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Executive Summary

This paper tackles the topic of e-commerce and marketing, and particular the features found on the Amazon website in United Kingdom. Firstly, the introduction is provided in which the topic is introduced and the significance of the issue of e-commerce website features is provided. Subsequently, the findings and analysis section is provided whereby the various unique features of Amazon’s (UK) e-commerce website are highlighted and discussed. Moreover, the findings and analysis section also contains various recommendations for improvement or the website in order to improve customer experience.

Introduction

Various website designers, particular those of e-commerce websites, presently face multiple challenges in the attempt to create a user experience that enhances the prospect of visitors to the site making online purchases. In an effort to fight off the formidable online competition and tackle the trepidation of cynical online shoppers, website designers can adopt various steps to enhance the usability of their business’ online stores. Amazon is a company that has established itself globally as a world leader in the e-commerce business since 1995. Notably, the success that the company has experienced in abundance is neither a fluke nor the outcome of good fortune. In effect the company’s success, particular in the UK, is the direct result of a solid user online shopping experience (Kurtz, & Boone, 2010, p. 78). This paper explores the unique features found on the Amazon e-commerce website for the purpose of informing other developers on how to go about being successful in creating a desirable user experience.

Findings and Analysis

One of the features on Amazon’s e-commerce website is “content tailored to the current user”. After establishing the website’s product search along with online shopping capacities, users will probably want to explore those features almost immediately beginning with the search. The Amazon uses cookies to ensure that a user remains logged in, and even more so that the user’s shopping behaviour is tracked and kept in storage server-side. Essentially, this is a suitable enhancement for business as it dynamically customizes the customer’s shopping experience on the basis of previous searches, written reviews, wish-list additions, page views, and eventually, purchases as well.

Additionally, another feature of Amazon’s e-commerce website is the variable reminders on “Why shop with us”. In essence, the Amazon e-commerce website is filled with various reminders of why a particular customer should purchase and continue purchasing products from Amazon as opposed to other similar sources. One of the reminders relates to prices in comparison with suggested retail sub-feature. In this case, every product that is displayed above has both the discounted price that Amazon offers and the MRSP which denotes manufacturer’s suggested retail price). This feature is easily comprehended by the customer as attributed to the strike-through text and is visible on every Amazon product. Additionally, another reminder relates to the notification of “free shipping” sub-feature. When the user adds some products to the shopping cart, a visible yellow banner pops up at the top of the screen to inform the user that they have qualified to receive free shipping. This motivates the user to return to shop with the company again in future.

The third feature on the Amazon website is the “look inside” feature. Notably, books are a primary product in the Amazon business. Therefore, the company developed a feature called “Look inside”. “This enables shoppers to view various sections of books on the website; mainly the front cover, table of contents, first pages, index, and back cover” (Ireland, Hoskisson, & Hitt, 2008, p. 123). This feature is vastly helpful to shoppers who are able to determine a book’s suitability from a view of the introduction and table of contents.

Another feature is the “Search Inside” which allows the user to search through an entire book and not simply the sections that have been availed for preview. Primarily, when a user selects a particular option from the menu of look inside, there is a lightbox that appears and provides the user with a product preview which is arguably almost similar to the experience of holding the actual book in one’s hands.

In addition, another common feature is well-placed navigation features. This is a feature that is crucial to the accomplishment of any online shopping store. Fundamentally, the ease with which a user is able to navigate sections is highly imperative. Some basic store categories, purchase pages, user pages, and shopping cart pages must be easily accessible at virtually all points in the user shopping experience. The Amazon e-commerce website does a commendable job of ensuring this.

Furthermore, the option of “change or delete items on the shipping page” is a feature that enables the user to maintain control of the entire experience even in the final steps of making a purchase. Essentially, while in the process of selecting a shipping method, an option is presented to the user to “change quantities or delete”. This provides reassurance to the user that even when they are virtually committed to the purchase they have the free will to retract (Manzoor, 2010. p. 98).

The last unique feature discussed in this section is the reminder that “Continue does not necessarily mean final decision” feature. When the user has already added an item to the cart and chosen a shipping method, they are able to review their order and click the option to “continue” with the purchase. Importantly, this button does not denote that the client has already confirmed the order; rather it leads to the last page where the client can make the actual purchase. The Amazon website has a reminder that is located under the “continue” button to inform the user that the final order has not yet been confirmed. This denotes a profound sense of empathy for the user through the understanding of different apprehensions and concerns that any user might experience at various stages of shopping online.

In recommendation it is important for developers to borrow some of the approaches taken by Amazon in building their e-commerce website. Naturally, users are apprehensive about online operations due to such factors as insecurity issues. By developing an e-commerce website that demonstrates empathy for the user’s online shopping experience, it is much easier for users to associate with the company and feel connected. In this regard, the recommendation is that developers should create additional enhancements to the shopping experience that enable the online user to feel in control of the situation and comfortable concurrently.

Conclusion

In conclusion, an e-commerce website is a major component for an online business to succeed. The features found on the e-commerce website of a particular store will determine the user’s attitude towards the entire business. A desirable user experience is highly beneficial to the business in general. Taking the example of the Amazon e-commerce website in the UK, developers could make adjustments to their systems to ensure a more adequate user experience.