PROJECT REPORT

CRM AT ONLINE RETAIL INDUSTRY

For the partial fulfilment of the course

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
MBA (FT) 2012-14

Submitted To
Prof. T.S. Joshi

Submitted By
Aman Suveer(121104)

Submitted On
09th March, 2014

INTRODUCTION
Whether they are bricks-and-mortar boutiques, large chain stores, or online e-tailers,
retailers in are attracting shoppers through smart inventory choices and competitive pricing,
coupled with sophisticated customer relationship management (CRM) software technologies
often tied into social media strategies.
Perhaps never before have consumers faced so many choices. And so retailers, no matter
whether they use a storefront, a website or a mix of the two mediums, actively are courting
shoppers, looking to convert casual consumers into repeat buyers and loyal buyers.
Much of the overall retail sector's growth in both the U.S. and the EU over the next five
years will come from the Internet. To maximize that growth, e-business professionals will
have to help enable a multichannel strategy that responds to consumers' increased desire to
hop between the offline and online worlds and their increasing mobile and social CRM
behaviours. The retail innovators over the next five years will demonstrate customer
enablement across all touch points, not just via a PC-based Web browser. To truly
accomplish this cross-channel customer experience, however, retailers also must address
and conquerthe back-office, integrating multiple technologies such as point-of-sale,
accounting, inventory, human resources, and marketing, with mobile and social media,
among others. In addition, CRM systems are very popular in the retail industry: every
successful company in the sector uses this type of system to analyse customer behaviour and
predict sales. Consequently, with the collected data, retailers can offer personalized offers
and coupons to consumers who are members of their loyalty programs.
It may be more difficult to separate consumers from their money, but at no time has it been
more important for retailers to enter shoppers' living rooms. Using e-commerce with
integrated CRM systems, that knowledge of buyers' habits and preferences, plus up-to-date
information about inventory, pricing and availability, will help keep online and offline aisles
buzzing and registers ringing.

ONLINE RETAIL INDUSTRY CRM ANALYSIS

Growing popularity of online shopping in India
Data from comScore Media Metrix reveal that nearly 60 percent of online users in India
visited a retail site in November 2011, with the number of online shoppers increasing 18
percent in the past year.
The report also found that Coupon sites are rapidly gaining in popularity, with 16.5 percent of
the

Indian

online

population

visiting

the

category

in

November,

led

by Snapdeal.com and Mydala.com.

The online channel is playing an increasingly important role in connecting retailers with
potential customers in India. To take advantage of this growing opportunity, retailers must
ensure they are addressing the needs of potential customers, which include attractive pricing
and the convenience of ordering online. The rapid growth of online coupon sites suggests that
consumers in India are looking for deals, highlighting the need for online retailers to adopt
effective marketing and pricing strategies for their goods.
In November 2011, 27.2 million online users in India age 15 and older accessed the retail
category from a home or work computer, an increase of 18 percent from the previous year, as
consumers continue to turn to the web to shop for and purchase items and retailers continue
to increase their online visibility through active marketing campaigns.
Analysis of some of the largest retail subcategories revealed that Coupons was the largest
with 7.6 million visitors, an increase of 629 percent from the previous year as consumers
rapidly adopt daily deal sites. Consumer Electronics ranked next with 7.1 million visitors
growing 12 percent from the previous year, while 5.8 million online users visited Comparison
Shopping sites, an increase of 25 percent from the previous year.
Amazon sites led as the top retail destination in India reaching 6.8 million visitors,
representing 14.7 percent of the online population. Apple.com worldwide Sites saw its
audience reach 3.4 million visitors, followed by Samsung Group with nearly 2.8 million
visitors. Other top retail

destinations

included Flipkart.com (2.7 million

HomeShop18.com (2.3 million visitors) and Naaptol.com (2.1 million visitors).

