This project report summarizes Siddhi Sharma's research project on the growth of e-commerce through Amazon. The report includes an acknowledgement, declaration, and certificate sections. It also includes an abstract, introduction providing background on Amazon, objectives of the research, a literature review, methodology, data analysis sections covering Amazon's lines of business, business models, and e-commerce strategies. The report aims to analyze how Amazon has become one of the most successful e-commerce platforms through its business areas, models adopted, and various intensive growth, user reference, and supply chain management strategies.

1. PROJECT REPORT- 2018
FACULTY GUIDE : PROF. V.P. KAKKAR
NAME : SIDDHI SHARMA
PROGRAMME : BBA(IB) SEM 3
ENROLL. NO : A1833317045
BATCH : 2017-2020

2. TOPIC:
GROWTH OF E-COMMERCE:
AMAZON

3. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I express my sincere gratitude to my faculty guide
Prof. V.P.Kakkar, for his able guidance, continuous
support and cooperation throughout my project,
without which the present work would not been
possible. My endeavour stands incomplete without
dedicating my gratitude to him; he has contributed a
lot towards successful completion of my project
work.
I would also like to thank him for giving me such
interesting and challenging topic to carry out my
secondary research project.
I would also like to express my gratitude to my
family and friends for their unending support and
tireless effort that kept me motivated throughout
the completion of this project.

4. DECLERATION BY THE STUDENT
I hereby declare that the matter in the project report
entitled “Growthof E-Commerce: Amazon” submitted to
Prof. V. P. Kakkar, AmityInternational Business School,
AmityUniversity,Noida, is a bonafide and genuine
secondary research project. The work done in report is
original and has not been submitted earlier for the award
of any degree, diploma etc of any other university or
institution.
DATE: 8 August, 2018
SIDDHI SHARMA

5. CERTIFICATE BY THE GUIDE
This is to certify that the term paper entitled
“Growth of E-Commerce: Amazon”submitted to
Amity International Business School, Amity
University, has been carried out under my guidance.
All help received by her from different sources have
been duly acknowledged.
Date: 8th
August 2018
Place: Noida
Prof. V.P.Kakkar
AIBS

6. TABLEOFCONTENTS
1.ABSTRACT
2.INTRODUCTION
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Objectives
3.REVIEW OF LITERATURE
4.RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
5.DATA ANALYSIS
5.1 Lines of Business
5.2 Business Models
5.3 E-Commerce Strategies
 Intensive Growth Strategies
 User Reference Strategies
 Supply Chain Management Strategies
6.DISCUSSION
7.RECOMMENDATIONS
8.CONCLUSION
9.REFERENCES

7. ABSTRACT
Amazon, is an American electronic commerceand cloud computing
company and the largest Internet- based retailer in the world by total sales
and marketcapitalization which has been serving worldwidefrom last two
decades. Amazon became a platform for the retailer and individuals in
2000. Amazon offers their services towards four types of customers,
consumers, sellers, enterprises and content creators.
This research paper describes the list of areas that it has been working, the
business models it has adopted and the various strategies that it has
implemented to makeit one of the mostsuccessfulE-Commerce
platforms.
Amazon totally rely on the customer and customer satisfaction is its
primary goal. Amazon grows partly by developing new products over time.

8. INTRODUCTION OF THE COMPANY
BACKGROUND
For the last two decades, Amazon has been serving customers worldwide.
Amazon is an American electronic commerce and cloud computing
company. Founded on July 5, 1994 by Jeff Bezos and based in Seattle,
Washington. Itis the largest Internet-based retailer in the world by total
sales and market capitalization. Amazon started as an online bookstore,
later diversifying to sell DVD’s, Blu-rays, CD’s, video downloads/streaming,
MP3 downloads/streaming, audio book downloads/streaming, software,
video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, toys and jewelry. The
company also produces consumer electronics—notably, Amazon Kindlee-
readers, Firetablets and Fire TV—and is the world’s largestprovider of
cloud infrastructureservices (IaaS).

9. In 2005, Amazon surpassed Walmartas the most valuable retailer in the
United States by market capitalization, and is, as of 2016 Q3, the fourth
most valuable public company.

