Amazon.com’s customer interface was launched on July 16 1996 (Spector, 2000, p.70). The homepage consisted of listed informational text and navigational bars at the top and bottom of the page (Spector, 2000, p.70). It featured Amazon.com’s logo at the time, an “A� with a representation of a flowing river running through the middle of it and under it, a tagline: ‘Earth’s Biggest Bookstore’ (Spector, 2000, p.70).
The consumer’s experience begins at the homepage of Amazon.com and is where the consumer will decide to return or not. Bezos understood that customer perceptions of Amazon.com did not lie in the layout of pixels on the screen, but rather in the customer’s experience and so the website was developed to facilitate that experience (Spector, 2000, p.130).
The website was to adopt ‘frictionless shopping’, to simplify, but also speed up the whole online shopping experience so that customers can be finished ordering in a matter of minutes (Spector, 2000, p.71). The advanced searching capabilities of the internet were exploited in every possible way to enable searches by author, title, subject, publication date and keyword, across the whole website (Spector, 2000, p.71). Today, the Amazon.com website contains a wider variety of information and purchase options and provides users with an interactive component as well.
The commerce features of a customer interface are the functional tools that enable the website’s e-commerce transactions (2004, p.196). For Amazon.com, some of them include registration, shopping cart, security, credit card approval and one-click shopping. Registration allows users to login and store credit card and shipping details, a shopping cart enables customers to place items in the virtual cart so they can make an immediate purchase or store items for up to 30 days before deciding to purchase them (2004, p.197 and Hamilton, 2004, pp.42-46). Security is the site guarantee of secure transactions, data encryption and authentication technologies, almost instant credit card approval can be achieved and one-click shopping allows users to preset their details so orders can be processed with one simple click (2004, p.197).
To a certain extent, the Amazon.com customer interface can be customised to each user’s preferences. When a user logs in to Amazon.com after purchasing, the website reconfigures and presents content that pertains to individual users, depending upon the user’s responses or profile (2004, p.188). For Amazon.com, collaborative-filtering software is used to tailor the website to each user through comparing each user’s purchases with the purchases of other users with similar preferences (2004, p.188). A list is then compiled of additional purchase recommendations, with suggestions across product categories as well, such as similar areas of interest in CD or DVD format (2004, p.188).
Additionally, the website promotes and fosters a community of customers, through encouraging readers to submit book reviews and facilitating online discussions about previously read books (Spector, 2000, p.78). These activities provide users with an interactive component and give them an opportunity to contribute to the website's content as well as develop a group identity and sense of belonging which can lead to possible friendships (Spector, 2000, p.78).
These elements of the interface, along with other significant aspects work together to support Amazon.com, its functions and online operations.
Hamilton, D. (2004) "Amazon.com," Searcher, vol. 12, no.6, retrieved October 19, 2004, from http://search.epnet.com.gateway.library.qut.edu.au/direct.asp?an=13385322&db=afh
Introduction to e-business (2004) New South Wales: McGraw Hill, ISBN 7777772570.
Spector, R. (2000) Amazon.com: Get Big Fast, New York: Harper Collins, ISBN 073226796X.
Stephanie Spann 09:09, 9 Sep 2004 (EST)
