Amazon Business Case Study [2024]: In-depth Analysis

Amazon Business Case Study [2024]: In-depth Analysis

How does an online book retailer become a behemoth dominating the global e-commerce industry? The 28-year-old history of Amazon’s growth is a masterclass in building a successful business strategy that has revolutionised the retail experience forever! The company has achieved eponymous status with a global presence and diversified business. No wonder its sales are expected to reach an astounding USD 746.22 billion with a valuation of USD 2 trillion in 2024! From being an online bookseller headquartered in a garage to becoming the second most valuable brand in the world , the saga of this global brand is a case study in all the leading business schools.  

So what is the secret behind the explosive success of Amazon? This article provides a comprehensive case study of Amazon and its winning business strategy. 

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Glimpsing Back: A Brief History of Amazon

With a small team, the budding company made headway in the book-selling market by offering a wide virtual selection of books compared to brick-and-mortar stores with doorstep delivery. With a user-friendly interface, easy-to-search engine, and focus on creating a ‘virtual community,’ the business grew by leaps and bounds. The emphasis on customer choice, experience, and convenience serves the company well even today. 

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The name was aspirational with a nod to the largest river in the world- Bezos’ Amazon sought to be the largest e-commerce bookseller in the world. By July 1995, Amazon was marketing itself as the “Earth’s Biggest Bookstore,” selling over one million titles to all 50 states in the US and across 45 countries . It provided stiff competition to brick-and-mortar giants like Barnes and Noble and Borders. 

The company went public with its IPO in 1997 ; since then, there has been no looking back. Since its listing, the company has significantly diversified its offering by including music, electronics, toys, kitchen utensils, clothes, and more on its e-commerce site. From the Earth’s Biggest Bookstore, Amazon shifted its tagline to “Books, Music and More.” The company expanded to Germany and the United Kingdom by purchasing online bookstores, thus increasing its revenue. At its core, the company established a dynamic, efficient, and successful distribution and logistical model that helped capture a global market.

The year 1999 marked two critical moments for Amazon. First, the company patents the “1-Click” technology allowing users to purchase a product with one click. Second, it launches the 3rd party seller marketplace to allow third-party sellers to sell their produce through Amazon. These measures exponentially increased the sales on the platform. The company’s success put Bezos on the map as he received the prestigious accolade of the “Time’s Person of the Year” in 1999 at 35 years of age. 

The company survived the dot-com bubble burst and got only stronger. In 2003, the company took a momentous step by launching Amazon Web Services , a web-hosting business, that marked its arrival into the tech business. It provides cloud computing services to individual developers, companies, and governments through the platform’s IT infrastructure. The strategic shift from an e-commerce platform to a tech company was instrumental in Amazon’s diversification strategy and revenue generation. 

The company took further measures to develop brand loyalty through its Amazon Prime program in 2005. Prime membership has since expanded its services significantly and is one of the most valuable assets for the company today. It reshaped consumer expectations and experiences of shopping across the world. 

Amazon has been on a path of extensive acquisition and alliance . From the online shoe retailer Zappos to the robotics company Kiva Systems and the grocery delivery service Whole Foods- each acquisition captured pre-existing markets and distribution networks of the acquired assets. With every move, the company strategically entered new markets, removed competitive businesses by acquiring them, made distribution and logistics more efficient, and improved consumer experience. These moves catapulted the company to a 1 trillion dollar valuation in 2018. The company’s profits surged during the pandemic as Bezos’ hourly wealth increased by USD 11.7 million . The following year, Bezos stepped down as the CEO and found his replacement in Andy Jassy, the CEO of Amazon Web Services.

Now that we know the history of Amazon, its business strategy becomes easier to decipher. Before we unravel its key business strategies, let’s look at its many businesses. 

Amazon and its Diversified Business Model

A case study of Amazon is incomplete without an understanding of the many businesses that it has a foot in. Here are the diverse businesses that help Amazon generate revenues from multiple streams and have made it a leader in the global market. 

Online retail store

Amazon began as an online seller of books, and it continues its operations as an e-commerce site. Today the site offers a variety of products for the best prices to the consumer’s doorsteps. With an easy-to-use interface, easy return policy, “1-Click” buying, customer reviews, and suggestions, the e-commerce site knits an unrivalled retail experience. 

Amazon Marketplace

Amazon opened its platform to third-party sellers who could leverage its large customer base to sell products. It brings a diversity of products to the retailer without holding inventory. Amazon would, in turn, charge the sellers a percentage of their revenue as a commission fee. It is estimated that third-party sellers generate a gross merchandise value (GMV) of USD 300 billion for the platform.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Amazon’s cloud platform offers individual developers, start-ups, established businesses, and governments a range of cloud computing services through its IT infrastructure. It is the fastest-growing business segment for the brand clocking a global net revenue of USD 80.1 billion in 2022. 

Amazon Prime

Amazon’s member subscription service offers numerous membership benefits ranging from access to digital video and music streaming, audiobook and ebook platforms, free delivery, exclusive deals, Prime Day access, and much more. The company’s global net revenue from its subscription services stood at USD 35.22 billion in 2022. 

Amazon revealed in 2022 that the advertising wing of the company had generated a revenue of USD 31.2 billion the preceding year. The company offers custom advertising solutions to customers and campaign placements across multiple channels like Fire TV placements, Amazon physical stores, the brand’s homepage, and customised destination pages.

Physical stores

Amazon made an entry into the brick-and-mortar business with the establishment of a physical bookstore in Seattle in 2015. The company has since expanded its physical presence with Amazon Go, Amazon Fresh, Amazon Go Grocery, Whole Foods Market, and Amazon Style. It has sought to transform the real-world shopping experience with its “Just Walk Out Shopping’ experience. 

Breaking Down Amazon’s Business Strategy

Amazon’s business strategy has been innovative and forward-thinking from the get-go. Its path-breaking business model has inspired many but retains its uniqueness in execution. At its core, the company has maintained its customer-centric ethos, where its customers comprise three sets: retail customers, seller customers, and developer customers.   

For a comprehensive case study of Amazon , let’s take a closer look at the secret recipe behind its success.

Customer Obsession

The company proudly proclaims that it aims to be the “Earth’s most customer-centric company.” Since its inception, Amazon has won over the trust and loyalty of its customers by perfecting its marketing mix by offering “a comprehensive selection of products, low prices, fast and free delivery, easy-to-use functionality, and timely customer service.”   As Amazon’s customer base and usage expands exponentially, the company has worked towards optimising user experience through continuous assessment and feedback mechanisms.

Diversification

Amazon has kept up with the emerging demands of the market with growth potential in the long term. Its future-oriented vision has helped the company grow by leaps and bounds by venturing into new businesses that have added to its revenue streams. From cloud computing services to OTT services and subscription-based benefits, Amazon has reinvented what a diversified business looks like. 

