Amazon.com: Pioneer in On- Line Retailing
Written: Jan 07 '02 (Updated Oct 24 '06)
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Amazon.com is the world’s largest on- line retailer and one of the best- known names on the world wide web. This company started in 1995, offering the largest selection of books on the internet. Today, Amazon.com has expanded its retail services to include a more diverse selection of products. In addition to books, Amazon.com sells compact discs, DVD, video games, kitchen and hardware items, computer hardware and software, cell phones, electronics, toys, auction items, and much more.
Features of This Service:
Amazon.com has improved its services over the years and it’s a very enjoyable site to use. Buying merchandise is as simple as logging into the site, going to the category of your choice, and then searching by sub category or by entering the name of the specific item you wish to buy, in the search box. Amazon.com has lots of product information, editorial remarks, and customer reviews, to help you make a buying decision.
Perhaps you want to buy something, but you want to browse a little and look for something to buy, rather than look for a specific item. If you do, then Amazon.com will assist you in your search for the perfect book, CD, video, etc. There are many ways to browse for items. Let’s say, for example, that I want to look for a book about history. I could then logon to the books section, and click the sub category for history. Once here, I would have several ways to look for a new book. I could either search by using one of Amazon.com’s special categories, like “History Best Sellers”, “Editor’s Choice”, “Best Books of 2001”, etc. Or, I could select a more narrowed- down category (like military history, African history, ancient history, etc.). Once the desired category is selected, you can then browse the list of available items and select a sort option. You can sort by either looking at the featured items, best- sellers, average customer review, price (from high to low), publication date, or an alphabetical list from “A” to “Z” or “Z” to “A”. Also, you can look at a quick list, from the main page for books that will show you the current 100 top selling books. With so many ways to search, it’s very easy to find something to fulfill your wishes.
Submitting Reviews:
Just like Epinions.com, Amazon.com lets customers post consumer reviews of products. Before I found out about Epinions.com, I submitted some reviews to Amazon.com, on books that I had read. When you enter a review, you are asked to rate the item, from one to five stars, and type a brief review. Unlike Epinion.com, Amazon doesn’t pay its writers. Also, when you submit a review to Amazon.com, you will have to wait a few days for it to get posted. It has to go through an editing process, before they will publish it.
Recommendation Center:
This is one of my favorite Amazon.com features. Each time you make a purchase, Amazon.com keeps track of your selections and then looks for other books, movies, CD’s, etc., that other people have purchased who also bought the same products that you did. In other words, they look for buying patterns and then show you the recommended items, personalized according to your own buying habits, in the recommendation center.
In the early days of Amazon.com, the recommendations were based solely on purchases. Now, they have expanded this and the recommendations also include any items that you have rated. You can rate any item that you want, regardless of whether or not you have made a purchase. You don’t need to write a review, either. You just pull up the selection, and rate it from 1 to 5 stars.
The recommendations that Amazon.com displays are very accurate. Right now, I’m looking at my recommended book list, which includes 105 different literary works. Most every one of these books looks appealing. Out of these 105 books, I would consider reading about 100 of them. That’s a very good accuracy rate, and it gives me a lot of confidence in the Amazon.com system.
If you don’t like an item on the recommended list, or if you already own one of the items, then you can just click an icon, and Amazon will instantly produce a new recommendation list for you. If you’re wondering why Amazon.com has selected a book for you, and placed it on your recommended list, you can click a link that will show you the basis for the recommendation (i.e., the other similar items that you purchased).
Some of the other features in Amazon.com that relate to recommendations include the "wish list"; "personal store", and "page you made". The wish list is simply a listing of items that you have personally selected for possible future purchase. Each time you view an item, you have the option of adding it to the wish list. This list remains in storage and can be viewed whenever you logon. If you want to remove something, in the future, you just click the "remove" icon.
The personal store is a collection of all the recommendations, across all areas. In your personal store, you will find links to recommendations for books, CD's, movies, electronics, etc., based on your purchases and ratings.
The "page you made" is yet another recommendation feature. When you logon to Amazon.com and browse through merchandise, Amazon.com keeps track of the pages that you view and creates a summary page of recommendations, based on the items that you looked at. This feature is sometimes helpful, but not always. It depends on whether or not you have been looking at items that interest you. If you have been viewing items that you don't necessarily like, then the "page you made" will be of little or no use.
Pricing/Shipping/Handling:
Making a purchase from Amazon.com is fast and easy. Next to each item, a price is displayed which is usually very competitive with store prices. Sometimes, Amazon.com will offer a special discount to you, if you buy selected pairs of items in the same category. For example, in the books section, there might be two popular best sellers, that are being offered for $20 each. But, if you purchase both of them, the price drops to $35 total.
Amazon.com’s shipping rates vary, based on the size of the item. For books, CD’s, DVD’s, and other small items, the standard shipping price is $3.99 for the first item, and $.99 for each additional item (UPS second day, and next day air is also available, for a higher price). Therefore, it’s most advantageous to make a purchase from Amazon.com if you buy many items all at once. Since there is no sales tax to pay (unless you live in Washington state), your total cost, with shipping charges added, will often be less with Amazon.com than it would be if you went to the store. But this won’t hold true, if you purchase a small number of items at a low cost. For example, two books costing $25.00 each would carry a shipping charge of $4.98. Where I live, the sales tax is 6 percent. So, making the same purchase in my local bookstore would cost me only $3.00 in sales tax. As the total purchase value increases, the advantage of buying from Amazon.com slowly improves.
Not all of your selections will be available for immediate shipment. If you want a really obscure book or movie, Amazon.com will find it for you, but you should expect the shipping to be delayed several days or more. With each item, Amazon.com shows, right on the product display screen, the estimated number of days for shipment. This takes the guesswork out of it. You know, before you even make a purchase, a rough idea of when you can expect to receive the item in the mail.
Final Thoughts:
I’ve done a lot of web surfing in the past few years, and among all the retail web sites in cyberspace, Amazon.com is the one I have made the most purchases from. I have never had any problems with Amazon. Some items have taken a little longer to arrive than I would have preferred, but I can’t really complain because I knew this before I placed the order.
I frequently logon to Amazon.com, even when I’m not looking to buy anything, just to see the latest releases and to check on my recommendations. The recommendations remain basically the same from day to day, but Amazon.com does shuffle things around a little bit, so there’s always something new to discover in your personalized recommendations.
Amazon.com is also very quick with answering questions. I have sent them many questions over the years, and they always follow- up in reasonable time (often less than one day). I have also called them on the phone, and they were quick and courteous.
Amazon.com is an excellent web service, and I have thoroughly enjoyed my experiences with this site. They offer personalized service, along with an ever- expanding variety of products that includes millions of selections, some of which you may not be able to find in other sites or in retail stores.
Amazon.com is a pioneer in the business of on- line retailing. Even though other “dot- coms” have seen their demise in the past few years, Amazon.com has survived. The site continues to improve and expand its products and services. As long as it continues to keep in touch with the customer and satisfy customer needs, Amazon.com should remain at the top of the class in world- wide- web retailing. It’s a great web site!
Be Sure to Click the Links Below to Read More Reviews of Book- Related Web Sites:
Barnes and Noble
Books- A- Million
Mystery Guild
Zooba
Doubleday Book Club
Amazon Marketplace
Half.com
History Book Club
Recommended:
Yes
What product did you purchase or try to purchase? Books
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