10. OBJECTIVES
 Identify the Line of Business of Amazon.
 Identifying the types of Business models used by
Amazon for expandingits E-Commerce Business.
 Identifying the list of E-commerce strategies
developedby the company regarding its intensive
growth, generic strategies and user referenced.
 Identifying Supply ChainManagement strategies.
 Identifying what are the more steps to be taken by
the company in coming future.

11. REVIEW OF LITERARTURE
Amazon.comis perhaps the company that is mostclosely tied with the E-
Commerce phenomenon. The Seattle, WA based company has grown from
a book seller to a virtual Wal-Martof the Web selling products as diverse
as Music CDs, Cookware, Toys and Games and Tools and Hardware. (e.g.,
Eisenhardtand Schoonhoven 1996; Rothaermel2001, 2002; Gulatiand
Higgins 2003; Gulati et al. 2009). Thecompany has also grown at a
tremendous rate with revenues rising from about $150 million in 1997 to
$3.1 billion in 2001. Jeff Bezos was one of the few people to understand
the special natureof InternetRetailing and E-Commerce. This is how he
compares E-Tailing to traditional retailing. (Ozcan and Eisenhardt2009).
Look at e-retailing. The key trade that wemake is that wetrade real estate
for technology. Real estate is the key costof physicalretailers. That's why
there's the old saw: location, location, location. Real estate gets more
expensive every year, and technology gets cheaper every year. And it gets
cheaper fast.
There were really two elements to his vision-
1. He wanted to build the world’s mostcustomer-centric company.

12. 2. He wanted to establish a place where customers could buy anything.
Scholars haveexamined platform owners’ pricing decisions on
different sides of the market (e.g., Rochet and Tirole 2003; Parker
and Van Alstyne 2005; Hagiu 2006;Chen etal. 2012; Seamans and
Zhu 2014; Hao and Fan forthcoming), interactions between
competing platforms (e.g., Armstrong 2006; Economides and
Katsamakas 2006; Casadesus Masanelland Llanes 2011), thevalue
of installed bases to platform owners seeking to diversify
into other markets (e.g., Eisenmann et al. 2011; Edelman
forthcoming) or to introduce next generation platforms (e.g.,
Claussen et al. 2015; Kretschmer and Claussen 2015), platform
owners’ managementof complementors (e.g., Yoffie and Kwak
2006; Parker and Van Alstyne 2014; Cennamo and Panico 2015;
Cennamo and Santalo 2015), timing of new platform
owners’ entry into platform-based markets (e.g., Zhu and Iansiti
2012), optimalinformation disclosure(e.g., Dai et al. 2014; Nosko
and Tadelis 2015), and platform governancechoices such as those
regarding exclusivity and limiting the variety of applications

13. (Cennamo and Santalo 2013; Casadesus-Masanelland Halaburda
2014). Studies of complementors tend to
focus on positiveoutcomes of affiliating with platform owners, given
that platforms provide complementors access to their installed
bases (e.g., Venkatraman and Lee 2004; Ceccagnoli et al. 2012;
Claussen et al. 2013). Thefew studies that acknowledgepotential
expropriation threats from platform owners lack evidence of
platformowners’ entry patterns (Farrell and Katz 2000; Jiang et al.
2011; Huang et al. 2013).
When it firstlaunched, Amazon’s had a clear and ambitious mission.
Earth’sbiggest selection and to be Earth’smost customer-centric
company.
Today, with business users of its Amazon Web Service representing a
new type of customer, Amazon says:
This goal continuestoday, butAmazon’scustomersare worldwide
now and have grown to include millions of Consumers, Sellers,
ContentCreators, Developers, and Enterprises. Each of these groups
has differentneeds, and we alwayswork to meet those needs, by
innovating new solutions to make things easier, faster, better, and
more cost-effective.

14. "When we think about how we're going to grow our company, we
focus on price, selection, and availability," says Jeffrey Wilke, senior
VP of worldwideoperations at Amazon.comInc. "Allthree depend
critically on the supply chain."
Amazon has one of the most-sophisticated supply-chain systems in
the world, and it was all built from scratch. Homemade applications
handle nearly every aspect of its supply chain: warehouse
management, transportation management, inbound and outbound
shipping, demand forecasts, inventory planning, and more. "We
don't have any legacy systems," Wilkesays. "That's a clear
advantage."

15. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Since Amazon is an international E-commerce website for selling and
buying goods and products, so it is not possibleto interview the developer.
So, I basically used informal way for carrying outour research with the
following steps to gather the information:
a) Firstof all, we read the available paper and documents of research
on Amazon done by others and noted somekey points such as areas
of business, adopted strategies, adopted business models etc.
b) I also watched some videos based on customer and merchant
reviews as well as videos explaining the working of Amazon and its
strategies.
c) Finally, I cross checked the gathered information from the Amazon
website and also target for getting more information regarding the
services it provides currently, how it maintains its supply chain, etc.

16. DATA ANALYSIS
Known best as the largestretailer in the world, Amazon is not simple to
understand in one go in terms of business modelanalysis. Even if we begin
by looking at it’s consumer retail business, it quickly becomes clear that
the company is anything but a traditional retailer. While Amazon does sell
products at a standard mark-up, it has also pioneered alternate retail
strategies by acting as the gateway for other retailers and a very robust
marketplace for used goods. But retail is only part of the picture when it
comes to Amazon.
LINES OF BUSINESS
The company itself defines its lines of business in terms of products sales,
servicesales, AWS, fulfilment, publishing, digital consent subscriptions,
advertising and co-branded credit cards. I’lldefine Amazon’s lines of
businesses as:
 Online Retail: The online retail line of business includes those
products sold by Amazon as a traditional retailer, mostcommonly as
a low-costretailer. Amazon claims to have “Earth’s Biggest

17. Selection” of products available through its family of websites, sold
at the lowest costat a small profit. The company started as an online
book seller, rapidly expanding into music and movies, and ultimately
into electronics and household goods. But Amazon doesn’tstock
everything that is sold through its website. Another part of its retail
strategy is to serveas the channel for other retailers to sell their
products and taking a cut of every purchase. Amazon maintains its
status as a destination website, but does not have to maintain
inventory on slower-selling products. This strategy has made
Amazon introduced the sale of used products through it seller
marketplace. Originally developed to compete with eBay, the seller
marketplace provides another retail revenue stream for the
company without the need to stock products in its warehouses.
Advertising and shipping are handled exclusively by sellers, with
Amazon taking a cut of every sale simply for providing the channel.
 Internet Services:Amazon’s Internetservices cannoteasily be
discussed as a standaloneline of business because it is deeply
intertwined with both its retail business and the Kindle ecosystem.
Fromthe consumer’s perspective, Amazon has begun to provide

18. services like Amazon Prime, which provides free two-day shipping on
retail purchases, on demand video streaming and free access to
kindle library, all of an annual fee. Amazon Prime overlays the
subscription and all you can eat business models with the retail
model to provideadditional customer value. Unknown to most
Amazon customers, however, arethe other Internetservices
provided by Amazon, referred to as AWS (Amazon Web Services).
Originally developed as a side business, Amazon decided to lease out
its own server spaceto other companies and individuals. While not a
core part of the company’s strategy, Amazon found itself managing a
large number of servers and internet services, and it was a fairly
small effortto manage thoseservices for others.
 Kindle Ecosystem: Amazon has expanded its business into
manufacturing and distributing the family of kindle tablets. Originally
designed as an electronic book reader (supplementing its online
book seller business), thekindle has become a fully functional tablet
and media device. With the kindle, amazon serves as both
manufacturer and traditional retailer (and also wholesaler by selling
the device through other retailer).

19.  While the company does not admit as much, it assumed that the
kindle devices are sold at a loss, which would correctly put this line
of business into the razor &
BUSINESS MODELS:
Amazon has three distinct businesses, plus a slew of nascent enterprises
and developing opportunities:
a) AmazonRetail
Starting in books and then expanding into electrical and other goods,
Amazon built an online retail business around threeaims:
1. Best Prices: Amazon products are generally offered at a
discount, a steep discount in the case of books.
2. Unrivalled selection: Amazon often has the largest
selection of goods in a particular category, especially
books.
3. Convenience: Amazon focus on the consumer and try
purchasing an enjoyable experience, offering:
 An attractive, easy-to-usecustomer interface.

