Amazon Database Management

Data Based Marketing: Amazon.com

Rise from Obscurity to Online Power House

Database Marketing Background

In modern database marketing, a company keeps track of customer purchases, and crafts special customer communications designed to build retention, referrals, loyalty and cross sales. The Internet has opened up a range of new opportunities for personalization that may lead many retailers to reconsider their attitude towards database marketing. Only collecting data and information about a particular customer, or small group of customers, and then creating products and/or advertisements of special interest to that individual can achieve it.

One would think that retailers would be in the forefront of database marketing today. While every retailer collects the names of customers to send them catalogs, emails, and rent out the names to other companies, few have a marketing database strategy. Amazon has shown us why it’s important and how to implement it.

Amazon’s World: Overall Strategy and Performance

I would define Amazon by our big ideas, which are customer centricity, putting the customer at the center of everything we do, invention. We like to pioneer, we like to explore, we like to go down dark alleys and see what’s on the other side. (Bezos)

Amazon’s Background

Amazon is the world’s largest online retailer, headquartered in Seattle Washington (O’Connor). According to Ann Byers, Amazon’s concept was incorporated in 1994 by Jeff Bezos and became an online site in 1995. Amazon made its first sale from a garage in 1995, when it sold its first book (Byers). Since its humble beginnings, Amazon.com has grown its website to serve thirteen countries and now sell more than just books. Currently Amazon produces a line of Amazon Kindle e-books and tablets, and is a key provider of cloud services.

Amazon is widely regarded as a trailblazer in marketing personalization. The secret to their success is their effective collection and use of consumer...