channels such as different kinds of sponsored search along with proper online advertising and the different other initiatives have been taken into consideration. Generally, the different marketing strategies in Amazon is based on the following principles which are as follows:

The 7Ps of marketing strategy of Amazon is mainly focusing on the different place and product elements of the marketing mix (Smith 2016). The company is offering more than 480 million products in USA and Australia, the range of Amazon is the widest among the different kinds online and offline retail marketing and stores. Additionally, Armstrong et al. (2014), commented that the respective organization is being able to offer the products for the competitive pricing technique as there is massive cost funds based on the entire online kind of nature of the business operations of Amazon.

The Nature of Amazon Australia’s Marketing Strategy or Strategies since it began

The segmentation, targeting and positioning practices of the Amazon Company are basically associated with the main aspect of targeting the widest range of the segment of the different customers in the entire market. The retail giant Amazon.com tries to perform the same with proper application of adaptive, anticipatory along with multi-segment positioning techniques and strategies (Sargeant and MACQUILLIN 2016).

With the help of the STP process, this has helped Amazon in becoming more aware about the other competitors such as Flipkart and eBay. With the effect of proper segmentation techniques, the company tried to gain knowledge on their techniques and gained huge competitive advantage in the entire market.

The unique selling proposition of Amazon helps in integrating the widest choice of the different kinds of products along with the services which are being offered by them to the different customers at the competitive price (Achroll and Kotler 2014). Furthermore, the other USP of the company is inclusive of the different fast delivery along with the customer service which is exceptional in nature. The e-commerce giant Amazon focuses on the core marketing communication techniques which is helpful for Amazon in being more competitive in nature in comparison to the other competitors such as Flipkart (Kwiatkowski 2018).

Lastly, Armstrong et al. (2014) commented that the marketing communication mix of Amazon tries to integrate the media and print advertising, events and experiences along with maintaining public relations with the different customers in the entire market. Amazon places a particular focus on media and print advertising along with sales promotion elements of the marketing communication channels in an efficient manner (Kotler, Keller and Opresnik 2017).

Furthermore, in order to become more competitive in nature, the company tried to differentiate themselves, the company tried to acquire IT and e-commerce start-ups such as Zappos.com, audible.com and Woot which helped and assisted them in providing value to the different customers in the market in an effective manner (Lovelockand Patterson 2015).

From the different marketing strategies which have been used by Amazon in the past and present are required to be followed in the same manner in the near future as this will be gaining more competitive advantage in the future. Walmart is one of the biggest threats to Amazon and in order to compete with Walmart, this is essential for Amazon to adopt the differentiation strategy in the market which will be effective and this will be helpful for them to be different from the other competitors.

Strategic Marketing Options for Amazon Australia moving forward

There are variousstrategic marketing options which are available for Amazon Australia for moving forward in the entire competitive market. As per the circumstances of the recent years till 2018, this can be analysed and identified that there are few aspects which is required to be adopted by Amazon in becoming more competitive in nature.

Firstly, Amazon needs to start off with the different kinds of retail stores which will be helpful in becoming more successful in their venture in the near future (Keller and Richey 2017). For instance- the one small retail store named Amazon Go has been started in Australia which is a kind of physical store and this will be effective in nature for becoming more competitive in nature.

This has been noticed that there are different kinds of individuals in the market who are not at all capable of handling the different kinds of operations through online mode. With the help of the offline physical stores, this will be beneficial for Amazon to target more customers and gain more competitive advantage in the future as well (Chernev 2018).

Secondly, the Amazon needs to increase the sales of the company by establishing their brand in a proper appropriate manner. Amazon needs to bring in new customers from different kinds of income levels which will be effective in their operations and this will increase the overall profitability of the organization in a positive and appropriate manner.

Thirdly, the branding is essential aspect with proper utilization of the different resources is essential which will be effective in nature and this is required to be adopted by Amazon. The branding tactics through proper delivering the goods and services to the different customers at an affordable rate and be more competitive in nature.

The Amazon Company do not reveal much about the different kinds of marketing approach in their annual reports, however this can be seen that the company needs to focus on the different kinds of marketing channels which helps in becoming successful in the different types of approaches in an appropriate manner. From the present circumstances of Amazon in 2018, this can be concluded that the company needs to change their focus towards the target market in which the Amazon will be targeting all segment individuals and gain more value in the near future.

Conclusion

Therefore, this can be concluded that marketing strategies play a major role in managing the different kinds of operations at Amazon. The different kinds of analysis of the marketing strategies have been taken into consideration which helped Amazon in becoming successful in their approaches.

Furthermore, the different types of strategic options have been taken into consideration which has helped Amazon in becoming more competitive in their approach. Lastly, the strategic options will be helpful and essential in the long run for Amazon as this will enhance their competitiveness and the overall aspects of the marketing strategic options have been taken into consideration.

References

Achroll, R.S. and Kotler, P., 2014. The service-dominant logic for marketing. The service-dominant logic of marketing: Dialog, debate, and directions, 320.

Amazon.com.au. 2018. Amazon.com.au: Shop online for Electronics, Apparel, Toys, Books, DVDs & more. [online] Available at: https://www.amazon.com.au/ [Accessed 24 Sep. 2018].

Armstrong, G., Adam, S., Denize, S. and Kotler, P., 2014. Principles of marketing. Pearson Australia.

Chernev, A., 2018. Strategic marketing management. Cerebellum Press.

Keller, K.L. and Richey, K., 2017. The Importance of Corporate Brand Personality Traits to a Successful 21st Century Business. In Advances in Corporate Branding (pp. 47-58). Palgrave Macmillan, London.

Kotler, P., Keller, K.L. and Opresnik, M.O., 2017. Marketing-Management: Konzepte-Instrumente-Unternehmensfallstudien. Pearson Deutschland GmbH.

Kwiatkowski, C., 2018. SERVICE QUALITY MANAGEMENT MODEL AND RELATIONSHIP MARKETING. ?????????? ???????, p.128.

Lee, N.R. and Kotler, P., 2015. Social marketing: Changing behaviors for good. Sage Publications.

Lovelock, C. and Patterson, P., 2015. Services marketing. Pearson Australia.

Sargeant, A. and MACQUILLIN, I., 2016. Marketing for nonprofit organisations. In The Marketing Book (pp. 555-576). Routledge.

Smith, B., 2016. Nature and Geography: Tragic Voids within Marketing Textbooks and the External Business Environment. In Global Perspectives on Contemporary Marketing Education (pp. 47-64). IGI Global.

Villeneuve, J.P. and Pasquier, M., 2017. Marketing management and communications in the public sector. Routledge.