20.  Fastand reliable delivery from vast, fully automated
warehouses, firstlocated in strategic spots in the US
but increasingly worldwide.
 A no-nonsensereturns policy.
 Reviews by customers of the product.
 Purchasesuggestions based on previous purchases
and web page viewing.
b) AmazonMarketplace
Amazon also offers a third-party selling platform, Amazon
marketplace, that allows merchants to offer goods and services
through an online shopping mall. Amazon charges a commission
based on a formula involving the sale price of the item, a shipping
credit, a referralfee of 6-25% of the sale price, a variableclosing fee
and a Rs.70 fixed closing fee. This has now been augmented or
replaced by four comparableservices:
 Sell on Amazon: Merchants pay Rs 2810 per month, plus a
commission varying aboveand generally between 15% and Rs
93 per item.
 Amazon Webstore: More complete service. Merchants pay Rs.
1685 per month plus 2% of sales.

21.  Fulfilment by Amazon: Allows merchants to use Amazon’s
advanced fulfilment technology.
The services are being expanded from USA, Canada, UK and Germany to
other countries. Amazon does not release information on these
businesses, either revenues or usagelevels.
c) AmazonWeb Services:
Amazon leveraged the technology it developed in retails to offer an
increasing number of web services:
1. Computer Related
 Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
 Amazon Elastic Map Reduce
 Auto Scaling
2. Content Delivery
 Amazon Cloud Front
3. Database
 Amazon Simple DB
 Amazon Relational DatabaseServices
4. Deployment & Management
 AWS Elastic Beal Stalk

22.  AWS Cloud Formation
5. E-Commerce
 Amazon Fulfilment Web Services
6. Messaging
 Amazon Simple Queue Services
 Amazon Simple Notification Services
 Amazon Simple Email Service
7. Monitoring
 Amazon Cloud Watch
8. Networking
 Amazon Route 53
 Amazon Critical Cloud
 Elastic Load Balancing
9. Payment & Billing
 Amazon Flexible Payment Services
 Amazon Dev Pay
10. Storage
 Amazon Simple Storage Services
 Amazon Elastic Block Storage
 AWS Import/Export

23. 11. Support
 AWS Premium SupportWeb
 Traffic Alexa Web Information Services.
 Alexa Top Sites
12. Workforce
 Amazon Mechanical Turk

24. Amazon’s E-Commerce Strategies:
1.Intensive Growth Strategies:
A. Market development.
Amazon uses market development as its currentprimary
intensive growth strategy. Entry and growth in new markets is
the main objective in this intensive strategy. Amazon Inc. adds
new. Countries whereit offers its services. For example, the
company initially provided its online retail services to
consumers in the united states. Amazon now operates e-
commerce websites in more than 10 countries, including
Canada, the United Kingdom, china and India each new
country is considered a new marketthat creates growth
opportunities for the firm. Amazon’s generic strategy builds
competitive advantagethat allows the company to implement
this intensive strategy of marketdevelopment. A strategic
objective related to this intensive growth strategy is for
amazon.comto establish new online retail websites that
correspond to new countries added to the company’s global
market reach.

25. B. Market penetration:
Market penetration is a secondary intensivegrowth strategy
in amazon’s online retail business. Theobjective of this
intensive strategy is to generate morerevenue from the
market wherethe company currently operates. Amazon .com
grows with increasing consumerism. For example, as
consumers develop increasing interest in online retail, the
company benefits from higher sales revenue especially when
considering the popularity of the amazon brand. Market
penetration is responsiblefor the initial rapid growth of
amazon.comInc. in the united states. the company’s generic
strategy creates the competitive advantage necessary to
penetrate markets based on low costand prices. A strategic
objective on this intensive growth strategy is to implement an
aggressivemarketing campaign to attract more consumers to
amazon’s e-commercewebsite.

