The Tipping Point for Retail

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When Warby Parker1一家在线时尚眼镜初创公司。was founded in 2010, the pitch2pitch 推销的话；宣传论点。was simple:Don’t buy expensive designer eyeglasses in stores; buy cheaper ones on the internet.

[2]It was a good pitch.It was also a financial necessity: The founders had no outside capital and it was far cheaper to build a national brand online than to open a dozen storefronts in malls across the country with debt.But in 2013, as Warby Parker had grown to become a darling3darling 宠儿。of online retail, the founders had a funny idea.Maybe they should undisrupt the brick-and-mortar industry by opening a store or two.

[3]Within a year, there were eight Warby Parker brick-and-mortar locations nationwide.They weren’t just turning a profit.They were averaging $3,000 a square foot annually, higher than Tiffany4美国著名珠宝腕表品牌。, Ralph Lauren5高级时装品牌。, and practically6practically 事实上；几乎。every company not named Apple.By the end of 2017, the com-pany had about 65 storefronts.

[4]So, is Warby Parker still an“online retailer”? Obviously, no: More than half of its sales now occur in physical stores.But also, yes: As founder Dave Gilboa told PBS7全称Public Broadcasting Service，美国的一家大型非营利性广播电视机构。,“about 75 percent of our customers that shop in our stores have been to our website first.”

[5]Online shopping is having an offline moment, as more e-commerce companies, such as RentTheRunway8美国时尚与奢侈品租赁平台。and Bonobos9美国最大的网络服装品牌。, invest in the very sort of physical stores they once made seem obsolete10obsolete 废弃的；过时的。.Leading the trend is Amazon, the undisputed11undisputed不容置疑的；广为接受的。king of online shopping, which spent $14 billion to buy Whole Foods and its nearly 500 physical locations.

[6]The retail industry is at a tipping point12tipping point 转折点。, where several brick-and-mortar companies with large footprints are struggling while e-commerce companies that once launched pop-ups13pop-up=pop-up store快闪店，又称游击店（guerrilla store），指在商业发达的地区设置临时性的铺位，供零售商在比较短的时间内（若干星期）推销其品牌，抓住一些季节性的消费者。pop up在英语中有“突然弹出”之意。as mere marketing tools have realized the value of storefronts.Indeed, Amazon sees an uptick14uptick 增长。in online shopping in regions where it’s opened a physical store, according to CNBC15美国全国广播公司旗下的全球性财经新闻台。.“Five years

16

catchphrase 标语，流行语。

17

喻指有墙壁的实体店和网上购物的网店。

[7]Here are three implications of this shift.

沃比帕克公司于2010年成立时，宣传语很简单：不要在商店里购买昂贵的设计师眼镜，上网买便宜的。

[2]这既是一句不错的宣传语，也是一种财务上的需要：由于创始人们没有外部资本，在网上建立一个全国性品牌要比在全国各地的购物中心负债开设十几家门店要便宜得多。在2013年，随着沃比帕克成为在线零售的宠儿，创始人们有了一个有趣的想法：或许他们应该通过开设一两家商店来融入实体业。

[3]一年之内，沃比帕克在全国开设了8家实体店。这些实体店不仅赢利了，还产生了每平方英尺3000美元的年均收益，超过了蒂芙尼、拉夫·劳伦以及除苹果外的几乎所有公司。截至2017年底，该公司拥有了约65家门店。

[4]那么，沃比帕克还算是一个“在线零售商”吗？显然，答案是否定的：它目前超过一半的销售额来自实体店。同时，答案也是肯定的：创始人戴夫·吉尔博告诉美国公共电视网：“来我们店里购物的顾客中，大约有75%的人访问过我们的网站。”

[5]RentTheRunway和Bonobos等电子商务公司曾一度让人觉得实体店过时了。但随着越来越多的电子商务公司开始进行实体店投资，在线购物正进入线下时代。引领这一潮流的是无可争议的电商之王亚马逊，它用140亿美元收购了全食超市公司及其近500家实体店。

[6]零售业正处于一个拐点。一些门店遍布全国的实体公司正在苦苦挣扎，而一度仅将开设快闪店作为营销手段的电子商务公司已经意识到了门店的价值。事实上，根据美国全国广播公司财经频道的数据，在亚马逊开设实体店的地区，网购也有了增长。“五年后，我们不会再讨论‘电子零售商’是否从‘实体零售商’那里分得了一杯羹，”花旗研究分析师最近写道，“因为它们都是一样的。”这种趋势甚至还伴随着一个大势所趋又令人叹惋的流行语：“砖块与点击”。

[7]这种转变有以下三种含义。

1.The new youth shopping slogan:“Let’s go to the mall to buy stuff online.”

[8]Last year may have been the peak for the sheer amount of mall space in America, according to Cowen and Company, an investment bank.J.C.Penney,Macy’s, and Sears,18均为美国著名连锁百货商店。which often“anchor”malls as the largest leasers, have each announced more than 100 store closures this year.

[9]As US mall landlords lose their legacy anchors19anchor主力店。大型购物中心一般都以两三家主力店（百货、餐饮、家居等）为中心来打造自身形象，吸引消费者。, they are plugging20plug〈非正式〉（全力）推广，宣传。vacancies with restaurants, fi tness centers,and new storefronts for formerly“online”retailers.According to Sandeep Mathrani, the CEO of the mall operator GGP21全称General Growth Properties Inc.，美国第二大购物中心运营商。, the ideal modern mall isn’t built around one department store, but rather a supermarket, a Tesla222一家美国电动车及能源公司。store, and busi-nesses that started out online, such as Warby Parker232010年上线的美国眼镜电商网站，由沃顿商学院四名在读学生创立。.