Expansion through partnerships and acquisitions

Amazon has continually acquired and partnered with businesses to expand its customer base, enter new markets, diversify its product offerings, eliminate competition, and gain distribution and logistical networks. From IMDB and The Washington Post to Twitch and Pillpack, Amazon has bought companies across multiple categories to gain a foothold in their markets and operations. It has helped the company scale up its functions rapidly across the globe.

Technologically-driven innovations

Initially, Amazon was written off as it was started by “computer guys” who knew nothing about selling books. However, it was a focus on innovative technology that the company grew into a tech giant dominating the e-commerce space. Whether it is the 1-Click technology, SEO, user interface, cloud computing services, Just Walk Out technology, or its e-devices, the company has optimised customer experience by leveraging technology.

Data-based metrics

Amazon has consistently relied on metrics to assess, strategise, and grow its business. Data is an invaluable currency left behind with every click by the customer. The company has effectively and efficiently amassed these data into actionable insights to improve user experience, build and improve products and services, and develop successful marketing strategies. 

Marketing strategy

A comprehensive marketing strategy has been central to Amazon’s brand-building exercise. With the right marketing mix, the brand has become a household name. Its name and logo are recognisable anywhere in the world. A continual push to diversify its portfolio, competitive pricing policy, expanding its operations, and consistent promotions through multiple channels have been integral to achieving this global status. 

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Amazon, the second-most valuable company in the world, has been almost three decades in the making. Every step and misstep has been strategic and guided by the principles of: “customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking.” This case study of Amazon has sought to highlight its history, business model, and business strategies that have gone into the making of the behemoth. Ultimately, the company is a product of the management of Jeff Bezos and Amazon’s leadership. 

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Jeff Bezos has held the position of Founder and CEO of the company. However, he inherited the position of the Executive Chairman of Amazon after resigning as the CEO of the company in 2021.

Amazon launched in India in June 2013. Initially starting its operations to serve Indians with books, films, TV shows and subscription-based services, the company further expanded its wings to become one of the leading shopping destinations for Indians.

The most important focal point of Amazon’s business strategy is its customers (retail customers, sellers, and developers) and building a customer-centric company.

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Amazon Case Study – Tearing Down The Whole Business

Amazon runs a platform business model as a core model with several business units within . Some units, like Prime and the Advertising business, are highly tied to the e-commerce platform. For instance, Prime helps Amazon reward repeat customers, thus enhancing its platform business. Other units, like AWS , helped improve Amazon’s tech infrastructure.

amazon-business-model

Today Amazon is a tech giant who dominated the e-commerce business by offering a wide variety of products, at low cost, and with a delivery service propelled by its inventory management infrastructures, built over the years.

But, if Amazon is an extremely complex company, which can’t be easily labeled, how can we call its business model ?

Table of Contents

A platform business model at the core

amazon-third-party-sellers-business

Amazon business runs on top of a platform model (to understand what makes it a platform business read this ), built over the years, which takes advantage of network effects and flywheel effects .

At its core, Amazon has to keep attracting over and over billions of consumers across the globe on its platform and keep offering a broad variety of products.

As a two-sided platform , Amazon has also to keep its platform interesting to sellers, who are willing to showcase and sell their products directly on Amazon.

Indeed, over the years the company has experimented with many strategies, and among them, Amazon Prime and the seller services helped Amazon successfully transition toward a platform business.

customer-obsession

While this platform business is the foundation of Amazon, what other key businesses exist today on top of that?

Amazon multi-layered business model

Let’s dive into the details of the different models used by Amazon for each of its segments and how some have a logic that ties them together.

For the sake of this analysis , we’ll look at four primary segments:

  • Prime (media platform business)
  • E-commerce : first-party, third-party, seller services (e-commerce/marketplace platform business)
  • Advertising (media platform business)
  • AWS (AI-ML platform business)

Those are all platforms business models, as they enjoy the network effects and scalability typical of a platform.

At the same time, they have different value propositions , customer segments, and resources to run successfully.

Prime media business in a nutshell

amazon-prime-video-revenue-model-explained

For instance, Prime is a media platform business running a subscription -based revenue generation, with recurring revenues.

Amazon Prime is a media and entertainment platform, yet its strategic business value goes way beyond that.

This platform targets content creators who have to be incentivized to feature their content on Amazon Prime.

While consumers are incentivized to join Amazon Prime to get movies, ebooks and free shipping on products that are fulfilled by Amazon .

Many see this program as an additional revenue stream that the company enjoys to enhance its revenues.

However, Amazon Prime is a program who has come up after many years of trial and errors by Amazon’s management to come up with ways to:

  • reduce customers’ acquisition costs and facilitate repeat purchases : one of the major issues of building a digital platform (but also any other business) are customer acquisition costs and repeat purchases. A habitual Amazon customer buys many times a year. Therefore, shipping costs can easily eat up the convenience of buying on Amazon in the first place. How to prevent that? Cutting or removing those costs is the answer. While it’s hard to justify a membership program based solely on removing the cost of shipping. By offering a broad range of services (free ebooks, free movies and shows, and free shipping) all of a sudden you have an entertaining platform together with free shipping. Which makes the whole value proposition way more compelling.
  • incentivize sellers to host their inventories with Amazon : so the company could guarantee fast delivery and lower prices, while also charging a service fee to those sellers. Also, by managing inventories of products from beginning to end. Those same sellers indeed can sell more as customers who have Amazon Prime might want to purchase as they won’t pay for shipping costs.
  • make of Amazon a global consumer brand : digital platforms like Amazon have been extremely good at scaling up in a time when they had no resources compared to established brands. As Amazon scaled and consolidated its position in the market, it also started to invest more and more on its brand (in 2019 Amazon spent $11 billion in marketing ). In short, it moved from a solely practical value proposition (price and convenience) to culture-making by investing more and more on marketing and content to consolidate its global brand .

In short, the revenue stream generated by the model is the side effect of a program developed over the years to solve important issues of a business model that needed to keep providing more value to consumers as it scaled.

Advertising business in a nutshell

advertising-industry

The advertising business is also a media business, which runs an attention-based revenue generation, which is performance-based (actions on the platforms like clicks, and impressions which get paid by advertisers).

To gain a bit of context, Amazon is among the largest players in the digital advertising business. This makes the platform more interesting to sellers who want to feature their products on top of Amazon listing or to leverage on Amazon transactional data to sell more.

Thus, the key player is the consumer and the ability of the platform to keep attracting billion of consumers across the world. The key customer is the seller willing to pay Amazon to get better placement and more visibility of its products.

