The Next Amazon...

Let's examine the Mission Statements of both Amazon and Wal-mart, using marketing management ideas - specifically insights on strategies, goals, technology, sourcing, and orientation. Amazon is Market-Oriented

The world’s fourth largest marketing platform is currently Amazon.com (Markman, 2017). Their Mission Statement is

“To be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices,”

which clearly outlines their valuable purpose for customers and a forward-looking strategy to achieve a goal of low pricing.

Amazon is likely market-oriented, rather than product-, production-, or futuristically oriented.  Product-orientation implies that Amazon mainly creates products itself, which it does not (Business Case Studies, 2019).  Mainly, Amazon offers a multitude of products for sale, sourced through a multitude of vendors; there are a relatively small quantity of products made by Amazon itself (Amazon Branded), sold as substitutes for other vendors’ products, when their inventories are empty, fake, or problematic (Edelman, 2019).

Amazon Branded products are usually at a higher price than other vendors that sell through Amazon, so Amazon is unlikely to be production-oriented (Quain, 2018).  Likewise, despite the inclusion of the forward-looking words “...endeavors to offer…” in their Mission Statement, Amazon’s mission statement is not futuristic, since it accurately describes Amazon today.As implied in Amazon’s Mission Statement, Amazon is strongly market-oriented to “...be Earth’s most customer-centric company...discover anything they might want [at] the lowest possible prices.” Amazon organizes its activities, products, and services around its customers wants and needs (Business Case Studies, 2019), with over 600 million products (Johnson, 2018).

Opinion: Update Wal-Mart’s Mission Statement to Compete with Amazon

Wal-Mart’s Mission Statement has been reviewed and updated over the years; previously, it was “We deliver low prices, every day;”  currently, Wal-Mart’s Mission Statement is “to save people money so they can live better.” Because of internal and external factors relevant to marketing, now may be the best time to review and update Wal-Mart’s Mission Statement, based on my personal experiences.

From our shopping experiences with Wal-Mart, most people buy almost exactly the same products from a local retail location, every week.  Wal-Mart has done little to capitalize on my shopping habits, other than keeping it’s doors open late into the night.

Wal-Mart has sufficient internal qualities to rival that of Amazon, and that Wal-Mart can take advantage of external qualities, given today’s popularity of one-to-one marketing.  Wal-Mart’s goal of “saving money” is a good one, but needs to be updated similar to what they had used previously as a Mission Statement. Perhaps something along the lines of

“We deliver what you need to live better, every day at low prices!”

Mostly Strengths and Few Weaknesses - Internally, Wal-Mart already has the technology and processes to surpass Amazon: online ordering, telephone ordering, delivery to my home, and pick-up from any of their local retail locations; if consumers can't wait for a scheduled delivery, they can simply walk-in and buy from any of their locations.  Wal-Mart ought to utilize their advantage of the worldwide ‘big data’ that they have, and push buying recommendations to consumers, so that we can have our usual purchases delivered regularly. In doing so, they can offer supplemental products that consumers might not know they wanted, but do want... like Amazon does (Wills, 2018).  Though Wal-Mart has lower profit margins than other vendors, this can be overcome by increasing sales volume through 'recommendations' mitigated by their 'big data.'

Opportunities and Threats - With the popularity of home delivery services, Wal-Mart can capitalize on a few aspects: products can be marketed and delivered to remote locations; more hiring can be done to expedite analytics and deliveries; and overall product quality can improve by more accurately eliminating under-performing products, while pushing recommended products (Smithson, 2019).

Unfortunately, because consumers and retailers have already realized that Wal-Mart could become the next Amazon, other retailers have started heavy competitions in the retail/big data/delivery space, according to Investopedia (Segal, 2020).

Summary - Wal-Mart needs to invest more in people and technology to recommend products and “deliver what we need to live better, every day, at low prices,” as soon as possible to win against its competitors.  Updating its Mission Statement will increase its sales volume, profitability, and a loyal base of customers.

REFERENCES

Markman, J. (2017). The Amazon Era: No Profits, No Problem. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmarkman/2017/05/23/the-amazon-era-no-profits-no-problem/#251a7eed437a 

Business Case Studies, (2019). Market-and-product-orientation. Retrieved from https://businesscasestudies.co.uk/market-and-product-orientation/

Edelman, G. (2019). Amazon Doesn’t Favor Its Own Brands—Except When It Does. Wired. Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/story/amazon-gating-private-labels-antitrust/

Segal, T. (2020). Who Are Amazon's (AMZN) Main Competitors? Company Profiles. Retrieved from https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/120314/

who-are-amazons-amzn-main-competitors.asp

Smithson, N. (2019). Walmart SWOT Analysis & Recommendations. Panmore Institute. Retrieved from http://panmore.com/walmart-swot-analysis-recommendations-case-study

Wills, J. (2018). 7 Ways Amazon Uses Big Data to Stalk You (AMZN). Cybersecurity. Retrieved from https://www.investopedia.com/articles/insights/

090716/7-ways-amazon-uses-big-data-stalk-you-amzn.asp

Quain, S. (2018). Difference Between Product Orientation and Production Orientation. Houston Chronicle. Retrieved from https://smallbusiness.chron.com/difference-between-product-orientation-production-orientation-16004.html