Introduction
Amazon.com firmly holds its position as the world’s premier marketplace. The company sells products from a diversity of manufacturers; it also manages a business in almost every existing industry. A new era in marketing history was started due to offering a broad audience the ability to shop from their homes. Jeff Bezos – the company’s CEO, has recognized customer service as the most critical aspect of Amazon’s function. Despite the fact that the majority of clients still shop in offline stores, Amazon’s share of consumption continues to grow.
Amazon’s website could be considered user-friendly as it corresponds to the crucial points for online shopping. The informational system provides a quick search for desired items on the site, sorting goods engine, different filters, convenient product cards, and a transparent ordering algorithm. The user of the online store seeks to find a product immediately. The purpose of the item card is to provide the necessary information and motivate the user to click on the “Buy” button. Amazon submits full details on the goods, including name, price, and availability. Creating an e-commerce site such as Amazon is based on a functional information system that should be examined because it defines the business’s economic prosperity.
Characteristics of the Users of the System
Users of the system can be described as middle class of varied ages. These could be office employees, lawyers and economists, doctors and teachers, engineers, and highly skilled workers. They are the ones who choose and purchase online goods for every day – clothes, children’s items, furniture, household appliances, and electronics. With regards to age, these are youth and adults with a steady source of income. They have some life experience and an awareness of online shopping. On the other hand, these might be young people with their subcultures and incomprehensible values to adults. Nevertheless, the target audience relies on quality, shipping speed, and the website’s user-friendliness.
Features and Usage of the System
The website general functions resemble a large shopping center on the Internet, where countless shops sell their goods and are divided into categories. Amazon navigation is as simple, convenient, and understandable as possible to satisfy billions of users, representatives of different nationalities with particular taste preferences. After signing up, at the top of the page, users can find a field for searching for goods. The search functionality is how easy it is for the buyer to find specific products on the site. The users enter some information about the product and then click on the “search” button to receive a shortlist of particular products. There is also functionality that, during entering keywords, the system picks possible results and displays them in a drop-down list. Consequently, it helps increase the offer without a full match with the item description.
After entering keywords in the search field, there is a button for the sorting of goods on the right corner. It implies classifying items in the catalog according to different parameters, such as low and high price and vice versa, newness, a rating displayed corresponding to average customers’ reviews. Filtering and picking goods imply choosing them by the necessary parameters: department, brand, color, size, and price.
There is the classic cart button in the upper right corner. It is an essential function of the online store so that the client can add one or more items of interest to the cart (Pappas et al., 2017). Selected products are transferred to it by pressing the “Add to the Cart” button. After the jump page, the name of the product is displayed. Since it is not always clear from the title what kind of product it is, the item picture is uploaded to the product card. The user can make changes to the contents by deleting unnecessary goods. The button “delete” is located in each product card and also for all items. Besides, payment and delivery details are also given in the shopping cart. Moreover, on this page, customers can find cross-selling blocks that offer products that complement those they have already selected.
Furthermore, the review function is one of the most crucial elements on the item description page. Amazon collects thousands of user evaluations, so the website compiles all feedback ratings and creates an assessment list with decryption (Lee et al., 2018). Customers can observe how many and what appraisal each product acquired. Amazon also asks whether the reviews were helpful or not, allowing customers to rate feedback, and the most popular ones are displayed at the top. Commentaries convince potential buyers that their considering products are worth buying (Lee et al., 2018). As practice shows, at first, people often read reviews in advance than product characteristics (Smith & Linden, 2017). A unique search line for product descriptions, questions, answers, and customer reviews has also been added to the product card. This leads to the fact that the user does not have to examine all product information; there is a separate search bar for customer reviews. By default, every feedback is sorted by rating, but if users need to find information about a specific aspect, they can filter reviews by keyword or phrase.
Impact of the System
The first advantage of an online shopping platform is an opportunity to save time for customers. Users can make a purchase in the online store at any convenient time and from any place – as long as they have access to the Network. The search engine provides customers with a massive list of sites with various products, so there is no need to waste time getting to the department store and walking around the floors. It will take a few minutes to select several products and place an order – primarily when the client gets used to the website and is well versed on the site.
Besides, online shopping also saves money as various promotions and discount programs allow customers to purchase goods significantly cheaper. Amazon products are always less expensive even without it since an online store does not require additional expenditure on showrooms and costly areas in shopping malls. Warehouse premises are usually located outside the city; consequently, the rent is more affordable (Pappas et al., 2017). Additionally, the newsletter received from Amazon enables showing the user a variety of products. Email widgets look the same as on the website; by aligning the message design and content with the store’s style, a coherent image is created. This increases awareness, which contributes to customer loyalty. Therefore, online stores can attract a maximum of buyers by offering them quality goods at a reasonable price.
The Amazon interface makes it easy to find the product of interest to the buyer through entering keywords so that the search engine can offer suitable options. The user can set the item’s requirements, and the store will instantly show relevant goods, for example, indicate the price range, year of manufacture, company. The customer is always provided with the necessary and detailed information about the purchased item, saving time since there is no longer a necessity to wait for sales assistants (Pappas et al., 2017). The latter’s opinion and advice might be biased. It is possible to instantly evaluate products on the Internet, observe user ratings, and read reviews of people who have already used it. For instance, the user can see photos from different angles, all technical characteristics with the possibility of comparison. Consequently, clients can make the most rational purchase decision (Pappas et al., 2017). Furthermore, a customer has the right to send feedback, express his or her opinion about the store and the product.
Despite several advantages, online shopping has some negative points. Purchasing is risky because customers can receive low quality, damaged, or downright wrong items. Characteristics of a product during online shopping may vary from those stated in the description (Pappas et al., 2017). The most prominent examples are the wrong size, color when the monitor distorts the color rendition as sellers can use Photoshop for attractiveness.
Conclusion
The website’s central policy is the maximum user comfort to stimulate the desire to make a purchase. A convenient search engine makes it possible to quickly find a product by keywords related to an item. Numerous product catalogs are offered so the client can navigate through the site. Amazon also provides a subscription to multiple promotions and news related to the product customers are interested in. That is, they can only receive information that is reliable and necessary. Amazon.com is not entirely a regular online store; users can buy Amazon brands, large and small retailers’ goods. The company acts as a guarantor between another seller and a buyer. Amazon’s service is impeccable; its rule is that what is right for the client is good for the business.
The company is appropriately considered one of the important ones in the e-commerce market. These days, Amazon spends millions of dollars to improve the interface continually. The Internet is a space that requires daily changes. Besides, Amazon pays attention to the mobile version of the site. Having reached a certain level, the company began to create its products and buy new services, which expand business areas.
References
Lee, S. G., Trimi, S., & Yang, C. G. (2018). Perceived usefulness factors of online reviews: a study of Amazon. com. Journal of computer information systems, 58(4), 344-352.
Pappas, I. O., Kourouthanassis, P. E., Giannakos, M. N., & Lekakos, G. (2017). The interplay of online shopping motivations and experiential factors on personalized e-commerce: A complexity theory approach. Telematics and Informatics, 34(5), 730-742.
Smith, B., & Linden, G. (2017). Two decades of recommender systems at Amazon. com. Ieee internet computing, 21(3), 12-18.