E-commerce platform business in a nutshell

The e-commerce platform has within a first-party and third-party seller business.

The first-party comprises products with Amazon brand . Third-party products are those featured on Amazon but sold from outside stores.

Amazon also gives the option to those third-party sellers to manage their inventory directly within Amazon, from an additional fee on the products who are fulfilled directly by the company.

The e-commerce platform remains the foundation of the overall Amazon business and what makes Amazon among the most interesting companies in the world.

Amazon knows it well, and indeed, the whole Amazon flywheel starts from there. This is how a strategy for a complex platform can be simplified. As a platform, you might want to focus on a core stakeholder and transaction to make it scale.

flywheel

It’s interesting to notice how the fact that Amazon was looking into a way to enable sellers to (thus transition toward a more scalable/ platform model) started with a random tinkering and turned into AWS.

AWS AI platform business in a nutshell

cloud-industry

AWS is one of the Amazon massive experiment who turned into a successful business. Over the years, Amazon tested many ideas, also those ideas who were not just coming from customers’ requests , but by the vision of Amazon about what products could have passed the expectations of consumers.

AWS primarily sells computing, storage, database, and other services. Primarily a consumption-based service, Amazon AWS’s main stakeholders are developers, dev managers, ops managers, CIOs, chief digital officers, and chief information security officers.

Amazon AWS is also an AI-ML platform business whose success is the ability to attract developers to build ML tools in the cloud, which can be used by organizations and enterprises buying cloud services to scale their businesses with lower technological costs.

One example is Amazon SageMaker, a cloud machine-learning platform that makes it possible for developers to build those models, thus making the Amazon cloud services more attractive in the first place to enterprises buying cloud services.

Key takeaways from Amazon Case Study

Over the years Amazon has been able to build a complex multi-layered business model , based on several key partners , value propositions , infrastructures and revenue streams .

This is model is the fruit of a long-term vision , but not the result fo a pre-packaged design . Successful companies require tinkering and a lot of trial and error.

Many of those business units, over the years, might have grown as a side effect of figuring out a way to make Amazon a more scalable platform as it helped expand its product variety, convenience, thus align to its long-term vision in unpredictable ways:

amazon-vision-statement-mission-statement

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Table of Contents

The 4ps of amazon's marketing strategy, amazon marketing channel types, amazon's digital marketing strategy, become a digital marketer in 2022, amazon marketing strategy 2024: a case study.

Amazon Marketing Strategy 2024: A Case Study

Amazon is the largest online store in the world based on sales and market value. This online business has changed how people all over the world do business. Jeff Bezos started the company in Washington, USA on July 05, 1994. He was the CEO of the company till July 2021. Andy Jassy took over as the President and CEO of Amazon on July 05 2021. 

The first success for Amazon came along very quickly. It began as an online bookstore and kept adding to what it could do. In 1997, the company went public and is now on the NASDAQ in the US. Without help from the press, the company could sell books in 45 countries in less than two months. Amazon is now in more than 200 countries, and its website sells almost everything. Its subsidiaries include Audible, Twitch, IMDb, and Amazon Web Services.

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Become a Certified Digital Marketer Today

Amazon looks at the " marketing mix " of a company or brand, which comprises the 4Ps - 

Here is a comprehensive explanation of each factor's function.

Amazon used only to sell books online, but now it sells millions of different products in many categories. Shoes, jewelry, clothes, toys, home and kitchen appliances, electronics, books, the great outdoors, sports, car accessories, and works of art are some of the most popular products. Amazon sells goods from small businesses and shops but promotes its brand , Amazon Basics.

A company can price its products in several different ways. Here are some to remember: 

  • Cost-plus pricing 
  • Value pricing 
  • Competitor pricing 
  • Price discrimination

Amazon often uses a pricing strategy called "competitive pricing," in which it looks at the prices of its competitors and bases its prices on those. It helps keep costs low and gives customers a lot of choices.

Amazon also uses the following methods to set prices:

  • Promotional pricing
  • Behavioral pricing

Amazon can change its products daily because of how it runs its business. This is its best feature, making it hard for other companies to compete with Amazon.

Amazon's online store has grown over the past few years in many parts of the world. Millions of products are now more accessible to customers worldwide to get. Even if you live in a remote part of the world, you can get packages quickly from Amazon. Part of the company's success comes from the fact that it ships fast and has fulfillment hubs.

4. Promotion

When it comes to marketing, Amazon knows how important communication is. It uses a lot of different kinds of advertising to reach people who might buy or use its products. Amazon has a lot of sales and discounts, which is a great way to build its brand. It has regular ads on websites, newspapers, TV, billboards, and social media , among other places. There are also affiliate sites that work with Amazon.

Also Read - What are the 7 Ps of Marketing? Read this article and find out! 

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Become a Certified Marketing Expert in 8 Months

PPC advertising on Amazon can be put into three groups:

1. Headline Search Ads

If you want to get your brand out there, it's best to use headline search ads. Amazon now has two ways to promote brands, especially during the holiday season:

  • Headline Search Ads
  • Amazon Stores

Title and Amazon Stores Together, Search Ads can help people know more about your brand and the products you sell. It also builds trust with customers and makes sure that your products are shown in the right way.

By combining Headline Search Ads, Amazon Stores, and Sponsored Products into a single Pay-Per-Click (PPC) marketing campaign, you can easily reach many shoppers in less time.

2. Product Display Ads

Another type of effective PPC ad is a "Product Display Ad," which is placed next to the product or in the "similar items" section on the product page. This kind of ad is only meant to be self-service. It is linked to the ASINs of the products, which gives sellers many options for focusing on different types of customers based on how they act.

3. Sponsored Product Ads

One of the best ways to get more people to see and buy your product is to pay for an advertisement. Sponsored product ads appear on the top when you search for something on Amazon.

Amazon's digital marketing strategy is comprehensive, and they reach the customers through digital marketing. Today, everyone uses social media. Amazon advertises its products on social media, taking advantage of those who use those sites and sending them to their product pages to help them sell more. It has teamed up with several big and small influencers in the country to reach its audience more effectively. It uses Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, and Facebook.

Amazon on Facebook

There are 10 million people who follow Amazon India on Facebook . It primarily uses Facebook to share company news and advertising. It uses strong advertising to get the word out about its Sale Days. It also stays up-to-date by publishing posts on different topics.

Amazon on Instagram

Interviews with artists from different backgrounds and key advertising are the main parts of Amazon's Instagram marketing plan. It has more than 2.8 million Instagram followers. The company's strategies for Instagram and Facebook are very similar, except that it doesn't post updates about company news on either platform. Both platforms have posts from the company that are very similar. 

