Info 202 F12

                                                                                          AMAZON VS. ANDRONICO’s

Organizing
principles in Andronico’s are mainly based on the various factors that
influence the sales of a particular product and also on the ease with which the
products can be maintained and retrieved. This includes factors such as
customer needs, customer impulse, market statistics, product sales, category of
the product etc. To explain few of them, let us consider the placement of Dairy
products, ice creams and yogurts together. All products that are stored in a
similar fashion are organized together (Refrigerated). Another example is the
placement of candies and magazines near the checkout stand, and this might be
attributed to the reason that came out a study – that people tend to make
impulse decisions and are more likely to buy candies and other relatively
cheaper items when they are waiting in the line to check out. Another principle
is organizing items by their type (functionality in some ways).  For example, we can see that the beverages are
all organized in a certain aisle (coffee, tea, wine etc.) and all snacks (like
chips, crackers etc.) are arranged in a specific aisle. To summarize, the
organizing principles at Andronico’s are based on a lot of factors and in my
opinion, the overall principle seems to align with the goal to increase sales.

Coming
to the organizational structure at Amazon.com, I was able to notice a certain
pattern in their scheme. For example, I noticed that at a higher level, there
were two levels of classification – digital products (cloud space, mp3 etc.)
and then the physical items (books, electronics etc.). This organizing
principle is mainly related to how the product is delivered to the customer
(shipped to the physical location Vs. Provide a download link). The level of
organization is further refined to specify the type of product. This is mainly
to enhance user experience and provide the user with the interface to digitally
navigate to the section where they are likely to find a certain item – For ex.
War and Peace is more likely to be present under ‘Books’ rather than in the
‘Electronics’ Section. Also, the organizing principles are nested together –
for example, once the resource is organized as a book, it can be further
refined down to two categories – audio book, which is digital in nature and a
book, which needs to be shipped to the user. We also find that items are
organized based on how frequently they sell and that certain items are
organized under the ‘top Sellers’ category. 
Items in this category may be found under both the Top-Sellers category
as well as the original category in which they fall under (books, clothes
etc.).

As
we look at the various principles used at these two places, we are able to see
that Andronico’s has a physical constraint which is not the case with
Amazon.com. For instance, the most basic and notable difference I feel is the
fact that the same resource CANNOT be organized under multiple categories in
Andronico’s. Orange juice, for example, can be classified as Beverage. But it
is not possible to place the same item in both the Beverages as well as the
juices section. On the other hand, it is possible to find a single item under
more than a single location in case of a digital organization (Amazon.com).
Like for instance, if I were to look up the book , ‘I am a strange loop’, I might
be able to get it under both books->education->psychology as well as
under books->education->computer science. Thus organizing in a digital
medium has more flexibility and choice. The organization system can be bended
as per the user needs and make it easy for the user to retrieve the product
they need. Though it is possible to have more classifications in a physical
system, due to the basic constraint, space, it is never an easy task to
implement. Amazon.com can have a large collection of items under the ‘Top
Sellers’ category, but having a similar one at Andronico’s might not be
feasible.This also reflects on another factor - scalability. The organizing system in use at Amazon.com is highly scalable and can have vast collections of an item, while the same cannot be true in the case of Andronico's.

Even
though there exist these differences in the principles used in organizing the
resources in Amazon and Andronico’s, on a higher level, there is the basic
similarity of various principles used. The basic principle of organization known
as ‘Co-location’ which simply put means, storing similar items in the same
location can be observed in both Andronico’s and Amazon. We can see the same
principle being used to organize items like Pasta and pasta sauce are organized
together in Andronico’s and similarly TV and Home theater systems are organized
together in Amazon.com. One other basic principle used across both these places
is the system of organizing items based on the Subject Matter. Here the system
provides description of what the resource does.

Thus
in conclusion, both Andronico’s as well as Amazon makes use of the basic high
level principles of organizing systems to classify the resources that they
have. But, since the type of resources in both these cases are different
(digital vs. Physical); each system tries to leverage the advantages that they
have to organize the resources more effectively. One point that I did notice is
that in all organizing systems, the main motivation behind the various schemes
is to ease the process of retrieval. And in the specific case of Andronico’s
and Amazon, easing the process of retrieval means better user experience and
hence better sales.