Why Amazon Might Lead the Future in E-Commerce
Amazon has come a long way. It will go even further I think.
The E-commerce giant has dominated the online buying and selling experience for many years now. According to an article on mccrindle.com.au, Generation Alpha are born from 2010 to 2024. I think that Generation Alpha only knows about Amazon as a major buying platform if they want to shop online.
Sure there are other major platforms like, Shopify, eBay, etc but the only one that takes the first place is still Amazon in my opinion.
Jeff Bezos will be stepping down as CEO of Amazon later this year but that doesn’t mean the eCommerce giant will not have a lead in the digital world. It still has a substantial market value in the online world.
Amazon no doubt has always put its customers first and has provided them with excellent deals. By this I mean the services it has directly offered to its customers like Amazon Prime, is one of the greatest services offered to them and which has helped the company gain a greater market share.
By providing its customers two-day deliveries it has won many hearts over the years. It has provided convenience at its best. Not only that, it even provides same-day deliveries to select metro areas in the US.
This has extensively helped Amazon gain countless new loyal customers.
If you think of it from a customer’s point of view, this is more than what they want!
Amazon has always been many steps ahead in making itself the choice of platforms to buy stuff online. Customers are happy, it has too many loyal customers that regularly buy from it, Amazon is known worldwide, it is providing the services that are of best value, thus there is no reason for it not to grow, expand, and adapt itself to the future ahead.
Let's take a look into what it has done for small businesses or third-party sellers. It has given them opportunities to succeed big-time and to grow their businesses.
I know that many third-party sellers complain of being charged high fees or having their items lost in the warehouse but let me give you some insight on that according to my own experience as a seller on Amazon for a few years now.
Sellers who want to sell agree to pay an amount to sell their products on Amazon.
The concern whether it is high or not is not quite relevant here because sellers already know from before what amount of fee they’ll be paying to sell according to the nature and category of their products.
Sellers can take steps to accelerate their profitability accordingly by either increasing their selling price or cut down their buying costs for the products they sell. But to avail the opportunity to sell to Amazon’s vast customer audience, we sellers need to pay that amount. It can be calculated by using the fees calculator provided by the company.
As far as items being lost in Amazon’s warehouse are concerned, if sellers choose to sell through the FBA (Fulfillment By Amazon) program, they are compensated for their lost items.
Amazon issues reimbursement to those sellers if such cases arise.
Many small businesses have availed the opportunity to sell on Amazon and have experienced exponential growth. They took advantage of the growing digital commerce trend.
As third-party sellers grew, the competition also increased, and as we know competition breeds room for innovation, thus new and high-quality products were introduced which made customers happy and satisfied.
Why do I think it might lead the future in the e-commerce world?
Amazon has a huge and effective logistical network. It has even bought its planes to transport goods! It has its delivery trucks. Now according to Amazon’s website, it is purchasing 100,000 electric delivery vehicles!
According to Amazon, it announced, “The Climate Pledge Fund to support the development of sustainable and decarbonizing technologies and services”. This investment program has an initial $2 billion in funding.
Amazon is playing its part towards a viable future. It is already ahead of its rivals and nonetheless, it will be prepared to face the challenges tomorrow.
This shows that Amazon is planning for the future and taking measures to ensure it stays on top of its rivals.
A few days ago I was awaiting delivery of some items I had ordered from Amazon and I was tracking the delivery vehicle. The tracking was being updated in real-time and it gave me a window of an hour between which I was to receive my items.
The truck had stopped at different locations before finally coming to me for delivery. I was outside and saw the truck coming towards me making stops delivering packages on its way. It was cool to see that and being able to track it in real-time on my phone gave me an impression that Amazon has some high-level technology.
Well having a great logistical setup will help the business gain more customers over the coming years because it will keep its customers happy by providing them with shorter delivery times and choosing from anything they would want to buy. Customers can buy items such as medicines, health-related products, apparel, electronics, food and grocery, pet supplies, garden tools and so much more.
Amazon Fresh delivers food items to its customers instead of them making trips to the grocery store. Keeping in mind the pandemic situation that has changed the way we live and how we interact with others, this is a great option for people who want to avoid going outside. With only a click they can get groceries at their doorstep.
Amazon has stepped its foot in almost every category. For example, it introduced Kindle devices for readers, Fire Tablets, Amazon Music, and the best of all its Alexa and Echo devices. By coming up with innovative products Amazon has a lot to offer and is already on top in the market currently.
Lastly, I would like to talk about Amazon Web Services (AWS) that provides cloud computing services to companies or anyone who doesn’t want to bear the costs of keeping physical data centers or servers. All these technical services are provided to them as they need from Amazon Web Services.
This is a great advantage for startups as they do not have to bear the costs of expensive equipment and other technological services. Thus using Amazon Web Services saves them money and they could use those resources elsewhere to boost the efficiency and expansion of their businesses.
For Amazon, it is already popular in the e-commerce world. In the future adapting to changes does not seem to be a problem for it. It has its happy customers vouching for it. It has its sellers appreciating the fact that it gave them opportunities and eventually by going green and environment friendly, they will be blessed upon with luck from Mother Earth!
Thank you for reading.
References:
1) https://aws.amazon.com/2) https://sustainability.aboutamazon.com/3) https://mccrindle.com.au/4) https://mccrindle.com.au/insights/blog/gen-alpha-defined/