visitors),

Change in consumer attitude towards sharing information for better shopping

experience
A new IBM survey of more than 28,000 consumers found that people are willing to share
personal details with favourite online retailers to get a more personalized shopping
experience.
Just as customers chat with their local shopkeeper, survey respondents said they are willing to
share their media usage (75 percent), demographics (73 percent), identification, such as name
and address (61 percent), lifestyle (59 percent), and location (56 percent) with online retailers
for a more targeted and smarter shopping experience.
The speed of technology innovation, consumer adoption and access to information has
created an environment where everything is known and the consumer is truly the one in
power. Retailers can win over this empowered consumer based on re-establishing a trusted
relationship and building loyalty through improving the store environment, product
assortment and store communications.
In addition to directly surveying consumers to understand their attitudes towards shopping,
IBM also listened to how consumers are talking to one another. Using IBM Cognos
Consumer Insight, a social media analysis tool, the company reviewed more than 1.2 million
documents publicly-available videos, tweets, Facebook updates, discussion boards, blogs
and newsgroups -- over a six month period to study attitudes related to online retailers.
The analysis delivered significant insight into shoppers' attitudes as they relate to brands.
Discussions around some brands, for example, focus predominantly around transactionrelated terminology (price, availability, where to purchase, etc.), indicating that these brands
are highly price-sensitive. On the other hand, discussions around different brands are focused
on lifestyle-related terminology (self-improvement, style, love, "I can't live without this
brand," etc.), indicating that these brands are less price-sensitive.
With these insights, retail brands with more price sensitivity can focus their marketing efforts
around promotions and sales, whereas retail brands with more of a lifestyle orientation could
improve margin and focus on different segments of shoppers.

With the volume of conversations happening online, retailers need to listen and learn to their
customers using sophisticated analytics technology to gain insight and adjust their marketing
messages to address what they are hearing on the wire.

Benefits to online retailers from CRM

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are designed to assist companies in
improving their relationships with their clients. They help the business to identify, attract and
retain customers. A good CRM system supports client loyalty, which increases word-ofmouth advertising and results in additional clients for the business.
Online retailers are competing with other retailers in their industry across the entire globe
(rather than just locally like a physical store would). As a result, they really need to step up
their game in order to stand out amongst the competition. Proper use of social CRM
facilitates this, assisting the online retailers in building a brand as well as a credible following
through social media interaction. Some online retailers also have an individual storefront
even though they do a lot of their sales online. In this case, the CRM system can also help to
integrate the online and offline store so that customers find the entire shopping experience
more pleasant.
Online retailers can leverage individual-level transaction data to potentially increase prots
via customized marketing. Use of customized promotions yields increases in revenue and
protability, which are maximized when both individual preferences and purchase cycle
information are used for guiding marketing tactics. Customizing promotions leads to a
signicant increase in prots relative to the rms current practice of uniform promotions.
However, the effectiveness of various promotions varies because of both cross-sectional
differences in consumers as well within consumer heterogeneity due to purchase cycle
factors. For instance, we nd that free shipping tends to be the preferred instrument for reacquiring lapsed customers, whereas an across-the-board price cut (via a discount coupon) is
the most effective tool for managing the segment of most active customers.
The degree of expertise and the amount of data needed increases with the level of
customization. For example, to implement customization based on transaction history
requires that the rm only track purchase history. To implement customization using
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individual-level preferences also requires tracking exposure and response to various

marketing activities. These data are more easily collected and nely tracked in an online
rather than retail store environment. Once these systems have been established, taking the
recommended policies to customers poses further practical concerns. The shift from uniform
to customized promotions adds decisions regarding the details of the promotions, followed by
issues related to the design and physical delivery of the promotion offer. Here, online stores
also have an advantage, particularly in the delivery of the promotion and the ease with which
the promotion can be linked back to the retailers website.

Is the industry ready for CRM?

