Amazon Supply Chain
Mar 10th, 2011 by beverleycheng
Because Amazon is the company my group and I are researching and since we have been discussing the supply chain for different companies, I figured it was appropriate to combine these two topics into my next blog post. Also, since I have recently purchased a pair of beautiful Womens Absolado-X Firm Ground Predator from Amazon, I am excitedly anticipating their arrival.
Amazon uses one main supply chain. Customers go to the Amazon.com website, browse for products, and place orders. Once an order is placed, Amazon.com decides which internal distribution center should be responsible for shipping the order to the customer. Amazon.com is then responsible for coordinating the fulfillment of the order. When products are sourced from its internal distribution centers, Amazon.com picks, packs, and ships the order. When products are sourced from a drop shipper, such as a book distributor, the distributor packages the item in an Amazon.com box and delivers it to the customer (Maltz et al., 2004).
Amazon is known for their tightly integrated and sophisticated supply chain. Jeffrey Wilke the senior VP of worldwide operations stated “”When we think about how we’re going to grow our company, we focus on price, selection, and availability. All three depend critically on the supply chain.”
Amazons supply chain is so tightly integrated that customers who order an item know almost immediately how long it should take to ship, how many pieces there will be, and any other relevant information. They rely heavily on their technology, and much less on actual human resources to fulfill any inventory issues.
I believe that due to Amazon’s unwavering customer service and speedy deliveries, this has helped them to become one of the largest online retailers, and sure hope to see my cleats in the very near future =)
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