Action plan for Amazon in Spain
...s Selected Spanish books published in America Selected products from North/South America Software Create “your store” Magazines Selected English products Video game Hardware Create “wish list” English books Provide membership E-books Used books 3.2 Pricing 3.2.1 Price for books: 5% discount for Spanish books published in Spain. 10% discount for imported books with price above 20 euros (this price setting need to be justified according to the cost and operation overhead) Free shipment for all purchase of new books (Amazon can not provide its customers a lower price on new Spanish books because of the law. Free shipment can be a compromise of price for customers) Price of books from third parties will be set by the sellers, but not higher than the price listed by Amazon 3.2.2 Price for Music/DVD/Video: 20-30% discount on music compared with retail price. (The price discount of biggest competitor “El Corte Ingles” is about 15-25%) Provide lower price on DVD/Video compared with El Corte Ingles and FNAC (The discounts of DVD/Video are usually various according to the market reactions. It is hard to decide there) Free shipment for all purchase above 20 euros Price of Music/DVD/Video from third parties will be set by the sellers, but not higher than the price listed by Amazon 3.2.3 Price for Video Games & Software Provide lower price than El Corte Ingles and FNAC Free shipment for all purchase above 20 euros Price of Video Games & Software from third parties will be set by the sellers, but not higher than the price listed by Amazon 3.3 Promotion After about 10 years E-commerce operation, Amazon.com enjoys a brand awareness worldwide. However, Amazon.es should be carefully promoted in Spain. Our main purpose of promotion is to increase the brand awareness of Amazon.es. Four main aspects will be emphasized: high reliability, low price, convenience, and large selection. In the first year of operation, our promotion is divided into two stages: before website launch stage and after launch stage. 3.3.1 Before launch stage Before website launch, our promotion carriers are mainly press, street posters. Press: We are going to arrange press releases for two major events: acquisition and website launch. These press releases will inform people about the Amazon’s history and success outside Spain and the arrival of Amazon in Spain. This way of advertising can reduce the intangibility of the company. The audience we can reach by this method is also large. Street posters: Street poster is a good way to promote a website, because it gives people enough time to remember the website address. We choose Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Bilbao, and Seville to launch our street poster advertising. The campaign will start a couple of days before the launch of website to promote the website and inform the launch date. It will last until a couple of days after the launch of website. 3.3.2 After launch stage After website launch, we will mainly rely on magazine, on-line and direct promotion. Magazine: We will select magazines related to our business categories, such as book review, video game guide and etc to carry our advertising. Two campaigns will be made in the first two month after the launch on selected magazines. We will also ask the magazines listed on our website to promote Amazon.es for next year’s subscription. On-line: We will choose three to four popular websites to carry our online advertising after the launch of website. On-line promotion is the most convenient way for prospects to access Amazon.es. But the overwhelming information carried by major gate websites may moderate people’s attention to the ads. It is necessary for us to find the best carriers. Direct promotion: We will make direct promotion toward customers in Company X’s database using email. Those customers have the experience of online shopping or online browsing product information. They are more likely to make online purchase. Once they have good experience with Amazon.es, they might act as advocators of Amazon.es. 3.4 Process 3.4.1 Suppliers: Amazon relies on its suppliers for pursuing a faster and most cost effective operation. So it is important to build up a good relationship with our suppliers. Amazon can even provide certain technical support for building up a better demand-supplier system. In Spain, the following steps should be made to ensure a good beginning of operation: Negotiate with book suppliers of company X, build up a better operation mode. Negotiate with big publishers such as Grupo Planeta for the best offer and a long term partnership. Negotiate with Music/DVD/Video and Video Games & Software suppliers for product lists, price and operation mode. Oversee suppliers will be current suppliers of Amazon. 3.4.2 Logistics A warehouse of company X in Madrid region will be kept. The following steps will be made before public launch of website: Build up better information system inside the warehouse and design information process Redesign warehouse layout for a better operation process Design logistic process: reception—stocking—expedition 3.4.3 Delivery The Amazon delivery system will be based on the Spanish postal system. Before the public launch of website, we should: Make agreement with Spanish postal on delivery, time, insurance, packaging, price, unfulfilled delivery treatment and etc. An agreement with a private delivering company can also be made for emergency or special delivery. 3.4.4 Payment One of Amazon’s purposes is to provide convenience to its customers. Amazon should give customer most convenient payment terms. In Spain, online payment is still perceived as insecure. People are afraid of fraud of credit card information. We should provide multiple online payment choices. More secure online payment ways will be accepted such as disposable prepaid cards and e-purse cards. So before the public launch of our website in Spain, we need to: Negotiate payment agreements with major banks in Spain, such as BBVA, La Caixa, Santander and Caja Madrid on different card payments. Build up the payment acceptance, registering, invoicing system 3.4.5 Service For internet retailing reliability is very important. We need to increase the reliability of our service by controlling the service encounter. Two areas are highly concerned to service encounter control: Technical aspects: The website is the major place where customers encounter our service. It is on our website customers get pre-consumption information, experience the convenience brought by our service. It is also on our website we win customers’ confidence and get their paym...