Skewness of customer base: Steep or Shallow
There are some demographic differences among Internet users. Gender differences, albeit
continuing to diminish, still exist, as indicated in a national survey by Neilson. For online
shopping, the study found that more men made purchases on the Internet than women (79
percent compared to 70 percent) in the past 90 days. In addition, more high-income ($75K+)
users make online purchases than low-income ($35K or less) users (80 percent compared to
65 percent. The study also found that online stores attract shoppers with certain orientations.
The findings suggest that the consumers who value convenience are more likely to buy on the
Web, while those who prefer experiencing products are less likely to buy online. Based on all
this it can be concluded that the customer base for online retailers in general has a shallow
skew. Hence they are better served by reducing costs across the board through automation in
order to attract competitors customers.
Multichannel or single channel value proposition:
There are several online retailers which also have an offline presence. Hence for the brick and
click retailers it is important to integrate the channels and manage relationships across
multiple channels in a seamless manner. Many retailers have call centres which act as phone
based catalogs. It is important to integrate their online channels with their call centers so that
catalogue call center has complete knowledge of the shopper's presence and activities on the
website whenever he calls. Here, integrating multiple channels via the customer database
with a content management system is the key.
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Always a share or Lost for Good:

For most online retailers the switching cost of the customers is very low. However many
online retailers such as amazon and flipkart have created strong positioning as a trustworthy
online retailer which delivers its promise and this trust acts as a switching barrier for the
customer because the perceived risk of customer is still high for online buying. Online
retailers are continuously trying to move customers towards the lost for goog model by
providing value added services such as EMI options, free shipping, cash on delivery, loyalty
programs etc.

Aspects of CRM
Operational CRM:
This is in place for most online retailers. Each interaction with a customer is generally added
to a customer's contact history, and the company can retrieve information on customers from
the database as necessary. Base on this operational data customers ranking, actual value and
potential value are calculated and different customers are treated differently.
Collaborative CRM:
There is scope for better collaborative CRM in online retail industry. The objectives of
Collaborative CRM are broad, including cost reduction and service improvements. Many
organizations are searching for new ways to use customer intimacy to gain and retain a
competitive advantage. Collaborative CRM provides a comprehensive view of the customer,
with various departments pooling customer data from different sales and communication
channels.
Collaborative CRM also includes Partner Relationship Management (PRM) which enables
online retailers to manage their relationships with partners (consultants, resellers and
distributors), and potentially the customers of those partners.

Analytical CRM:
Analytical CRM for online retailers analyzes customer data for a variety of purposes,
including design and execution of targeted marketing campaigns to optimize marketing
effectiveness,

design

and

execution

of

specific

customer

campaigns,

including

customer acquisition, cross-selling, up-selling, retention, analysis of customer behaviour to

aid product and service decision making (eg pricing, new product development, etc),
management decisions, e.g. financial forecasting and customer profitability analysis, risk
assessment and fraud detular for credit card transactions. There is scope for more
comprehensive analytical CRM in the online retail industry in general.

Problems in CRM implementation for online retailers

Retailers have bought into the CRM concept, but they're not fully implementing their CRM
systems. Those who take advantage of customer data collection and analytics, Internet-based
customer engagement tools, and the use of technologies to measure the effectiveness of
marketing, will be ahead of the game -- as will the technology vendors who serve the retail
market. Retailers are well aware of the significant benefits of using CRM, and most employ
some CRM tools, although the degree of usage varies considerably.

Retail CRM: A Mixed Shopping Bag

Some retailers have a fully implemented conventional CRM program and have adapted it to
new developments such as social networking. Others are comfortable with a traditional
program but haven't yet integrated new media and channels. Still others are at various levels
of using bits and pieces of conventional CRM programs.
While there may be degrees of implementation among retailers in using CRM, it appears that
few retailers need to be convinced of the value of using such programs.