Amazon on Twitter

Amazon India has a different plan for getting new customers through Twitter. It stays in touch with its followers, using a wide range of content, holding contests to get new customers, and following and creating trends. It is one of the biggest in its field, with two million Twitter followers. Twitter content makes it sound less like advertising and more like personal recommendations. 

Amazon on YouTube

The best thing about Amazon's YouTube ads is that they immediately grab people's attention. Amazon makes sure that its ads are always interesting and valuable. Most of the time, it does this by trying to make the customer feel special. 

Amazon on Pinterest

More than a million people follow Amazon on Pinterest. They use Pinterest to promote their products based on a wide range of themes to grab people's attention.

The way Amazon uses digital marketing is unparalleled. To stay competitive, they should keep making more exciting content and putting it out in the best way possible. Amazon Marketing Strategy gets updated periodically to stay ahead of the curve. Competing in the retail industry is complex, and Amazon's marketing strategy has helped the company stay ahead of the competition.

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Amazon.com: Supply Chain Management

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By early 2018, Seattle-based Amazon.com Inc. (Amazon), one of the world's most valuable companies and the largest online retailer in the world, had grown dramatically since its beginnings in 1994.…

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By early 2018, Seattle-based Amazon.com Inc. (Amazon), one of the world's most valuable companies and the largest online retailer in the world, had grown dramatically since its beginnings in 1994. The company that had started as an online bookseller now sold merchandise and digital content in more than 30 categories, including electronics, clothing, books, furniture, and streaming music and video. It sold its own products and listed products for sale by over two million third-party sellers. It provided on-demand cloud-computing services and offered fulfillment and shipping services to businesses, and it had recently entered grocery retailing through its purchase of Whole Foods Market. With 2017 shipping costs that exceeded $21 billion, the company was working to establish greater control over its supply chain network and capabilities. Amazon was selling a huge variety of products in many formats, and the chief executive officer needed to determine how to structure the company's supply chain in order to support its strategy and growth objectives. What supply chain capabilities would Amazon need as its business model continued to evolve?

Learning Objectives

This case can be used in an undergraduate or graduate course on operations management, supply chain management, logistics, business strategy, or marketing. After completing the case, students will be able to assess Amazon's supply chain, and identify its key competitive advantages; quantify Amazon's ability to generate value from its supply chain; identify potential opportunities and challenges for Amazon in improving its supply chain; and analyze the effects of the opportunities and challenges facing Amazon on its growth and evolution.

Jul 26, 2018 (Revised: Nov 11, 2021)

Discipline:

Operations Management

Geographies:

United States

Industries:

E-commerce industry, Telecom

Ivey Publishing

W18451-PDF-ENG

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Case Study: Should a Direct-to-Consumer Company Start Selling on Amazon?

  • Thales S. Teixeira

amazon case study

An e-bike maker weighs the trade-offs.

Sitting in his office, Mark Ellinas frowned at his computer screen. It was filled with row after row of electric bikes, from expensive models to cheap knockoffs that seemed held together by spit and a prayer. Though they varied in style and price, the bikes did have one thing in common: where they were being sold. The website he was looking at, flush with options, was Amazon.

amazon case study

  • TT Thales  S. Teixeira  is the co-founder of Decoupling.co, a digital disruption and transformation consulting firm. He is the author of  Unlocking the Customer Value Chain: How Decoupling Drives Consumer Disruption  and a panel judge in CNBC’s Disruptor 50 annual startup competition. Previously he was a professor at Harvard Business School for ten years and now teaches at the University of California.

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Hear how entrepreneurs around the world reach customers globally with Amazon

Bling jewelry, what to sell, global seller success stories.

You’re never going to do things perfectly … but Amazon gave us an opportunity to keep things simple. Michael Corrigan TRTL | United Kingdom

amazon case study

It's a no-brainer. [Amazon] is where you introduce your product to new customers. Zamir Cajee iQualTech | United Kingdom

amazon case study

Our goal is to build a global brand. Johannes Kliesch & Felix Bauer Snocks | Germany

amazon case study

If I had one tip for a company interested in expanding to the US, I’d say: Do it with Amazon. Gui Perrier Dodow | France

amazon case study

  • North America, Europe
  • North America, Europe; plan to sell in Japan, Australia
  • North America, Europe, Japan, Australia

ASIA AND THE PACIFIC

Herbs & crops overseas, fair havens, lanna clothes design.

[Previously], we mainly focused on manufacturing [for other sellers]. … In 2013, we began selling internationally directly to customers ourselves on Amazon. Jia Li Yang Bluedio | Shenzhen, China

amazon case study

My sales picked up on Amazon.com during the major sales period over Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Manish Jain Herbs & Crops Overseas | Ahmedabad, India

amazon case study

We thought, if we succeed on Amazon US, we can succeed over the world. We achieved 107% year-over-year growth for five consecutive years since we started selling on Amazon. Youngjo Kim Spigen | Seoul, South Korea

amazon case study

We are based here in Singapore but able to sell across the world. … More than half of our total sales come from Amazon. Jason Tay & Karen Fair Havens | Singapore

amazon case study

Within 10 months of enrolling, our sales on Amazon made up 85% of total sales. … My life has changed. My mom and my sister have full-time jobs working with me. Praew Khrutnok Lanna Clothes Design | Chiang Mai, Thailand

amazon case study

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Unlock Amazon Success

7 In-Depth Amazon Advertising Case Studies to Inspire Your E-commerce Brand

Amazon offers a myriad of strategies for e-commerce brands to boost sales and brand visibility. Through detailed Amazon advertising case studies of brands like Roomify, Polar and Elevate Brands, this blog post delves into the unique challenges each faced and the innovative solutions they employed.

From automating massive product catalogs to leveraging machine learning for PPC optimization, these insights will give you a comprehensive view of what your e-commerce brand can do on Amazon’s advertising platform, too.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

The power of amazon advertising for e-commerce growth, the benefits of studying amazon advertising case studies, roomify : sponsored products, polar : machine learning, elevate brands : ad data organization.

  • Ultra: High-Converting Products Targeting

Fliegende-Pillen.de : Ad Automation

Stur drinks : ad campaign structuring, baby sweets : automated keyword management, ready to elevate your own amazon advertising campaigns.

amazon case study

We can count on them to bring new ideas to the table consistently

Amazon advertising is a powerful marketing option for e-commerce brands because of its ability to reach a highly targeted audience. People who are searching on this marketplace are ready to buy.

The platform’s vast data pool allows advertisers to target their ads towards consumers who are actively searching for products similar to what they offer. This precision targeting increases the likelihood of conversions, ensuring that your ad spend is allocated efficiently.

