Monthly Archives: October 2014

“Amazon, the retailer and entertainment company reported on Thursday that is lost 95 cents a share in the third quarter, compared with a loss of 9 cents in 2013.”

Amazon fails to realize its goals to make more profit this year. Instead, its stock is falling. What cause Amazon’s decline? We could analyze from internal and external factors.

Unlike eBay that includes variable categories of goods, Amazon mainly focuses on selling books and electronics and provides fewer commodities such as clothes and shoes. Furthermore, Amazon charges higher price compared to other similar website. Less diversified goods and relatively high price are weaknesses for Amazon.

With more and more online stores such as Alibaba’s Taobao developing, Amazon has more strong competitors. Also, many brands tend to have their own official website to sell goods as a way of improving customer relationship. Normally, consumers prefer to buy goods on the official website since many companies provide all their goods on their own website but website like Amazon only provide part of goods of those brands.

Amazon is trying to improve by overcoming internal weaknesses and looking for new way to compete with counterparts. On the one hand it enhances music and video and music service to attract more customers. On the other hand, Amazon plans to open its physical store, which would be an advantage over its competitors.

Resource and Picture from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/24/technology/amazon-loss-quarterly-earnings.html?_r=0

Picture from: <http://www.turtlegardens.org>

Establishing partnership with aboriginal people enhances national cohesion and benefits social harmony. The core idea of partnership is to share resources and therefore promote development of both sides. First Nation partnership is an important issue for Canadian government to deal with. The cooperation between government and First Nation enhances the development of companies.

Picture from: Sunnews

Aboriginal people own a portion of land with abundant natural resources which is not available now. But if the government builds partnership, some companies, such as energy companies can use the natural resources, at the same time, offer job opportunity for those aboriginal people as exchange. Aboriginal people can become not only labor force but also consumers. The energy company can cooperate with local community and provide energy for that region.

Resources:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/background-the-indian-act-1.1056988

Yahoo sells a portion of stake of Alibaba Group and tends to invest Snapchat, a popular photo and messages sharing app among young people. As we know, Yahoo’s investment in Alibaba undoubtedly makes profit simply in terms  of  investment return. And now Yahoo targets to a potential company. But would the investment in Snapchat also be a successful try?

Snapchat allows users to set the time that they want the system to automatically delete photos they upload and does not allow other users to take screenshot. This function protects users’ privacy. And that is the “Point Of Difference” between Snapchat and its competitor Instagram. However, users worry about that other users could still take photos of what they upload by using other phones and camera. Using Snapchat means to take risk of privacy disclosure. Establishing trust with users is not a easy task for Snapchat. Thus considering this reason, Snapchat may lose a portion of users. Besides, Snapchat mainly targets on young people while Instagram targets on broader users. Snapchat may not have large market as Instagram has. Therefore, Yahoo needs to consider carefully before making decision about investment to Snapchat.

Resource and Picture from: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/10/03/yahoo-in-talks-to-invest-in-snapchat/

If you ask people in China whether they have ever bought commodities on Taobao, most of them would answer, “Yes”.

Alibaba always knows what customers need. Alibaba knows that Chinese need a website to purchase commodities with cheaper price so it designs Taobao and Tmall. Alibaba targets on broad customers and satisfied the need for both buyers and sellers. Taobao mainly targets on low to middle class consumers  and small merchants while Tmall targets on middle to upper class and big merchants which sell some well-known brands.

Alibaba knows that Chinese love discount so it designs “Shopping Day” which discounts the price and provides e-coupon for consumers. Such strategy promotes sales and draws more attention from customers.

Alibaba knows that Chinese consumers do not trust strangers from website. To build trust between buyer and sellers, Alibaba provides verification service and designs Alipay.

Alibaba sees things from customers’ point of view. It caters to consumers’ need as much as possible, eliminates customers’ worries and maximize consumers’ satisfaction. That is why Alibaba gets success.