Customer Focus Gets Priority

Customer satisfaction and retention was a priority strategic goal in the retail sector for last
few years. The move toward a more customer-centred way of doing business has become
main stream. Still, there is a significant gap between appreciating CRM as a concept and
8

actually implementing a system that fully utilizes the real potential of CRM and the related
tools of e-commerce and information technology. For many companies, the transformation is
under way toward a more customer-centred, knowledge-based, and integrated way of doing
business, but it is still far from completed. The implementation of new customer-relevant
metrics, appropriate for driving performance in a customer-centred company, still lags at
many retail companies.
There are several reasons retailers have failed to fully utilize CRM. One issue is short and
long-term tension. To build an effective CRM program is a long-term investment, and yet the
retailers want to remain competitive and profitable in the short term, so they have to balance
those goals. Thus, an outlay for a direct mail campaign that results in a quick boost in sales
may divert resources from installing a comprehensive long-term CRM program. Another
problem is coordinating CRM efforts. Many retailers, especially the traditional brick-andmortar companies, revert to a silo situation. They may expand to a catalogue sales operation
or an Internet program, but they set up separate operations for these channels and the channel
managers don't cooperate. They duplicate data collection and never fully exploit the CRM
capability of getting a complete customer profile because they don't integrate the customer
data and wind up with a hodge-podge approach.

Customers Expect More

A subtle but still significant factor is the orientation of the retail company regarding CRM. In
the past, the emphasis was on merchandising - getting attractive products to sell. Now there is
much more attention on getting to know the customer better and orienting the marketing
based on customer needs and doing things to retain the customer base. The emergence of the
online retailer was a real game-changer in pushing that concept, and the brick-and-mortar
retailers had to adapt to that. The online retail channel has changed the customer experience
situation. With digital marketing, the customer expectation level is higher. Customers can
shop a variety of sources easily. They can get product reviews and information from Web
sites and blogs. So, now they expect retailers to provide this kind of support. The whole
engagement environment with the customer has changed, and the retailers are beginning to
react to it. The change in orientation is now working its way back through traditional
marketing channels, including the brick-and-mortar physical store component, with increased
attention on a more personal or customer-centric approach, even with tried-and-true tools
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such as direct mail campaigns that are now based on more precise knowledge of individual
customers.
When CRM first emerged in retail marketing, its scope appeared to be more limited; it
formed one aspect of marketing tactics, along with merchandise management, discount
selling, heavy newspaper advertising and other selling tools. The e-commerce tools
associated with CRM such as data collection, pushed the concept into a realm focusing
almost exclusively on the associated technologies. That's why we are now seeing terms like
'customer-centric,' which address the whole customer experience aspect of marketing. The
use of technology is simply a means to address the shift in focus to the customer. With
retailers now committed to a more customer-oriented way of doing business, the role of
technology will be even more crucial to success. Even at less-than-optimal levels, retailers
now spend a considerable amount of their budgets on CRM tools, and that is likely to
increase with more attention on customers.

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AMAZON.COM CRM ANALYSIS

Is the company customer centric?
Amazon organizes itself around the customer. The customer centric structure of Amazon
using Jay Galbraiths 5 point framework of Strategy, Structure, Processes, People, and
Rewards is given below:

Strategy and Culture: Few companies succeed in getting closer to the customer.
Because despite the rhetoric, most companies still love their brands, technologies, and
factories more than they love their customers. But Amazon has very successfully
crossed this chasm - its strategic choices are directed by a simple dictum, what's good
for the customer in the long run is good for us. It is strategically obsessed with
continually creating and innovating customer value; it doesn't waste its energy and/or

resources obsessing about itself or its competitors.

Structure: Amazon has done well in striking a balance between when to throw the
organization chart out of the window and when to dig in and let experience rule. "The
great thing about fact-based decisions is that they overrule the hierarchy," CEO Jeff
Bezos says. "The most junior person in the company can win an argument with the
most senior person with regard to a fact-based decision." For intuitive decisions, on
the other hand, you have to rely on experienced executives who've honed their
instincts. To promote his decentralized vision of the company, he created "two-pizza
teams": highly autonomous task forces with five to seven people - no more than can
be fed with two pizzas - who innovate and test new features.
There are multiple ways to be externally focused that are very successful," Bezos
says. "You can be customer-focused or competitor-focused." But he warns that "some
people are internally focused, and if they reach critical mass, they can tip the whole
company."

