Amazon As an Innovator and a Competitor Essay

Amazon as an Innovator and a Competitor

E-Commerce is today considered a necessary element of a firm's business strategy. In many ways, the model for its importance may be attributed to the enormous success and sustainability of Amazon.com. It was with the pouplar inception of what first began as an online bookstore that retailers of all forms began to understand the true capacity of the internet to reach wide purchasing audiences, to display and market items without the use of physical space and a wide spectrum of additional benefits to be explored more thoroughly in this text. In the ensuing years, and particularly since the transition into the 21st century, all manner of consumer item from butter knives to airplane tickets could be purchased with a credit card and a few mouse clicks, owing largely to the model established and refined by Amazon.

Still, it has been incumbent upon Amazon to remain always in a state of evolution, particularly as competitor have sprung up around it with their own e-commerce models.Part of its evolution has been its expanding value to small businesses. Indeed, one of the most important aspects of the Amazon business strategy is the role that it serves as a middle-man both between enterprises and from enterprises to consumers. As a catch-all website for retail items and services of virtually any kind, Amazon is not just a marketplace but also is active in the process of retail distribution. For many businesses, this means that Amazon has become the central channel for engaged an ecommerce strategy. Particularly for the interests of B2C, Amazon makes certain retailers available and accessible to shoppers both in a buying respect and in a shipping capacity. This makes Amazon particularly attractive to small firms that otherwise lack the resources to engage widespread national or international shipping. As (2011) reports, Amazon has continued to expand on its role as….....