Moreover, Amazon advertising offers multiple ad formats, including sponsored products, sponsored brands and sponsored display ads, allowing e-commerce businesses to tailor their advertising strategies to their specific goals:

amazon case study

Whether you aim to increase product visibility, drive brand awareness or maximize sales, Amazon’s advertising tools can be customized to suit your objectives.

Additionally, the platform provides valuable performance metrics and analytics, enabling marketers to continually refine and optimize their campaigns for better results.

Examining case studies offers a detailed understanding of tactics that have proven successful for various brands, allowing businesses with similar goals learn from others. By analyzing these real-world examples, companies can refine their own strategies and harness the full potential of the Amazon marketplace.

Here are the top benefits of studying Amazon marketing strategy case studies:

  • Real-World Insights : The best Amazon advertising campaigns case studies offer valuable real-world examples of successful campaigns, showcasing how businesses leveraged the platform to achieve their goals. Studying an Amazon ads case study provides a deeper understanding of the strategies and tactics that work, offering actionable insights that can be applied to your own advertising efforts.
  • Benchmarking : By examining an Amazon PPC case study, you can benchmark your own campaigns against industry standards and best practices. This helps you assess your performance, identify areas for improvement and set realistic goals for your e-commerce business.
  • Get Inspiration : E-commerce advertising success stories often feature innovative and creative approaches to Amazon advertising. They can inspire new ideas and strategies for your own campaigns, helping you stand out in a competitive marketplace.
  • Avoid Pitfalls : Learning from the mistakes and challenges faced by other businesses in Amazon advertising case studies can help you avoid common pitfalls. This can save you time and resources by steering clear of strategies that may not be effective or cost-efficient.
  • Understand Trends : Amazon’s advertising platform is continually evolving, with new features and trends emerging regularly. Real-world Amazon advertising results keep you up to date with the latest tactics in Amazon advertising so that your campaigns remain relevant and effective.
  • ROI Assessment : An Amazon advertising case study often includes data on return on investment (ROI) and performance metrics. This information can assist you in evaluating the potential ROI of your own Amazon advertising campaigns, making it easier to allocate your budget effectively.
  • Audience Targeting Strategies : Amazon PPC success stories frequently highlight successful Amazon advertising strategies . Understanding how businesses segment and reach their target audiences can improve your own targeting efforts, resulting in more effective Amazon ad campaign ROI.
  • Competitive Analysis : By studying how your competitors have utilized Amazon advertising, you can gain insights into their strategies and positioning. This knowledge can inform your own advertising approach.
  • Optimize Ad Formats : Different ad formats are available on Amazon, such as sponsored products, sponsored brands and sponsored display ads. Case studies can provide guidance on which ad formats are most effective for different goals and industries.
  • Measure Success : Case studies often outline key performance indicators (KPIs) and how they were tracked. This can help you establish clear KPIs for your own campaigns and learn how to effectively measure success on the Amazon advertising platform.

Nearly half the sellers on Amazon earn between $1,000 and $2,500 monthly :

amazon sellers stats

But if your business is already at that point, you’re probably ready to optimize your current Amazon promotion strategy.

This is where Amazon advertising can help. This platform offers different advertising tools to bring more leads down the sales funnel while providing customization, increasing sales, saving on ad spend and staying on brand.

Creating an Amazon ad strategy to appeal to your customer base can be difficult. That’s why it’s a great idea for businesses to examine case studies to see which tactics worked for similar stores.

Here are 7 successful Amazon advertising case studies and what these companies did to experience revenue growth .

Buying furniture takes a toll on one’s financial health, especially for college students and anyone renting their first apartment. But Roomify offers an alternative to furniture shopping on a budget. From functional furniture items such as desks, to decorative pieces such as headboards, they provide an affordable way to furnish any living space.

However, Roomify’s Amazon page is up against other better-known competitors that generate traffic from Millennials and Gen Zs, which make up most of their market share. That’s why they decided to increase ad spending to drive traffic and increase sales, specifically on Amazon.

The Challenge: Creating a Budget-Friendly Advertising Plan

Even though Roomify is rapidly growing, they’re still in the start-up phase. This means they only have limited resources for each advertising channel. To gain more customers, they knew they needed a full-service advertising team to optimize all of Amazon’s tools, especially during their peak sales season.

Strategies: Leveraging Sponsored Products and Product Listing Optimizations

The advertising team created an ad strategy consisting of sponsored product ads and optimizing their product listings to make them one of the top sellers. Sponsored ads were placed at the top of Amazon’s SERPs to increase conversions and CTRs.

The Amazon marketing team also made some changes to Roomify’s current optimizations. They improved product listings with optimized product descriptions  and high-quality images. Furthermore, they targeted each listing with ranking keywords, so a potential customer could easily find the brand’s Amazon page in organic search.

In addition to these strategies, the advertising team created an email drip campaign to optimize positive reviews  and feedback while staying compliant with communication  policies for Amazon customers.

Results: Significant Increase in Amazon Sales and ROI

Roomify’s comprehensive strategy resulted in a 273% increase in revenue , 80% of that from the sponsored products:

Image7

Into the third month of the campaign, the brand experienced half of their sales from their Amazon page. Since the ads brought in more clicks and new customers, their seller rank increased, generating more sales from organic search results.

The resulting return on ad spend  was double that of Google and Bing, and over double the projected goal. The brand still made a positive ROI and was able to 2X their ad spend to attract more potential customers.

Dive Deeper: * PPC for E-commerce: 8 Effective Best Practices * E-commerce SEO for Product Pages: 15-Point Checklist to Boost Traffic and Sales * E-commerce Advertising Strategy: How We Doubled PPC Sales for ThinSlim Foods (with a 3X+ ROAS)

Polar is a sports technology company that creates innovative products for customers such as athletes and coaches.

The brand first emerged in the market with fitness technology, such as their digital heart rate monitors, and have expanded their catalog to include watches and other wearables that track activity levels. Their wearables sync with the brand’s app, so athletes and fitness enthusiasts can always stay on top of their exercise goals.

Despite their massive fitness market share, Polar needed to fight the competition and capture leads through Amazon ads.

The Challenge: Enhancing Amazon Ad Performance and Efficiency

Polar’s Amazon ads  weren’t performing up to the level they needed to fight other fitness wearable and technology giants.

Though enhancing brand visibility was crucial, they wanted to approach Amazon ads in a smart way to cut costs and generate a better conversion rate while maintaining an impressive ROAS. They specifically needed to target the European market based on their demographics, analytics and the brand’s location in Germany.

Strategies: Harnessing Machine Learning for Amazon PPC

Polar collaborated with a paid ad company that uses machine learning to create and manage Amazon PPC ads . The advertisers did this by streamlining and automating many aspects of the PPC process, such as adding new keywords and tracking relevant KPIs.