Processes: Amazon's processes are transparent and motivated by a single dominant

concern - how to help customers buy more intelligently. Its One-click check out,
Golden Box, Bottom of the page deals, Look Inside, warning messages if a customer
is placing an order for something they have already bought before, its willingness to
feature negative customer review on its own site - all point to one very simple
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motivation - if it makes sense from the customers' point-of-view, give it to them.

Amazons technology, its interface, its one-click buying service they are all
incredibly easy to use. Its algorithms offer suggestions for further buying that
actually appeal to its customers.
Amazon.com expends millions of dollars and hundreds of man-hours to identify
problems, develop solutions, and further enhance the customers online experience.
Rob Enderle, head analyst at Enderle Group, states that Amazon.com has always
been very aggressive about analyzing its websites traffic to a high degree and making
modifications based on what they see. This constant pursuit of perfection lead to
Jakob Nielsons prestigious ranking of Amazon.coms website usability. In a 2001
study of 20 ecommerce sites, Amazon.com scored 65% higher than the average of the
other nineteen sites usability. It has a class-leading 99.9% mobile device availability,
and uploads several seconds faster than some of its competition. In one test,
Amazon.com uploaded in 2.4 seconds, while Target took nearly seven to finish. A
navigable website has consistently topped the priority charts of Amazon.com.
Amazon.com engages in permission marketing, where customers give the company
permission to send them e-mails detailing product promotions. Every email that a
customer receives is relevant and based on his interests and past purchases.

Rewards: Amazon has very successfully demonstrated the benefits of shunning short
term profits for long term sustenance and profits. By actively deciding against chasing
quick bucks Amazon has successfully invested in ongoing customer relationships and
built long-term customer equity. A fair amount of the hundreds of millions of dollars
Amazon has spent on R&D has gone toward developing, say, the Kindle, but a good
deal of it has also gone toward improving the customer experience. Amazon is willing
to lose money on some of its most popular items, like the latest Harry Potter novel.
And even with Amazon Prime, where for a $79 annual fee you get two-day free
shipping, it had to swallow millions of dollars in shipping costs. In a presentation to
analysts in late November, the companys chief financial officer, Thomas J. Szkutak,
showed one slide that read, Over $600 Million in Forgone Shipping Revenue.
Amazon has its eyes strongly set on long term profitability through customer equity.

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People: Without the right people, customer-centricity will remain a slogan; the
employees will hear the sirens, no one will move. Amazon is on the move, it is
excessively pernickety about who it hires.

Would you recommend CRM?

We strongly recommend CRM to optimise the whole customer relationship, not just
acquisition. Amazon must focus on acquisitions as well as retention using CRM but the
greater focus should be on customer experience management(CEM). CEM would help
balance some of the rather obvious weaknesses in CRM, in particular, the one-sided focus on
leveraging customer data for the sole advantage of the company. CEM would help move the
focus from just doing things to customers to also doing things for customers. The future goals
of Amazon should be to take CEM to the next level by design thinking, customer co-creation
at each touch point and social CRM.

Why strategically chosen?

Acquisition and retention strategy is used because of the following reasons.
Amazon should focus on both the strategies-acquisition and retention. In order to be
profitable it is important to acquire as many customers as possible so as to increase the
customer base. In a e-commerce business a company cannot just depend on the retention
strategy as there will be heterogeneous customers.
In order to acquire customers multi channels can be used .Different kind of attractive offers
can be provided to potential customers who can be profitable in the long run .In the similar
way the retention of the existing customers can be done through loyalty programs.

Divide the segment in micro level.

