What is the difference between the services of Amazon and Dangdang, and what are the benefits of each?

A comparative analysis of Amazon and Dangdang

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Ding Shan

I. The basic situation of Amazon and Dangdang Comparison

Some of the similarities and differences between Amazon and Dangdang are worth noting:

(I) Dangdang declared profit faster than Amazon

Founded four years later than Amazon, Dangdang declared profit at almost the same time as the two bookstores. From this point of view, Dangdang seems to be more successful than Amazon a little faster: different national conditions and business concepts of the differences to a certain extent prompted them to choose a different path of development:

Amazon initially rely on the sale of books to start, and quickly gained success: in the publication of sales growth at the same time, Amazon is also rapidly expanding the type and scope of merchandise business. Dangdang is still an online bookstore in the purest sense of the word, and all of its products are publications. Compared with Amazon's rapid expansion at a loss, Dangdang seems to be more inclined to the Chinese have always advocated the development of a steady and stable approach: first to make a profit, to give themselves a "pill", and then seek to develop. The reason why you can win in such a short time, in the words of Dangdang online bookstore co-president Li Guoqing, because "Dangdang focus on doing publications, Amazon's losses are mainly due to the continuous expansion of categories of goods for a larger market share, or it should have made a profit two years ago".

(ii) in the choice of headquarters location, Dangdang and Amazon as proactive

Amazon landed in Seattle, Dangdang headquarters in the capital. Talent and logistics are the **** same elements of e-commerce and traditional commerce, and both sites see this.

(C) The Financing Methods of Each Site

The initial financing methods of Dangdang and Amazon are similar: they successfully attracted venture capital from investment firms in the beginning. Since then, there have been some differences in the way the two online bookstores have obtained funding. Amazon is a publicly traded company, and issuing stock is one of the most important means of obtaining capital for growth. Although Amazon has not been consistently profitable, its growth prospects have been favorable, and its stock price has remained high, raising considerable funds for Amazon's growth. Although Dangdang has not yet been able to issue shares and is still relying on investment firms for financing, going public will be Dangdang's first choice for expanding its financing channels if it is to achieve greater growth.

Second, Amazon and Dangdang's service comparison

(a) information search has its own

Amazon online bookstore with Junglee search technology, can provide customers with extremely difficult search service, you can through the book title, author, subject and content-related strings, cover color and pattern and other ways to retrieve. This approach is perfect for people who are wandering around in online bookstores, and it is very convenient to find a large amount of related product information by simply typing in any keyword of interest. Dangdang online bookstore's search engine not only provides a quick search, but also a combination of search, according to the type of goods, name, author/director/actor name, publishing and distributing organization, date of publication, discount range and selling price range to divide. Such a search is more conducive to the existing purchase goals of customers to quickly find goods, saving time and energy.

(ii) personalized service, featured services when Dangdang does not match Amazon

Amazon launched a personalized service can be registered in the customer's memory after its IP address, when the customer re-visit will go directly to the "personal store". The personal store is designed for the visitor's personal preferences of the web page, registered users can quickly and directly find the items they need, excluding the interference of other information: this service has successfully used the characteristics of the network's rapid interaction, to meet the customer's personalized needs. Characteristic service, amazon launched such as restaurant introduction, travel ordering, gift recommendation, etc., in the provision of these services at the same time without losing time to promote the site's goods, so that people unknowingly out of pocket. Dangdang is a better online bookstore in China to carry out services, but compared with Amazon there are still many gaps. At present, it provides only some basic services, no personalized service like Amazon, the characteristics of the service is not perfect: although the launch of the e-weekly new book notification service, but the efficiency of the work is not satisfactory.

(C) the same price card, discounts have high and low

Amazon has always insisted on the principle of low-priced books, more than 20 U.S. dollars in books have 30% discounts on their own selection of the book also gives 40% discounts, the long-lasting low-priced marketing strategy not only attracts a large number of customers, but also has been to the people to leave such psychological implication: Amazon is a "" cheap, not more expensive"". Only cheap, not more expensive" bookstore. Dangdang also take the low price strategy, played the "more choices, lower prices" slogan, but in the average discount is lower than Amazon; price advantage is not obvious.

(4) The gap in logistics and distribution is narrowing, and the payment method reflects the gap in consumerism

In terms of logistics and distribution, the gap between Amazon and Dangdang is not big, and both of them have set up their own distribution teams or chosen express delivery companies. However, due to the different level of logistics development in the United States and China has led to the average delivery time of Dangdang is slower than Amazon. In the means of payment, Amazon generally use the online settlement, Dangdang is more to take "online ordering, offline transactions" this disguised mail order, credit card spending accounted for the proportion is not very large.

Three, a few suggestions

From the above comparison, we found that there is a small gap between Dangdang and Amazon. It can be said that Dangdang and most of the domestic online bookstores have been modeled after Amazon, learning from its experience. China's specific national conditions dictate that it is unrealistic to mechanically imitate the Amazon model, and domestic online bookstores must find a way to develop that suits them. Here, combined with the current situation of domestic online bookstores, put forward a few suggestions:

(a) clearly establish brand awareness

Bezos once said that the location of the traditional bookstore is an important condition for the success of the bookstore, and for the virtual online bookstore, the brand is the most important. Amazon is happy to spend huge sums of money to invest in advertising aimed at grabbing market share, will be profitable on a secondary position. Compared with Amazon, the domestic online bookstore advertising efforts are clearly inferior, not only limited to the media of publicity network, and the lack of strength.

(II) Take the customer as God, strengthen the quality of service

Advertising hit the popularity of the site's reputation to be realized through good service. Amazon's pursuit is to make online shopping as real as in a traditional bookstore, depending on the customer as God, which is fully embodied in the design and production of the web page. Domestic online bookstores, however, most do not pay enough attention to book information and book review content.

(C) Expanding the scope of business and the establishment of distribution centers from a practical point of view, to avoid blindness

While the speed of Amazon's expansion of business is somewhat amazing, but the expansion is not blind. In addition, Amazon in the choice to establish distribution centers also made full consideration, all to save money as a starting point. Domestic online bookstores to expand their business, to carry out adequate market research is particularly important, the expansion rate should not be too fast: the establishment of storage centers need to invest a large sum of money, so in the choice of construction sites and the number of more prudent, to avoid a rush.

Excerpted from: "Publishing Wide"