The paid ad brand originally only worked on Amazon ads for the Europe market, but quickly expanded to their U.S. market to generate leads for new customers internationally .

Results: Boosted Conversion Rate and Customer Engagement

With this machine learning approach, the advertisers generated 1,982 new conversions . These conversions were applied to more than 118 products in over six countries. They optimized 2,200,000 bids while reducing the previous workload Polar devoted toward their Amazon ads.

Polar Watch Amazon case study

Dive Deeper: * Beginner’s Guide to Amazon PPC Ad Campaigns * Amazon Advertising: A Beginner’s Guide to Maximizing Sales * How to Use Amazon Reviews for Content and Product Development

Elevate Brands is one of the most unique e-commerce companies. They purchase brands on the Amazon marketplace and elevate them using various scalable techniques that align with business goals. This may include offering partnerships or buying out businesses entirely.

The company offers transparency throughout the entire process, making this an excellent solution for small businesses struggling to take their brand to the next level. Even though they provide many resources to small business owners, creating ads for numerous companies proved to be a serious challenge.

The Challenge: Streamlining Data Analysis Across Multiple Amazon Stores

Elevate Brands tried to pull data from 35 different companies when they started their advertising strategy on the Amazon marketplace. They were waiting weeks to receive insight and needed a solution that tracked the right metrics on one platform. They also wanted this data to be available immediately, so they could adjust their campaign when required.

Strategies: Migrating all Advertising Data to Cloud Solutions

The brand contacted an ad and analytics company operating on the cloud. The cloud company could take data from all 35 companies and place it on a single dashboard, which allowed Elevate Brands to see how many ad impressions each company generated.

They pulled and organized all advertising data on their cloud platform, updating all metrics automatically. The platform offered a very visual dashboard that was easy to read, ideal for the advertising team to change their bid strategy when needed.

Results:  Integration of 500+ Data Sources for Holistic Analysis

Elevate Brands had a combined total of over 500 data sources  from over 35 companies:

Image4

The cloud company combined all this data on one platform, and they were able to make changes and experiment with different advertising strategies while receiving timely updates.

Dive Deeper: 10 Easy Product Page Design Strategies That Will Boost Your Conversions

Ultra*: High-Converting Products Targeting

Though not their real name, Ultra is an e-commerce company specializing in home goods with outdoor furniture being one of their biggest customer favorites. They wanted to increase their revenue and knew they could do that with the best Amazon PPC strategy. The problem was that their PPC management  needed a complete overhaul.

The Challenge: Achieving a 7-Figure Revenue Milestone

Ultra was sitting at a 6-figure revenue with a 7-figure goal in mind. However, the overall performance of their Amazon PPC management was less than perfect. Their bidding strategy, search results and keyword  management, and overall campaign structure all needed to change.

The specific campaign challenges that they faced were:

  • Poor search engine term management
  • No bid optimization
  • Poor campaign structure

Strategy: Innovative PPC Techniques and Campaigns

Ultra contacted an Amazon PPC management company to improve their advertising strategy. The strategy was simple: apply new PPC techniques and tools while keeping advertising cost of sales (ACoS) at a single digit.

First, the advertisers invested in various types of ads, including:

  • Headline search engine ads
  • Seller Central sponsored products campaigns
  • Vendor Central sponsored product listing
  • Display ads

To target the pain points, the PPC management company increased bids on high-converting items and decreased bids on low-converting products, turned keywords with high ACoS into negative keywords, and completely reorganized their campaign.

The company also split the campaign into auto and manual targeting , adding the negative keywords to the auto campaign while adding the best customer-converting keywords to the manual campaign.

Results: Hit  7-Figure Revenue Target

In this Amazon marketing strategy case study, Ultra achieved 7-figure revenue and enhanced visibility. The successful Amazon PPC search engine strategy yielded 561,215,398 impressions and 2,898,012 clicks , with a 0.52% CTR:

Image2

Not only that, but the PPC management company saved Ultra lots of money on their campaign. The spend-to-sales ratio was 1/14 and their ACoS was 7.14%.

Just want someone to do the work for you? Single Grain’s Amazon Ads experts  can help!👇

Fliegende-Pillen.de is the online mail-order service for Birken Pharmacy. They wanted to switch to Amazon to promote their brand, using their impressive search and advertising capabilities. But there was one issue – they offer customers over 70,000 pharmaceuticals. From their research, using Amazon PPC for all these medications would be a problem.

The Challenge: Streamlining Ad Creation for Extensive Product Catalog

If the company was going to invest in an Amazon search and advertising strategy, they couldn’t achieve this manually. With over 70,000 pharmaceuticals, the mail-order pharmacy needed to scale its process to research and promote its massive product catalog and implement ads for its inventory.

Fliegende-Pillen.de specifically needed an Amazon advertising partner to manage large volumes of data, monitor bids and make adjustments several times daily, taking action when required.

Strategy: Automation and Data-Driven Decisions

With their unique challenges, the mail-order pharmacy store needed an advertisement and search company with expertise and empowered by automation. They hired an Amazon advertising company to optimize their ads on the e-commerce giant.

The Amazon ads company automatically adjusted thousands of bids, saving the company hundreds of hours.

Results: Maximized Efficiency, Cost Savings and Ad Performance

By automatically adjusting bids, the Amazon ad company was able to use its automation expertise to scale 74,000 bids and deliver over 900 keyword suggestions, all while achieving a -33% ACoS . This saved Fliegende-Pillen.de 246 hours in three months.

Fliegende-Pillen.de Amazon case study

Dive Deeper: * 7 Pro Tips for Retailers to Capitalize on Amazon’s Prime Day * How to Set Up Your E-commerce Product Page for Maximum Conversions

Stur Drinks proves that a family-owned store focused on healthy living can develop a devoted customer base and earn serious sales.

Formed by Neel Premkumar, this company makes naturally flavored water enhancers. His goal initially was to encourage his wife to drink more water while she was pregnant with their twins.

Premhumar made the water enhancers in his own kitchen, but then he realized he had made a hit product. Even in the early stages of his company’s development, he started selling his water enhancers on Amazon, where he began seeing actual product sales.

With the right Amazon marketing strategy , his company took off. So what else did this small business success story need?

The Challenge: Optimizing Ad Campaigns for Higher ROI

As a small store, Stur Drinks was handling a large part of its advertising and search campaigns themselves. They spent hours working on their Amazon ads and weren’t getting the needed return.

When they realized that Amazon ads weren’t meant to be a one-person show, they onboarded an advertising company to fine-tune their campaign.

In addition to these challenges, the company also wanted a sales increase from their ads and a better ACoS. They wanted to put their focus on creating the product rather than using technology to find customers.