The different types of segments in e commerce at micro level are
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a)
b)
c)
d)

B2B
B2C
C2C
M-Commerce

B2B business:
B2B stands for Business to Business. It consists of largest form of Ecommerce. This model
defines that Buyer and seller are two different entities. It is similar to manufacturer issuing
goods to the retailer or wholesaler. Dell deals computers and other associated accessories
online but it is does not make up all those products. So, in govern to deal those products, first
step is to purchases them from unlike businesses i.e. the producers of those products
B2C business:
B2C stands for Business to Consumer as the name suggests, it is the model taking businesses
and consumers interaction. Online business sells to individuals. The basic concept of this
model is to sell the product online to the consumers.
C2C business:
C2C stands for Consumer to Consumer. It helps the online dealing of goods or services
among people. Though there is no major parties needed but the parties will not fulfill the
transactions without the program which is supplied by the online market dealer.
M-commerce:
It deals with conducting the transactions with the help of mobile. The mobile device
consumers can interact each other and can lead the business. Mobile Commerce involves the
change of ownership or rights to utilize goods and related services.

SWOT Analysis of Amazon

Strengths

14

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Information Technology (IT) support

Amazon's business strategy. The company carefully records data on customer buyer
behaviour. This enables them to offer to an individual specific items, or bundles of items,
based upon preferences demonstrated through purchases or items visited.

Amazon is a huge global brand. It is recognisable for two main reasons. It was one of the

original dotcoms, and over the last decade it has developed a customer base of around 30
million people. It was an early exploiter of online technologies for e-commerce, which made
it one of the first online retailers. It has built on nits early successes with books, and now has
product categories that include electronics, toys and games, DIY and more.

It has also provided the option of a market place where a seller can sell an unwanted item

online and a buyer can buy it from that seller, there is usually a difference regarding the
competing retailers as it ensures customer loyalty and trust, which makes the bond with the
customer stronger and the loyalty is more durable.

User Reviews are used to share information and provide feedback regarding that

information that helps in stimulating sales.

Weaknesses

As Amazon adds new categories to its business, it risks damaging its brand. Amazon is

the number one retailer for books. Toy-R-Us is the number one retailers for toys and games.
Imagine if Toys-R-Us began to sell books. This would confuse its consumers and endanger its
brands. In the same way, many of the new categories, for example automotive, may prove to
be too confusing for customers.

The company may at some point need to reconsider its strategy of offering free shipping

to customers. It is a fair strategy since one could visit a more local retailer, and pay no costs.
However, it is rumoured that shipping costs could be up to $500m, and such a high figure
would undoubtedly erode profits.

Online-retailers require focus on their technology which is quite important. The system

requirement, especially the maintenance of the systems is held to be constant that should be
maintained in order to ensure customer satisfaction by providing the level of service the
customer is expecting without any delay.
Opportunities
15

The company is now increasingly cashing in on its credentials as an online retail pioneer

by selling its expertise to major store groups. For example, British retailer Marks and Spencer
announced a joint venture with Amazon to sell its products and service online. Other recent
collaborations have been with Target, Toys-R-Us and the NBA. Amazon's new Luxembourgbased division aims to provide tailored services to retailers as a technology service provider
in Europe.

There are also opportunities for Amazon to build collaborations with the public sector.

For example the company announced a deal with the British Library, London, in 2004. The
benefit is that customers can search for rare or antique books. The library's catalogue of
published works is now on the Amazon website, meaning it has details of more than 2.5m
books on the site.

It can develop relationship with the publishers for exclusive offers and launch authors that

are exclusively for the firm which would generate growth because consumers have a
tendency of reading the author again.
Threats

All successful Internet businesses attract competition. Since Amazon sells the same or

similar products as high street retailers and other online businesses, it may become more and
more difficult to differentiate the brand from its competitors. Amazon does have it s brand. It
also has a huge range of products. Otherwise, price competition could damage the business.

International competitors may also intrude upon Amazon as it expands. Those domestic

(US-based) rivals unable to compete with Amazon in the US, may entrench overseas and
compete with them on foreign fronts. Joint ventures, strategic alliances and mergers could see
Amazon losing its top position in some markets.

The products that Amazon sells tend to be bought as gifts, especially at Christmas. This

means that there is an element of seasonality to the business. However, by trading in overseas
markets in different cultures such seasonality may not be enduring.