26. C. Product Development:
Amazon applies productdevelopment as a supporting
intensive strategy for business growth. Developing and
offering new products to gain higher revenues is the goal of
this intensive growth strategy. Amazon grows partly by
developing new products over time. The company’s cost
leadership generic strategy supports this intensivestrategy by
providing the company with low-costbusiness processes to
introduce research and development investmentfor rapid
productdevelopment and release to the online retail market.
D.Diversification
Diversification is the least significantamong Amazon’s
intensive growth strategies. Growth based on new business is
the objectivein applying this intensive strategy. For example,
Amazon grew through its acquisition of audible, which is a
producer of audio books and related products. In this regard,
the company partly uses acquisition to implement this
intensive growth strategy. Amazon Inc.’s costleadership
generic strategy enables the organisation to grow in
diversification by applying the sameapproaches to minimize

27. operating costs and selling prices. A strategic objective
associated with this intensive strategy is to grow the e-
commerce business through an aggressiveacquisition
strategy.
E. Customer Relation Management Strategy
When a customer first enters into Amazon.com he or sheis
provided “featured product” by the website, but when the
customer visit for the second time the recommender system
automatically provides products by studying customer’s
interest and personality. Customer acquisition and retention
has been the most priority to Amazon’s strategy. Through web
site Amazon maintain sophisticated communication that
automates the process of creating value for the customer.
F. Associate Program:
To boostthe customer traffic and rate of sale Amazon started
an associateprogram with customers and small businessman.
Approximately, 200000 websites haveenrolled in the program.

28. 2.User Reference Strategies
A.Personalise the Shopping Experience
One thing that Amazon does very well is personalizing the
shopping experience to each user. Going to Amazon’s home
page you’ll see different sections such as “Related to items
you’veviewed”, “Inspired by your browsing history”,
“Recommendations for you” etc. Amazon knows that the
more relevant the product is to the user the more likely users
will purchase.
B. Make Searching a Breeze
The search bar can havea significantimpact on the user
experience, especially for larger online retailers with many
products. The faster a user can find their desired productthe

29. more likely it is that the user will purchase. Amazon makes
searching a breeze by automatically suggesting popular
products and categories.
C. Onsite Product Reviews
Extensive online productresearch has become a crucial part of
the buying process for customers; a whopping 88% of
consumers reportedly research products onlinebefore
purchasing. Theonline shopper’s attention span is short, and
if they go off-siteto search for productreview there’s a good
chance they won’treturn.
Clearly displaying productreviews can significantly improve
the conversation rateof a productpage.

30. D.Free or Minimum shipping charge
Reducing the costof shipping can boostup the customer. It’s
not always easy or cheap to offer free shipping to customers,
but ultimately it can be a financially effective decision.
E. One Click Purchase
Customer with previously activated functionality can order
items by clicking only one button without fulfilling the order
form. Amazon’s secured server automatically providethe
information required for the registered customer.
F. Secure Credit/Debit card payments
For securetransaction Amazon usesecured server software.
Customer’s personalinformation, credit/debit card numbers

31. and everything are encrypted in order to secureinformation
over internet.
G.Customer Care
“If you do build a greatexperience, customer tells each other
aboutthat. Word to mouth is very powerful”- Jeffry P. Bezos
One of the success factors of Amazon is word of mouth.
Because of excellent customer service customers trusted
Amazon. They talked about it to each other, thus creating
huge traffic on the website.

32. 3.Supply Chain Management Strategies
For the huge success by 2004 the“Supply Chain System” played a
huge role. In 2000 amazon spentgood amount in order to build
automated warehouseand automated supply chain management.
All the supply chain activities are controlled by CRM system.
a) Enterprise ResourceManagement: Amazon uses oracleas the
ERP. Ithas huge database which hold information related to
customers. Customer’s ordering processis automated as the
order is taken as it automatically finds the nearest distributing
centre for the delivery. This system fastens the order fulfilment
process with the order tracking and reduces any distribution
mistakes. By this system the company reduced 50% of its
customer servicecontacts since 1999 becauseof fewer mistakes.
b) Customer RelationManagement: In order to gain customer
satisfaction and loyalty Amazon useCustomer Relationship
Management system. CRM system follows the following
application to collect information of the customer. All personal
information of customer their credit card records, transaction
record, order record, profile, their pastpurchasehistory is
collected in the database. The order processing system takes care

33. of the transaction record with secured transaction method and it
delivers instructions to the delivery system for the execution of
shipment. Through customer feedback, customer interest, wish
list, productreviews web page system collects customer
information. Automated communication is ensured with
customer through e-mail and messagesystems and order
information systems. With the CRM system Amazon successfully
integrates customer sales, services and communication.