Strategy: Intelligent Ad Campaign Structuring and Targeting

The advertising agency noticed a significant issue during their audit on Spur Drinks – their campaign lacked structure. That’s why the agency created a cost-saving smart ad campaign that focused on auto and manual structures.

The company automatically handled keywords, ad search and product listings and took a manual approach to fine-tune the best-converting keywords.

The specific strategies the advertising company applied include:

  • Expanding advertising campaigns in Seller Central
  • Optimized bids that hit the target
  • Rolled out Amazon Marketing Service campaigns
  • Optimizing keywords with a high ACoS
  • Pulled out negative keywords
  • Worked on Amazon Sponsored Products account structure
  • Improved the reporting structure

Results: 50% Increase in Revenue and Brand Visibility

The results were more than what Spur Drinks had requested. Their revenue grew by 50%  while the advertising agency cut their ACoS by half. They also experienced a 9% increase in reviews, many of which were five-star reviews.

Image1

Dive Deeper: How to Improve Your Amazon Ads to Increase Sales

Baby Sweets is a company that sells clothing for babies and toddlers, with a customer base consisting of parents who want stylish and safe clothes for their children. Founded in 2016, they are a rapidly growing company, selling over 700 products.

The Challenge: Navigating Amazon Advertising with Limited Experience

Even though Baby Sweets is popular among its stylish parent customer base, they’re still a startup. They lacked the experience to create effective advertising and search campaigns with their enormous catalog. The team also went back and forth between automatic and manual campaigns, wasting many hours and not achieving their ACoS.

The ads also weren’t leading to the desired increase in sales, so the hours spent on their campaign were largely wasted.

Strategy: Leveraging  Automation and Expert Insights

The company quickly realized they needed a fully automated solution to Amazon advertising and search, but required professional help to make this happen. They found one Amazon ad company that fully automated the addition and exclusion of keywords and completed thousands of bid adjustments.

Results:  Improved Conversion Rates and Optimized ROI

The Amazon ad company increased their daily conversions by 223%, resulting in an 11% increase in ROI  and additional cost savings:

Image6

Since Baby Sweets switched to an automated solution, they saved 167 hours. Automation also helped them add and exclude over 2,000 keywords for search advertising.

Dive Deeper: * 4 Amazon Ads Trends You Can’t Ignore * Amazon Basics: Why You Need Automatic and Manual Campaigns * What Amazon’s Marketing Strategy Can Teach SMB Owners

What do these Amazon advertising case studies prove? All store owners on Amazon should invest in an advertising campaign for explosive growth. But with so many sellers on the e-commerce platform, advertising competition can be very challenging.

By looking at advertising case studies like those described above, businesses can see which tactics worked for other brands in their niche. From automation to optimizing product listings, there are plenty of ways to dominate the competition and direct leads quicker down the sales funnel on Amazon.

If you’re ready to generate maximum ROI for your product ads, Single Grain’s Amazon Ads experts  can help!👇

amazon case study

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amazon case study

Hacking The Case Interview

Hacking the Case Interview

Amazon case study interview

If you’re interviewing for a business role at Amazon, there is a good chance that you’ll receive at least one case study interview, also known as an Amazon case interview. Amazon roles that include case study interviews as part of the interview process include:

  • Business Analyst
  • Business Development
  • Corporate Strategy
  • Product Manager
  • Product Marketing

To land an Amazon job offer, you’ll need to crush every single one of your case interviews. While Amazon case study interviews may seem ambiguous and challenging, know that they can be mastered with proper preparation.

If you are preparing for an upcoming Amazon case interview, we have you covered. In this comprehensive Amazon case interview guide, we’ll cover:

  • What is an Amazon case study interview
  • Why Amazon uses case study interviews
  • The 6 steps to ace any Amazon case interview
  • Amazon case interview tips
  • Recommended Amazon case study interview resources

If you’re looking for a step-by-step shortcut to learn case interviews quickly, enroll in our case interview course . These insider strategies from a former Bain interviewer helped 30,000+ land tech and consulting offers while saving hundreds of hours of prep time.

What is an Amazon Case Study Interview?

Amazon case study interviews, also known as Amazon case interviews, are 20- to 30-minute exercises in which you are placed in a hypothetical business situation and are asked to find a solution or make a recommendation.

First, you’ll create a framework that shows the approach you would take to solve the case. Then, you’ll collaborate with the interviewer, answering a mix of quantitative and qualitative questions that will give you the information and data needed to develop an answer. Finally, you’ll deliver your recommendation at the end of the case.

Case interviews have traditionally been used by consulting firms to assess a candidate’s potential to become a successful consultant. However, now a days, many companies with ex-consultants use case studies to assess a candidate’s capabilities. Since Amazon has so many former consultants in its business roles, you’ll likely encounter at least one case study interview.

The business problems that you’ll be given in an Amazon case study interview will likely be real challenges that Amazon faces today:

  • How can Amazon improve customer retention for their Amazon Prime subscription service?
  • How can Amazon improve its digital streaming service?
  • How can Amazon increase ad revenues from merchant sellers?
  • How should Amazon deal with fake products among its product listings?
  • How can Amazon Web Services outcompete Microsoft Azure?

Depending on what team at Amazon you are interviewing for, you may be given a business problem that is relevant to that specific team.

Although there is a wide range of business problems you could possibly be given in your Amazon case interview, the fundamental case interview strategies to solve each problem is the same. If you learn the right strategies and get enough practice, you’ll be able to solve any Amazon case study interview.

Why does Amazon Use Case Study Interviews?

Amazon uses case study interviews because your performance in a case study interview is a measure of how well you would do on the job. Amazon case interviews assess a variety of different capabilities and qualities needed to successfully complete job duties and responsibilities.

Amazon’s case study interviews primarily assess five things:

  • Logical, structured thinking : Can you structure complex problems in a clear, simple way?
  • Analytical problem solving : Can you read, interpret, and analyze data well?
  • Business acumen : Do you have sound business judgment and intuition?
  • Communication skills : Can you communicate clearly, concisely, and articulately?
  • Personality and cultural fit : Are you coachable and easy to work with?

Since all of these qualities can be assessed in just a 20- to 30-minute case, Amazon case study interviews are an effective way to assess a candidate’s capabilities.

In order to do well on the personality and cultural fit portion, you should familiarize yourself with  Amazon’s Leadership Principles before your interview. At a high level, these principles include:

  • Customer obsession : Leaders start with the customer and work backwards
  • Ownership : Leaders are owners and act on behalf of the entire company
  • Invent and simplify : Leaders expect and require innovation and invention from their teams and always find ways to simplify
  • Learn and be curious : Leaders are never done learning and always seek to improve themselves
  • Insist on the highest standards : Leaders have relentlessly high standards
  • Think big : Leaders create and communicate a bold direction that inspires results
  • Frugality : Accomplish more with less
  • Earn trust : Leaders listen attentively, speak candidly, and treat others respectfully
  • Dive deep : Leaders operate at all levels and stay connected to the details
  • Deliver results : Leaders focus on key inputs for their business and deliver them with the right quality and in a timely fashion

The 6 Steps to Solve Any Amazon Case Interview

In general, there are six steps to solve any Amazon case study interview.

