CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, U.S.A., 1998 MAY 7 (NB) -- By Bob Woods, Newsbytes.
Of all of the jockeying for market share and dollars on the World Wide
Web, one of the most successful companies that industry insiders point
to is Net-based bookseller Amazon.com Inc. [NASDAQ:AMZN]. Not only is
it the number one bookseller on the Web, it is the number three
bookseller overall, said George Aposporos, vice president of business
development at Amazon.com.
Aposporos spoke at the AdTech Chicago conference and exposition, which
is being held this week.
While many companies claim to be at the top of their game in one
form or another, Amazon.com can back up its claim with numbers. Even
though the company reported a first quarter loss, it beat Wall Street
estimates by $0.07, according to First Call. Net sales for the quarter
were $87.4 million, a 32 percent increase over net sales of $66.0
million reported for the fourth quarter ended December 31, 1997. In
addition, net sales increased a whopping 446 percent over net sales of
$16.0 million reported for the first quarter of 1997.
Cumulative customer accounts grew to over 2,260,000 at the end of the
quarter, an increase of 50 percent from 1,510,000 customer accounts at
the end of the fourth quarter 1997, and 564 percent from 340,000
customer accounts at the end of the year ago first quarter.
At least one analyst Newsbytes recently spoke to about Amazon.com
was not concerned that the bookseller was losing money. Gartner Group
electronic commerce analyst Roy Satterthwaite said that he agrees with
the company's strategy of forsaking short-term earnings in favor of
the long-term plan of building a strong brand. "Just ask Coke or Pepsi
about the importance of a strong brand," Satterthwaite said.
In his speech late Wednesday, Aposporos emphasized the strength of
the Amazon.com brand, how it got to be so strong, and how it would
continue to grow.
Aposporos said that two of the keys in his company's present and future
success is its partnership deals and customer satisfaction. On the
former, he said that Amazon.com "looks for partners who care about
customers, and who can create value-added services for users."
Amazon.com has more than 40,000 "associates," or smaller Web sites
that recommend books through Amazon.com. The bookseller also has
struck larger partner deals with big Web names like AOL.com, Yahoo,
Netscape, Excite and AtHome Network.
The company also puts much stock into customer value, with an
authoritative site, a convenient site to use, competitive pricing,
personalized services, "superb" customer service and customer
interaction, Aposporos said.
Amazon.com also has a lot of "tributaries" that "feed into our growth,"
Aposporos said, with one of the big ones being that "most visitors (to
the Amazon.com site) come back because of word of mouth or great
customer service." He also emphasized that the two million plus
customer number given in the company's first quarter financial report
was people actually buying books, not just visiting the site.
But Amazon.com's brand is ultimately built online, he said. "It comes
from the experience of the site. That's what builds your brand; it
builds from the inside out. People come to trust Amazon.com and our
site. We're certainly one of the places where people have their 'first
shopping experience on the Web,' where people can break through the fear
of using their credit card online."
In terms of future growth, Aposporos stated that while Amazon.com now
has more than two million customers, the untapped market is huge:
About 20 million people consider themselves as "Web buyers," while
more than 78 million actually use the Web, he claimed.
Amazon.com hopes to reach that market not only through traditional
means like advertising, but by word-of-mouth and through partnerships,
he added.
AdTech Chicago runs through Friday at the Hyatt Regency. A Web site
for the show is at ad-tech.com .
Reported By Newsbytes News Network: newsbytes.com . |
