E-commerce Takes Off

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E-commerce is transforming business and daily life,mostly for the better.电子商务正在改变传统的商业模式和人们的日常生活，总体而言前景乐观。

In warehouses around the globe, they wait: toys, phones, dresses, televisions, blankets, trainers, laptops and much more.In China, online retailers are gearing up1gear up为……做准备。for“Singles Day”, November 11th, the world’s busiest shopping day.Much of the rest of the world is preparing for the Christmas rush2rush抢购，抢订。.Present-hunters used to wear themselves out tramping around3tramp around游走，造访。crowded shops.Now, increasingly, they order from the comfort of their homes or offices.

[2]Over the past decade global ecommerce has been expanding at an average rate of 20% a year as bricksand-mortar shops have languished4languish衰弱无力；失去活力；受苦；憔悴。.In rich countries millennials who grew up buying goods online are moving into their prime spending years.In poorer ones, rising incomes and the spread of mobile phones will bring more shoppers online.In China, Goldman Sachs5高盛集团成立于1869年，是全世界历史最悠久及规模最大的投资银行之一，总部位于纽约。expects online spending to more than double between 2016 and 2020, to make up nearly one-third of total retail sales.In America, Euromonitor6世界权威市场调查机构。predicts that its share will rise from about one-tenth in 2016 to about one-sixth in 2021.In Britain the fi gure may rise to one-fifth.

[3]America and China, the world’s two biggest economies, have produced the two titans7titan巨人，巨头。of the industry, Amazon and Alibaba.Both are relative youngsters.Amazon, started by Jeff Bezos as an online bookshop, had its initial public offering in 1997.Alibaba was founded by Jack Ma in 1999.Since then both have been growing at breakneck8breakneck极快的。pace, bringing large-scale disruption not only to retailing but to a range of industries spanning logistics, entertainment, advertising and manufacturing in their home countries.Both have also been expanding their empires abroad.Amazon already has e-commerce sites in 14 markets and is planning further growth.Alibaba’s foreign ventures range from South-East Asia to Brazil and Russia.

[4]The two giants do not have the field all to themselves.In America, Walmart remains the biggest retailer and is spending heavily on trying to fend off Amazon.It also has a stake in JD.com, an e-commerce firm based in Beijing that had 13% of the Chinese market in 2016.In China, Alibaba faces not just JD but also Tencent, a messaging and payment company that is now JD’s biggest shareholder.

在世界各地的仓库里，玩具、手机、服装、电视、毛毯、运动鞋、笔记本电脑等各类商品只待配送。在中国，网上零售商正备战双11“光棍节”——世界上最繁忙的购物日。而世界上的多数地区正为圣诞购物季做准备。以往，人们穿梭于人头攒动的商店里挑选礼物，常常疲惫不堪；如今，人们更倾向于待在舒适的家里或办公室网购。

[2]过去十年中，随着实体店的衰落，全球电商份额以平均每年20%的速度增长。在富裕国家，千禧一代在网购中一路成长起来，现在正步入他们的黄金消费期。而在人均收入较低的国家，收入增加和手机普及都会带来更多网上消费者。高盛预计，2016至2020年间，中国网上消费额将增加一倍以上，占零售总额的近三分之一。欧睿国际预测，在美国，占比将从2016年的近十分之一上升到2021年的近六分之一；而在英国，该占比可能上升到五分之一。

[3]世界两大经济体——美国和中国已经诞生了亚马逊和阿里巴巴这两个年轻的行业巨头。1997年，杰夫·贝索斯创办的亚马逊网上书店首次公开募股。1999年，马云创立了阿里巴巴。之后，两家企业高速增长，不仅极大地冲击了传统零售业，更对本国物流、娱乐、广告、制造等诸多行业造成了影响。两家公司都一直在扩张海外市场：亚马逊已在全球14个国家或地区拥有电商网站，并计划进一步开拓；阿里巴巴的海外业务更是从东南亚延伸到巴西乃至俄罗斯。

[4]然而这两大巨头并没有完全占据零售市场。在美国，沃尔玛仍是最大的零售商，正斥巨资抵抗亚马逊。此外，它还持有京东（一家总部位于北京的电商公司，2 016年占据了中国市场的13%）的股份。在中国，阿里巴巴的竞争对手除了京东，还有腾讯（一家通讯和支付公司，如今是京东最大的股东）。

Data day

[5]Since retailing touches the economy and society in so many ways, ecommerce is already having broad effects well beyond the industry itself.It is also affecting the way that other kinds of firms do business.Logistics companies are trying out new ideas to meet everrising expectations of fast, free delivery.Small new manufacturers are able to challenge big, established ones, thanks to the ease of selling goods online.Mountains of consumer data, the most treasured commodity of 21st-century commerce, are helping manufacturers develop products and interact with shoppers, not just online but increasingly in physical shops as well.

[6]Amazon and Alibaba, the industry’s two most innovative companies,do not define themselves as retailers at all.Amazon does not just sell goods:it leases cargo planes, produces films and offers a voice assistant, Alexa.Its cloud-computing business, Amazon Web Services(AWS), powers its own operations along with those of many other firms and is a vital source of profits.Alibaba’s business is even broader than Amazon’s, including not just shopping,entertainment and cloud computing but payments and social media as well.Both companies’ activities generate cash and rich streams of data which can be used to improve their existing services and add more.Alibaba describes itself as providing the pipes and cables for all kinds of business.“To some extent we are a utility company,”says Daniel Zhang, its chief executive.“We are trying to provide an infrastructure for digital commerce.”

[7]Consumers have already gained much from all this, with more in prospect.They are enjoying a broader choice of goods and more price transparency than ever before.Instead of spending time travelling to shops, picking up goods and waiting in queues, they can now do other things.Companies no longer take them for granted but compete to offer them better products, greater convenience and improved service.■

数据时代

[5]由于零售业涉及经济、社会的诸多方面，电子商务的影响已远超行业本身，也在改变其他行业的商业模式。例如，物流公司就在免费快捷配送方面尝试新的想法，以满足人们不断增长的期望。由于在线销售的便利，新的小型制造商能够挑战老牌大型制造商。电子商务迅速发展所产生的消费大数据已成为21世纪最有价值的资源，帮助供应商开发产品并与消费者互动，不仅有线上互动，还有越来越多的线下互动。

[6]作为业界最具创新力的两家公司，亚马逊和阿里巴巴并未将自己仅定义为零售商。亚马逊的业务并不局限于销售商品，还包括租赁货机、制作电影以及提供语音助手Alexa。其云计算业务——亚马逊网络服务是公司利润的重要来源，为其他公司和自身运营助力。阿里巴巴的业务比亚马逊更为广泛，不仅包括购物、娱乐和云计算，还涵盖支付和社交媒体。两家公司的业务都会产生大量的资金和丰富的数据流，可用于改善现有服务并提供更多新服务。阿里巴巴自称是在为各种业务提供“管道”和“电缆”。其首席执行官张勇认为：“在某种程度上说，我们是一家公共事业公司，正努力为数字商务提供基础设施。”

[7]消费者已从中获益颇丰，且有望更多。如今他们享有更多的商品选择和更透明的价格，无须花时间去商店挑选商品并排队等候，可以去做其他事。零售商也不再将顾客的消费视为理所当然，而是竞相提供更好的产品、更大的便利和更优的服务。□