1. Understand the case

Your Amazon case interview will begin with the interviewer giving you the case background information. While the interviewer is speaking, make sure that you are taking meticulous notes on the most important pieces of information. Focus on understanding the context of the situation and the objective of the case.

Don’t be afraid to ask clarifying questions if you do not understand something. You may want to summarize the case background information back to the interviewer to confirm your understanding of the case.

The most important part of this step is to verify the objective of the case. Not answering the right business question is the quickest way to fail a case interview.

2. Structure the problem

The next step is to develop a framework to help you solve the case. A framework is a tool that helps you structure and break down complex problems into smaller, more manageable components. Another way to think about frameworks is brainstorming different ideas and organizing them into different categories.

For a complete guide on how to create tailored and unique frameworks for each case, check out our article on case interview frameworks .

Before you start developing your framework, it is completely acceptable to ask the interviewer for a few minutes so that you can collect your thoughts and think about the problem.

Once you have identified the major issues or areas that you need to explore, walk the interviewer through your framework. They may ask a few questions or provide some feedback.

3. Kick off the case

Once you have finished presenting your framework, you’ll start diving into different areas of your framework to begin solving the case. How this process will start depends on whether the case interview is candidate-led or interviewer-led.

If the case interview is a candidate-led case, you’ll be expected to propose what area of your framework to start investigating. So, propose an area and provide a reason for why you want to start with that area. There is generally no right or wrong area of your framework to pick first.

If the case interview is interviewer-led, the interviewer will tell you what area of the framework to start in or directly give you a question to answer.

4. Solve quantitative problems

Amazon case study interviews may have some quantitative aspect to them. For example, you may be asked to calculate a certain profitability or financial metric. You could also be asked to estimate the size of a particular market or to estimate a particular figure.

The key to solving quantitative problems is to lay out a structure or approach upfront with the interviewer before doing any math calculations. If you lay out and present your structure to solve the quantitative problem and the interviewer approves of it, the rest of the problem is just simple execution of math.

5. Answer qualitative questions

Amazon case study interviews may also have qualitative aspects to them. You may be asked to brainstorm a list of potential ideas. You could also be asked to provide your opinion on a business issue or situation.

The key to answering qualitative questions is to structure your answer. When brainstorming a list of ideas, develop a structure to help you neatly categorize all of your ideas. When giving your opinion on a business issue or situation, provide a summary of your stance or position and then enumerate the reasons that support it.

6. Deliver a recommendation

In the last step of the Amazon case interview, you’ll present your recommendation and provide the major reasons that support it. You do not need to recap everything that you have done in the case, so focus on only summarizing the facts that are most important.

It is also good practice to include potential next steps that you would take if you had more time or data. These can be areas of your framework that you did not have time to explore or lingering questions that you do not have great answers for.

Amazon Case Interview Tips

Below are eight of our best tips to help you perform your best during your Amazon case study interview.

1. Familiarize yourself with Amazon’s business model

If you don’t understand Amazon’s business model, it will be challenging for you to do well in their case interviews. If you are interviewing for the Amazon Web Services team, you should know how Amazon makes money as a cloud service provider. If you are interviewing for the Amazon Prime team, you should be familiar with how their subscription service works.

2. Read recent news articles on Amazon

A lot of the times, the cases you’ll see in an Amazon case study interview are real business issues that the company faces. Reading up on the latest Amazon news will give you a sense of what Amazon’s biggest challenges are and what major business decisions they face today. There is a good chance that your case study interview will be similar to something that you have read in the news.

3. Verify the objective of the case 

Answering the wrong business problem will waste a lot of time during your Amazon case study interview. Therefore, the most critical step of the case interview is to verify the objective of the case with the interviewer. Make sure that you understand what the primary business issue is and what overall question you are expected to answer at the end of the case.

4. Ask clarifying questions

Do not be afraid to ask questions. You will not be penalized for asking questions that are important and relevant to the case. 

Great questions to ask include asking for the definition of an unfamiliar term, asking questions that clarify the objective of the case, and asking questions to strengthen your understanding of the business situation.

5. Do not use memorized frameworks

Interviewers can tell when you are using memorized frameworks from popular case interview prep books. Amazon values creativity and intellect. Therefore, make every effort to create a custom, tailored framework for each case that you get.

6. Always connect your answers to the case objective

Throughout the case, make sure you are connecting each of your answers back to the overall business problem or question. What implications does your answer have on the overall business problem?

Many candidates make the mistake of answering case questions correctly, but they don’t take the initiative to tie their answer back to the case objective.

7. Communicate clearly and concisely

In an Amazon case study interview, it can be tempting to answer the interviewer’s question and then continue talking about related topics or ideas. However, you have a limited amount of time to solve an Amazon case, so it is best to keep your answers concise and to the point.

Answer the interviewer’s question, summarize how it impacts the case objective, and then move onto the next important issue or question.

8. Be enthusiastic

Amazon wants to hire candidates that love their job and will work hard. Displaying enthusiasm shows that you are passionate about working at Amazon. Having a high level of enthusiasm and energy also makes the interview more enjoyable for the interviewer. They will be more likely to have a positive impression of you.

Recommended Amazon Case Study Interview Resources

Here are the resources we recommend to learn the most robust, effective case interview strategies in the least time-consuming way:

  • Comprehensive Case Interview Course (our #1 recommendation): The only resource you need. Whether you have no business background, rusty math skills, or are short on time, this step-by-step course will transform you into a top 1% caser that lands multiple consulting offers.
  • Hacking the Case Interview Book   (available on Amazon): Perfect for beginners that are short on time. Transform yourself from a stressed-out case interview newbie to a confident intermediate in under a week. Some readers finish this book in a day and can already tackle tough cases.
  • The Ultimate Case Interview Workbook (available on Amazon): Perfect for intermediates struggling with frameworks, case math, or generating business insights. No need to find a case partner – these drills, practice problems, and full-length cases can all be done by yourself.
  • Case Interview Coaching : Personalized, one-on-one coaching with former consulting interviewers
  • Behavioral & Fit Interview Course : Be prepared for 98% of behavioral and fit questions in just a few hours. We'll teach you exactly how to draft answers that will impress your interviewer
  • Resume Review & Editing : Transform your resume into one that will get you multiple interviews

Land Multiple Tech and Consulting Offers

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