Amazon Curtail Customer's Choices - a result of too many demands and back loads caused by the pandemic
Compared to the 1st quarter of 2019, the 1st quarter of 2020 has been different for a lot of companies as they experience an all-time high in demands for their services and goods and one of this company is Amazon. Compared to its 2019 1st quarter sales of $59.7 billion, its 1st quarter of 2020 saw a huge sale of $75.5 billion as there is a huge demand from customers due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Did you notice that Amazon removed a lot of features just to Curtail customer choices?
I did but I am not sure you did. Why will Amazon do that? Who tells customers they do not want them to purchase more and why will Amazon do this?
Although the company has seen an all-time high in demand, there is a problem with satisfying those orders and the only way Amazon might be able to do this is by reducing sales. Amazingly, a lot of people are also requesting Prime delivery so having almost everyone wanting a fast delivery means everything either becomes a normal delivery or a slightly speedy delivery. Compared to 2 months ago when Amazon had lots of products on their homepage, recently it shows more of eBooks, Kindle, and very few product being displayed on the homepage also, amazon just stopped the use of coupons so customers think properly before adding them to their cart. Furthermore, rumors go around that the company will be delaying Prime day to August due to the pandemic, although the company hasn’t given an official statement yet (but why have a prime day, since almost every day during this pandemic is a prime day).
The company decided to cut spending on Google advertisement unlike the way it did prior to the pandemic. The company also has slashed commissions to affiliate marketing program by 80% since the company already has enough orders and lots of customers. Amazon also stopped users from putting new products into its Vine Customer Review program as well as stopping sellers from sending non-essential items to its fulfilment centers or warehouse although they just allowed sellers to start shipping non-essentials although still with a few restrictions and limits. Just the same way Amazon has restricted inflow of goods because it has excess goods to deliver, so is it affecting the delivery of goods to customers. Amazon prime which takes one day now takes four days as there are a lot of backload of orders to handle.
With this backload and problems Amazon is bringing to customers and sellers, due to government restriction, increase demand and so on, do you think Amazon customers will start looking at competitors like Walmart?
What do you think about manipulating the algorithm to allow customers shop less and restrict sellers, is it good for business?
