Amazon and eCommerce essays

Amazon and eCommerce essays Amazon.com is now an online retailer of books, toys, music, DVDs, clothing, house-wares and a variety of other products. Its services are aimed primarily at the internet consumer, the person who goes online and uses Amazon.coms website to find a product. It all began in 1994 when Jeff Bezo, Amazon.coms CEO and founder, believed books had the potential to be sold on the internet. It was clear that computers and the internet could be uniquely applied to organize, present and sell the entire stock in a way that a physical store or mail-order catalogue couldnt possibly imagine. After one year of building a support infrastructure, Amazon.com was launched in 1995. In May 1997, Amazon.com went public at a price of $18 a share raising $54 million in its public stock offering. I believe the single biggest reason why Amazon.com has been successful while other ecommerce companies have failed can be attributed directly to its continued focus on the customers needs and satisfaction. Any business , large or small, willing to be more conscientious and treat customers like human beings can achieve profitability. For success on the internet, the business and customer experience is more important than the web site on which it is built. Amazon.com continually moves towards creating the electronic equivalent of a personnel-shopping assistant to distinguish itself from all possible competition. They do not wish to be viewed as just another online store. Amazon.coms leading role has also meant the company is constantly exploring uncharted territory. It also means constantly tweaking plans while trying to figure out how people want to shop online. They were able to increase the customer experience through improved operations. Were different from other online retailers in that we have a technology base that allows customers to find, discover and glean out of hundreds of millions of products, those that ...

Family Photograph Appreciation - Richard Chlafen essays

Family Photograph Appreciation - Richard Chlafen essays In the article, Family Photograph Appreciation, Richard Chalfen discusses a teenage view of the relation between family snapshots and home videos. He first explains the value of personal photos using an example of natural or humanly coerced disasters and the mourning of visual traces of the past, or in other words, photographs. Family photographs are a very important aspect of peoples lives and without them we may never remember our past. By looking at snapshots, slides, home movies, etc, we stimulate our memory of important dates and events. He asks many questions about memory and video verses photography which will be discussed with teens he has interviewed. Chalfen has structured an exploratory project that asked a small sample of thirty teenagers, living in the Cambridge/Boston areas of Massachusetts to evaluate the relative merits of using still photography and/or videography as a preferred medium of family photography. (Richard Chalfen) He conducted the interviews with two teens at a time while having a meal in a small restaurant. He was interested in their opinions on comparing photography and videography, which came out to be very interesting. The teens explained to him about the effects of video tapes and how they were a way of being there all over again. Some of them felt it was more realistic than flipping through a picture album. Here we will introduce a few more of the theories made by teens during their interviews. Videotapes seem to supply the viewer with more information and makes it easy to remember. You get sound and movement to enhance the overall effect which brings you to see the whole experience. In many interviews the teens did not feel that videos were the best way to go. By looking at photographs it set off a whole lot of memories, not just what happened play by play like a home video. By looking at photographs you can use your imagina...

The Distribution and Logistics System Adopted By Wal-Mart Essay

The Distribution and Logistics System Adopted By Wal-Mart - Essay Example This research will begin with the statement that Wal-Mart has 158 centers of distribution globally. These centers of distribution are exceedingly automated and function 24 every day. Every center is more than one million square feet big. The full conveyor belts length within each center is projected to be five miles. There is a totality of seven thousand drivers, 55,000 trailers, and 6,500 tractors. Every distribution center sustains about ninety to one hundred stores, in the expanse of two hundred miles. While considering the growth of trade to a novel area, Wal-Mart has to select a distribution center locality. This location is required to be where ninety to one hundred storehouses have the aptitude to be constructed around. No register is amassed at the centers of distribution given that Wal-Mart utilizes the â€Å"hub-and-spoke† system of distribution. Merchandise is picked up straight from the producers by a 6,500 motor vehicles fleet. They have organized at the hubs afte rward and dispensed to storehouse in one or two days. With particular goods or for unique orders, the corporation also makes the most of the manufacturers’ system of delivery to distribute the merchandise straight from the stockrooms to the stores. Wal-Mart has utilized Radio frequency identification technology, which allows the company to have the aptitude to track merchandise through the chain of supply. An RFID structure is made up of three major components, which are a label, a reader, as well as a central processing unit system. These labels are typically capable of stocking up to 2 kilobytes of data. The stored information may take account of product recognition, the manufacturing time, and the cost of the merchandise. These labels can later be attached independently to the physical merchandise itself or even to the merchandise packaging. Whereas the valuable data is stored within the label, it requires a reader so that it can be able to detect, gather, and make sense o f the information. Lastly, a central processing unit system is utilized to interpret, sort out, and amass the gathered information in a significant manner. Wal-Mart’s technology helps the company to examine the general system well-being, recognizing bottlenecks and additional potentially helpful information. RFID labels are eye-catching since they are effortlessly read and are able to be read this makes it easier for Wal-Mart to be effective in their services.