Apple and Amazon Companies - Essay Example

Comparison of the Marketing Strategies in Apple and Amazon Companies Executive Summary The Apple Inc. is an American-based company that deals with the manufacture and sell of computers, mobile phones, and other electronic gadgets (“Apple Store U.S.” n.p.). The company has many Apple Stores all around the world to serve their loyal customers conveniently. The Apple Stores are a major player in the retail market in America. They are one of the leading companies in terms of sale in the American retail company. The company has over four hundred retail in stores distributed in approximately twenty countries. Likewise, Amazon.com, Inc. is an American-based company that dominates the United States retail markets (“Amazon Online Shopping” n.p.). The company deals with electronic commerce and it has strived to become the best online-based retailer in the region. It originally started as an online bookstore but in the recent times, it has greatly diversified into the sale of compact disks, furniture, software, toys, video games, food, electronics, and jewelry. Just like Apple, Amazon produces consumer electronics such as the Fire TV sets, Fire mobile phones, Fire tablets, and the Amazon Kindle e-book. The company has separate websites for its different market regions. Some of its market regions include; the United States, Canada, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, Netherlands, China and Japan. Marketing Strategies In a bid to compare and contrast these two retailing companies, it is very essential to look at their marketing strategies. Figure 1: B2B Marketing Trends. "B2B Marketing Trends Survey 2012 Report." Surveys. Web. 7 May 2015, This graph is essential in determining the various strategies different companies use in their marketing programs. Apple and Amazon are no exceptions in this situation. The graph compares the different marketing strategies used in a period of two years against their popularity among companies (“B2B Marketing Trends Report” n.p.). An analysis of these strategies would act as a good way to compare and contrast the two companies. According to Moorman (n.p.), Apple has managed to emerge as the best overall winner of marketing excellence surveys, and the latest being the 2012 award. Scrutinizing the company’s marketing policies would be a good starting point to this analysis. Just as Moorman (n.p.) continues to explain, Apple has been successful in the electronics market primary because of its marketing strategies. Apple’s marketing approach constitutes the following three strong pillars: empathy, focus, and impute. Empathy implies that the company should be in a better position to understand the needs of their customers than their competitors do. In a move to maintain focus, the company puts its attention to important opportunities that will enable them be in apposition to do a perfect job (Moorman n.p.). Impute refers to the presentation or packaging of a product. Many consumers judge a product by its package; therefore, the company invests heavily in the packaging of its products. In many instances, consumers do not purchase products that are not presented well despite how good they may be. Presenting goods in an appropriate and professional manner imputes their desired qualities. Marketing Techniques One of the marketing strategies that Apple implements to become one among the best marketers is hiring of employees who focus fundamentally on customers’ concerns (“Apple Store U.S. n.p.). Apple employees are more than determined to ensure that their customers obtain full satisfaction from purchasing Apple products. They go to the extent of researching the customer experiences and becoming deeply entrenched in their products. Accordingly, they are able to understand the desirable products; thus, they focus on the enhancement and further improvement of the products. Apple uses Iterative customer involvement. The company highly encourages customer participation in the design of their products. It incorporates customers’ experiences, desires, and needs into its design processes. This fact makes customers more attached to the products since they feel responsible of the new designs that come to the market. In accordance with Apple Store U.S (n.p.), the company also builds compatible experiences. Customers usually demand their entertainment and computing system to be compatible and work as a system. Both the hardware and software electronic gadgets should be compatible to ease usage of the appliances. Due to this fact of compatibility, the company designs a wide range of electronic appliances ranging from hardware to software. The fact that customers can now acquire the Mac, iPhone, iPod, iPad, and iTunes is of great value to the marketing strategy of the company. The company puts the customers in situations where they can easily differentiate their products and services from the rest. In keeping with Chu (63), Apple creates many forums and exhibitions in which customers from all round the world can experience the diversity of the company’s products. This initiative makes many customers appreciate the aesthetic appearances of the company’s product. They also come to appreciate the technological advancement and the durability of the electrical appliances in question. These avenues also create a podium where customers can go for support on areas upon which they require light to be shed (“Apple Store U.S.” n.p.). Advertisement Chu (53) notes that Apple uses flashy advertising in a bid to market their products. The company invests heavily in the advertising of its products to uplift its brand name. This technique of marketing started some years back when Macintosh was launched in a Super Bowl advertisement. These advertisements attracted many customers to prefer Apple products. These advertisements made Apple’s products to be linked with the upper social class and therefore their demand rose all over the world. The company knocks out many of its competitors such as the IBM using this marketing technique. The iPod was also widely advertised with the famous advertisement of celebrities dancing to their own tunes of music, creating hype in the industry (“Apple Store U.S.” n.p). Despite Amazon being on the online retail market, which Apple does not participate so much in, it similarly dominates the retail market. The discussion of its marketing strategies would be an important tool in its comparison with Apple. First Amazon provides free shipping services on the purchase of their products (“Amazon Online Shopping” n.p.). A large percentage of customers all around the world do not make purchases overseas due to the associated shipping costs. These shipping costs make the purchase costs of these products and services too high to afford. Amazon knocks out its competitors by the provision of free shipping. This makes their goods cheaper than those of their competitors do. The second marketing strategy that the company adopts is the onsite product reviews (Newcombe et al, 67). The company provides a platform on its various websites where customers can comment on the products that are on sale. Customers comment on their feelings and experiences about the products. They also make recommendations and advise other consumers of the products about the commodities in question. This forum attracts more customers into purchasing the products since they get firsthand information about the products unlike the usual advertising information, which its reliability is usually put into question. This technique is very efficient because a recent study revealed that more than eighty percent of the consumers research online before making purchases on products. In keeping with Newcombe et al. (68), this strategy also helps the company to improve the areas that customers have made recommendations and the ones that they have expressed dissatisfaction. In addition, Amazon invests heavily into its information technology systems to have a desirable power of page speed (Newcombe et al. 70). The online services are the backbone of this business; therefore, the speed in which the company’s web page loads is a great factor towards its marketing success. The web page of the company loads very quickly to allow access of as many customers as possible to increase their sales. Many customers that the company relies on are corporates who extremely value their time. Enabling them to access easily the information they desire about the various products they are willing to purchase will maintain their loyalty towards the company. The Company also makes searching a breeze. The company has designed their search bar in a way that makes one locate the product they need easily (“Amazon Online Shopping” n.p.). The ease to locate a desired product makes one purchase a product easily and conveniently. This fact increases the sales made at a given period. Conclusion Amazon and Apple companies are similar in one way or another. They both participate in the retail markets. They also deal with the production and sell of consumer electronic devices. Both the companies excel in the retail markets despite them using different marketing strategies. Works Cited "B2B Marketing Trends Survey 2012 Report." Surveys. Web. 7 May 2015, "Our Contributors - Business 2 Community." Web. 8 Apr. 2015. “Amazon.Com: Online Shopping For Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, “Official Apple Store U.S. - Mac, Apple Watch, Iphone, and Ipad,” 2015. Web. 20 Apr. 2015, Chu, Jeff. "A New Season at Apple. (Cover Story)." Fast Company 182 (2014): 52-101. Print. Moorman, Christine. "Why Apple Is a Great Marketer." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 7 July 2012. Web. 7 May 2015, Newcombe, Chris, et al. "How Amazon Web Services Uses Formal Methods." Communications of the ACM 58.4 (2015): 66-73. Print. Read More