34. DISCUSSION
After doing the sortof analysis, wetend to find that Amazon totally uses
the business to customer model. Amazon totally rely on the customer and
customer satisfaction is it primary goal. Amazon handle its better
relationship with customers by using CRM such as collecting information of
the customer like as all personalinformation of customers their credit card
record, transaction record, purchasehistory etc.
Using CRM, Amazon provides sortof advantages to the customer like as
Personalization, User ratings and reviews, 1 click purchaseetc.
Not only this Amazon carries out some of Associateprograms to boostthe
customer traffic and rate of sale Amazon with customers and small
business man. Developing and offering new products to gain higher
revenues is the goal of this intensive growth strategy. Amazon grows partly
by developing new products over time.

35. RECOMMENDATIONS
Amazon is the ultimate online retailer around the world. Its nearestbut
not even close competitors are e-bay and best buy. But the competition is
growing day by day.
a. Competing in the market;
Like past, Amazon in futurewill haveto come up with something
special. The global marketis changing day by day. Business
competitors are investing large to take Amazon down. There is no
roomfor relaxation. Itis very challenging and has to be consistentin
the marketto be number one retailer shop.
b. Innovationof new product;
Itis essential for Amazon to think out of the box and bring new
products to satisfy and retain customers to be loyal to them.
Amazon always offered its customer better quality and better
service. But in futureit may not be the samebecause of increasing
competition. Now, Amazon has to play smartby understanding the
customer’s need before even customers know aboutit.
c. Integrationof New Technology;

36. Technology is making process likethe speed of light. Company like
Amazon needs to be adaptive and technology friendly to retain its
domination in the market. Amazon’s new technology of drone
delivery is the proof that it is planning and investing significant
amount of money in technology for near future.
d. Customer Loyalty;
For any business to grow customer loyalty is important. Amazon’s
most of the buyers areits repeat customers who areloyal to the
company. But growing competition can be a risk, they’ll haveto be
very focused upon their customer retention policies.
e. Global Expansion;
Amazon is now expanding its business around the world. But this
may causesignificant strain in number of sectors like management,
inventory, supply system and more over to Amazon’s marketplace.
Internationalmarket is very challenging becauseof political and
economical conditions. Upgrading e-CRM and investing more
towards customer information for better understanding the
customer’s need and behaviour is essential.

37. CONCLUSION
On the part of conclusion, I conclude that Amazon uses business
according to customer models for its better growth. Amazon mainly
focuses on customer satisfaction by providing various ways to
ensurethat like as personalization, user ratings and reviews etc.
which act as the key ingredients for the success of the company. But
still Amazon haveto do some changes on their systems to keep up
with the ever-changing dynamic e-business world.

38. REFERENCES
 https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sandeep_Krishn
amurthy/publication/228319552_Amazoncom_-
_A_Comprehensive_Case_History/links/5553be2d08aea
aff3bf19cc7/Amazoncom-A-Comprehensive-Case-
History.pdf
 https://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-
strategy/online-business-revenue-models/amazon-
case-study/
 https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/amazon-growth-
strategy/
 https://www.ncrypted.net/blog/how-does-amazon-
work-insights-into-business-model-and-revenue-
analysis/
 http://www.academia.edu/8744694/Amazon.com_Inc.
_a_case_study_analysis
 https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/15-
044_d9d88071-7cf7-4d0f-90ba-548e018265ef.pdf

39.  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261440748_
A_STUDY_ON_AMAZON_INFORMATION_SYSTEMS_BUS
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 https://www.informationweek.com/from-scratch-
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 http://media.corporate-
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df
 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/00
0101872414000006/amzn-20131231x10k.htm