Clouded by the release of the ipad mini, news this week brought light the issue of Amazon’s 3 quarter earnings. Their forecasts for the fourth quarter holiday shopping period are not looking too great either. Amazon spends heavily on new distribution warehouses and technology to support its cloud-computing business. On top of this they sell their kindle tablets at cost, which does not help short term earnings.
I think that in order to have a better forecast of the fourth quarter and to continue being successful, they need to start looking into marketing and advertising to people who purchase their kindle products. They should figure out who the consumers are and put them into groups that they will start focusing their marketing on. I am not sure if they already do this or not, but it would help their sales. I know they are more worried about short term sales but this would all around help their numbers.
To fix the issue of short term sales they should make selling and purchasing on amazon more desirable. They have already put things into place such as Amazon Prime and allowed people to try a free trial for a month. You get free two day shipping and other neat perks. Little programs such as this could really make using Amazon’s services more appealing and raise their short term sales. Another program they could put in place is something like every time you purchase books, movies, cds, etc. you get points or % off on kindle products such as e-books.
Amazon needs to focus on creating incentives for their consumers and figure out who their main consumer is.
What should Amazon do to raise their short term sales? Should they really be worried about short term sales or does the purchasing on kindle products later on make up for it? Amazon is a powerful company in todays economy and they need to focus on maintaining that status.
I agree with you about Amazon’s marketing of their Kindles. I feel as if their marketing are just to let people know that there are Kindles but to people, it is just information to them. Their marketing teams does need to figure out how to make people think that they need it or want it.
As for Amazon’s big third quarter loss, I think it is because of their selling of their Kindles at costs. Amazon’s strategy is more long term rather than short term because they hope that short term, a lot of people will buy the Kindles; then in the long term, Amazon will eventually get their earnings back when the loyal consumers who bought the Kindles buys books, music, and videos from them for their Kindles.
I also agree that Amazon should market their Kindles more often than they do. They have to create just as many, if not more, commercials about how convenient it is to own a Kindle as opposed to buying Apple’s iPad Mini. If they can do that they will definitely increase their fourth quarter sales. With the holiday season coming up too now would be the best time to act upon marketing their Kindle with the idea of it being very convenient for the everyday person to own one. I don’t own a Kindle, but I would buy it for a friend or family member as a gift if I knew they enjoyed reading and commute via bus or train to work, school, or anywhere in general. Amazon is the largest bookstore in the world and they should use it as their advantage to promote Kindle users to buy books from their as opposed to other competitors.
I agree with the above comments. Amazon needs to advertise their kindle more since they are in competition with other companies that produce e-readers, mainly Apple products that provide similar features. Everywhere I go I see advertisements for Apple products, not kindles. I think they can get a larger customer base if they advertized more and maybe offered other incentives, such as discounts on e-books, since many people use amazon to buy other things.
Amazon’s marketing sucks, let’s just be honest. I don’t know if everybody else’s family believes that Kindle’s are more aimed for children and the iPad is for adults, but that’s what my family believes. I have 10 nieces and nephews, and seven of them have Kindle Fires with tons of games, the other three are too young yet. Why a Kindle and not an iPad? They are cheaper and if they get broken, their parents wouldn’t care as much, but once the kids start to play with their parents’ iPads, they are quickly taken away for fear of getting broke and having to reinvest into another one. Everywhere we go we see iPad and Samsung tablet advertisements, even on the el train (the huge ad at North and Clybourn), but not much Kindle advertising. The only reason I even know about a kindle is because I have to walk past them in Barnes and Noble everyday I go to class. With the holiday seasons coming up and black Friday, it would be an opportune time to step their advertising game up and become and Apple competitor. I believe that Amazon might actually get a boost in sales when compared to the iPad mini, just because the size comparison and the price difference, but not when compared to the original bigger iPad. It will be fun to watch and see if this true or if the iPad mini will take over the market.
It would have been cool to have the link to the original post.
It is clear from the information that Amazon does have a major issue to contend with given their forecasting. The premise that this same forecasting can allow them a basis off of which to determine what can be done shows the utility of forecasting. The idea of putting Amazon’s practices through such an analysis is probably the best approach for Amazon at this time. Without the forecast information Amazon would be woefully hard pressed to determine the initial issues, and secondarily to address the issues with proper marketing and advertising processes as identified in your post.
Putting more effort into marketing their Kindle given its low cost and utility would allow Amazon the potential of gaining a greater market share of the book selling market. In a world where technology is ever more present and desired by consumers, the Kindle versus a paper based book could easily, as the tittle suggest, bring into question whether or not a paper back book will be recognized by the next generation.
I also agree with everyone above me, honestly Amazon’s way of marketing focuses only on long term like their new Kindle they will be selling at cost to beat the cost of other competitor’s tablets such as the Samsung Galaxy Note and Apple’s iPad. So if they’re looking into everything for the holidays, they will not be seeing much income coming in their pocket until consumers starts purchasing apps from their kindle. Also, talking about incentives or points for their customers, I think the only incentives besides the program they are offering are the Amazon credit card which not a lot of people have. I see the advertisement every time I order a product off their website, the amount they say I will save is not that worth it in today’s economy. I really think Amazon should implement a new perks program that will get consumers to purchase items from their site such as discount amount for college students purchasing a certain dollar amount on textbooks or free shipping after a certain amount instead of participating items.
I agree that Amazon needs to work on their short term goals. In their defense, with the sale of their kindle being at a low cost, they have a major competitor, which is Apple and Samsung. It is hard on saying what exactly Amazon can do to increase their sales, but I believe they are looking at a long term strategy by keeping their main product, the kindle, at such a low price. What they could do is market it more, a lot more. You see a lot more ads on their competitors than Amazon itself. They need to show people it is user friendly and made for all ages and how it is the new generation of a paperless book. There are a lot of improvements to be made, but I believe Amazon will prevail. They are a huge business and have a lot of ways to make themselves the top competitor in their biggest product.