Good economy circumstances will initiate the price level to go down which in return will

hold the customer expectations regarding the promotional deals that will be the main focal
point for all product areas but with smaller economies-of-scale, the marketplace will not have
the sufficient offers on buying power.
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Future goals of company and usefulness of CRM

The Amazons use of personalization software combined with significant amounts of research
can draw conclusions regarding what books customers would like to purchase based on their
past behaviour and the behaviour of others similar to themselves. The result of their efforts is
a constant flow of personalized up-sell.Amazon.com has created a forefront that implements
the tactics noted by of incorporating buyer behaviour and buying process to tailor experience
to each individual customer. Their marketing strategies relate to the customers behaviours of
habitual, variety seeking, dissonance reducing and complex, tying into awareness,
consideration, preference, and purchase and resulting loyalty.
Amazon starts by supporting awareness through virtual storefronts on affiliated Web sites.
The links at Amazon seamlessly move customers from awareness of their book needs and
desires to consideration of a purchase.
Organizational Structure of Amazon.com

CEO
Business Platform

CFO

Real Estate

Retail Business

Control

Business
Development

China

Europe

India

America

Business Development or Complaint handling

Amazon started off by focusing on Business-to-Consumer relationships between itself and its
customers, and Business-to-Business relationships between itself and its suppliers but it then
moved to incorporate Customer-to-Business transactions as it realized the value of customer
reviews as part of the product descriptions. It now also facilitates customer to customer with
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the provision of the Amazon marketplace which act as an intermediary to facilitate consumer
to consumer transactions. Amazon employs multi leveled e-commerce strategy. The company
lets almost anyone sell almost anything using its platform. In addition to affiliate program
that lets anybody post Amazon links earn a commission on click through sales, there is now a
program which let those affiliates build entire websites based on Amazons platform. Amazon
also hosted and managed the website for Borders bookstores but this ceased in 2008. From its
inception until August 2011, Amazon hosted the retail website for Target. Benefit Cosmetics,
another merchant partner of Amazon, has also launched a major E-Commerce platform of
their own based onHybris_(company) and arvato systems NA, in the US, EU and China.
Amazon.com operates retail web sites for Sears Canada, bebe Stores, Timex, Marks &
Spencer, Mothercare, and Lacoste. For a growing number of enterprise clients, currently
including the UK merchants Marks & Spencer, Benefit Cosmetics' UK entity, edeals.com,
and Mothercare. On October 18, 2011, Amazon.com announced partnership with DC Comics
for the exclusive digital rights to many popular comics, including Superman, Batman, Green
Lantern, the Sandman, and Watchmen. The partnership has caused well-known bookstores
like Barnes & Noble to remove these titles from their shelves. These titles will be available
for purchase exclusively through Amazon's new Kindle Fire tablet.CRM systems for
marketing help the enterprise identify and target potential clients and generate leads for the
sales team. A key marketing capability is tracking and measuring multichannel campaigns,
including email, search, social media, telephone and direct mail. Metrics monitored include
clicks, responses, leads, deals, and revenue.

REFERENCES
Freeland, J. (2003). The Ultimate CRM Handbook. New York, New York: McGrawHill
Harney, J. (2003). Personalization and CRM: know thy customer. AIIM E-Doc
Magazine, 17(4), p. 32-37
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 "Form 10-K, Amazon.com, Inc.". United States Securities and Exchange

Commission.
"Amazon.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2012-03-02.
Jopson, Barney (2011-07-12). "Amazon urges California referendum on online tax".
FT.com. Retrieved 2011-08-04.
"Amazon wkrtce w Polsce". Wirtualna Polska. 2011-10-24. Retrieved January 11,
2012.
"Amazon Spain launch may presage new overseas push", Reuters, Sept 14, 2011.
Ann Byers (2006). Jeff Bezos: the founder of Amazon.com, The Rosen Publishing
Group. See pg. 46-47
"Harvard Business Review". Harvard Business Review. Retrieved 2010-08-29

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