Also, develop a complete summary of all portions of the project in your group wiki, minus the Executive Summary.
Amazon has several different criteria they use when determining which suppliers they should use. The company is devoted to conducting business in a lawful and ethical manner and align with suppliers that are committed to the same principles (Amazon 2017). Amazon focuses on several different key areas; including health and safety in production areas and living quarters, the right to legal wages and benefits, appropriate working hours and overtime pay, prevention of child labor or forced labor, and fair and ethical treatment (Amazon 2017). In addition to this Amazon conducts site audits and enforces a code of conduct for their suppliers.
Amazon uses several 3PL firms to help out their business. In several cases Amazon themselves often act as a 3PL. Amazon provides a guaranteed volume which ensures fixed income for their 3PL Partners (Ganguly 2016). Amazon also has a few interesting relationships with other companies. Amazon employees work in some of their customers’ 3PL distribution centers in a way to support some of the 3PL customers that do business with Amazon (Lieb & Lieb 2014). Amazon also has this relationship with Procter and Gamble and Georgia-Pacific, which are some of Amazons key customers. These retailers will put their own employees in Amazon’s distribution centers to manage the distribution of the produce their companies sell through Amazon (Lieb & Lieb).
Amazon operates over 214 facilities across the United States. These facilities include fulfillment centers, distribution centers, regional sortation centers, Amazon Pantry & Fresh distribution centers, delivery stations and Amazon Now hubs (Dunn 2017). Amazon uses advanced analytic technology to determine where they want to strategically place these fulfillment and distribution centers. “Right now, Piper Jaffray analysts estimate that the locations of Amazon's fulfillment centers bring it within 20 miles of 31% of population, but within 20 miles of 50-65% of its core same-day addressable market (Jaffray came to this higher percentage by predicting that only households with an annual income of $50,000 would be interested in same-day delivery)” (D’Onfro 2015).
Recently Amazon has jumped into the retail stores business. This is an effort to reach as many consumers as possible through a variety of access points. Most of these stores are 300-500 square foot locations in the middle of luxury malls and sell Amazon products such as the Kindle, Fire TV, and Echo (Kim 2016). The company has plans to open up to 100 stores in shopping malls across the United States. This is just one of the many ways the company is staying innovative and trying to increase their footprint across the United States.
Amazon. (2017) Amazon Website. Retrieved from: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200885140
D’Onfro, J. (2015). Here are all of Amazon’s warehouses in the US. Business Insider. Retrieved from: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-many-fulfillment-centers-does-amazon-have-in-the-us-2015-3
Dunn, J. (2017). Amazon’s logistics footprint in the US is only getting bigger. Business Insider. Retrieved from: http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-fulfillment-centers-logistics-manufacturing-jobs-us-chart-2017-1
Ganguly, P. (2016). Amazon looks to deliver with 3rd-Party logistics market. Economic Times. Retrieved from: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/amazon-looks-to-deliver-with-3rd-party-logistics-market/articleshow/56076490.cms
Kim, E. (2016). Amazon is doubling down on retail stores with plans to have up to 100 pop-up stores in US shopping malls. Business Insider. Retreieved from: http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-big-expansion-retail-pop-up-stores-2016-9
Lieb, R., Lieb, K. (2014). Is Amazon a 3PL? Supply Chain Quarterly. Retrieved from: http://www.supplychainquarterly.com/topics/Logistics/20141027-is-amazon-a-3pl/