[10]Among the nation’s top 300 malls, brick-and-mortar space occupied by retailers that started online has grown by approximately 1,000 percent since 2012, according to the realestate data company CoStar Group.While they currently account for a minuscule24minuscule极小的。part of mall volume, landlords increasingly consider them critical to attracting Millennials to these malls in the first place.

[11]At Century City, an open-air mall in Los Angeles with a new billion-dollar makeover, tenants include Bonobos,the apparel25apparel 服装。store recently bought by Walmart, Untuckit, which was founded selling casual men’s shirts, Warby Parker, and Amazon Books.Some of these stores, like Bonobos, don’t have inventory that shoppers can buy and take out of the store.Instead, shoppers place orders that are filled at fulfillment center26fulfillment center订单履行中心即发货仓库。卖家直接把商品存放在亚马逊的订单履行中心。一旦有顾客下单，就由该中心直接打包、配送这些商品，同时由该中心负责售后服务。and shipped to their doorstep.It may be increasingly common to leave a mall having spent a couple hundred dollars without one bag to take to the car.

1.年轻人新的购物口号：“一起去购物中心网购吧。”

[8]根据投资银行Cowen and Company的数据，就美国购物中心商铺面积来说，去年可能已经达峰值。通常将购物中心“锚定”为最大出租方的杰西潘尼、梅西百货和西尔斯，今年均宣布关闭100多家商店。

[9]由于传统主力店流失，美国购物中心业主正不遗余力地招揽餐厅、健身中心和曾经的“在线”零售商的新门店入驻。根据购物中心运营商美国通用增长物业公司首席执行官桑迪普·马斯拉尼的说法，一家理想中的现代购物中心不应该以百货商店为中心，而应该围绕大型超市、特斯拉门店或者像沃比帕克这样发迹于网络的企业进行打造。

[10]根据房地产数据公司CoStar Group的数据，在全美300强的购物中心里，发迹于网络的零售商所占的实体店面积自2012年来增长了约1000%。虽然它们目前只占了购物中心的小小一块，但是业主们越来越觉得它们首先就对吸引千禧一代走进购物中心起到了至关重要的作用。

[11]洛杉矶的世纪城露天购物中心刚刚进行了一次耗资十亿美元的改造，其租户包括沃尔玛最近收购的服装店Bonobos、以休闲男士衬衫起家的Untuckit、沃比帕克以及亚马逊图书。其中一些商店，比如Bonobos，没有购物者可以购买并且带出商店的库存。相反，购物者只需下单，由履约中心发货并送货上门。在购物中心买了几百美元的东西而不用自己拎着购物袋上车，这样的场景可能会变得越来越常见。

2.The fall of the cashier, the rise of the box filler.

[12]As more high-end shopping takes place in showrooms27showroom 陈列室，样品间。where shoppers can place online orders, there will be less need for cashiers.

[13]The cashier job was buoyed28buoy 浮漂；使振奋。by the last evolutionary stage of retail, the rise of the big-box store29big-box store 大卖场。.These superstores, like Walmart, were a boon30boon 恩惠，福利。for low prices and all low pay.Retail productivity doubled between 1987 to 2007, but average real wages for retail workers declined during this time.E-commerce, however, makes shopping even more productive, mostly by replacing the vast majority of consumer“work.”

[14]“Americans spend 1.2 billion hours each week driving to the mall,finding a parking space, wandering around the aisles, checking out, and driving home,”the economist Michael Mandel writes.All of that unpaid activity is being turned into paid work in fulfillment centers.These warehouses, where online orders are filled and shipped, have added more than 400,000 jobs in the last decade.Some of Amazon’s largest fulfillment centers have more than 2,000 permanent employees with up to 1,000 seasonal workers31seasonal worker 季节工，临时工。.

2.收银员的衰落，装箱机的崛起。

[12]随着越来越多的高端购物发生在支持购物者在线下单的样品间里，对于收银员的需求将会越来越小。

[13]零售业的最后一个进化阶段——大卖场的兴起——振兴了收银员的工作。沃尔玛等超市促进了低价格、低工资的运营模式。1987年至2007年期间，零售业生产率翻了一番，零售业工人的平均实际工资却有所下降。然而，电子商务主要通过代劳大部分的消费者“工作”使购物行为变得更具生产力。

[14]经济学家迈克尔·曼德尔写道：“美国人每周开车去购物中心、找停车位、扫货、结账、开车回家，得花掉12亿小时。”所有这些无偿活动正变成履约中心的有偿工作。过去10年间，这些负责网络订单装箱发货的仓库增加了40多万个就业岗位。亚马逊的几个大型履约中心拥有2000多名固定员工和高达1000名季节性员工。

3.Self-driving cars are going to change everything, all over again.

[15]Self-driving cars are a futurist’s paradox32paradox 悖论；自相矛盾。.One potentially exciting(or concerning)vision is that retail companies will see an autonomous vehicle as the ultimate commercial real estate.Why drive to a popup store, they will say, when the pop-up store can drive to you? The proliferation of self-driving cars would be of obvious use to companies like Walmart and Amazon, who need cheap ways to move products to people’s doorsteps.But they may prove to be helpful to both the Goliaths33《圣经》中记载的巨人。他是非利士将军，力大无穷所向披靡，却在进攻以色列时被大卫所杀。文中指商业巨头。and the Davids34《圣经》中记载的古以色列第二代国王。他原是一名普通的牧童，却用投石弹弓射杀了歌利亚，帮助以色列军队战胜了非利士军队。文中指普通企业。of commerce.Retail start-ups of the self-driving age may start with an autonomous truck full of boutique355 boutique （商店）精品的。merchandise that makes scheduled stops in highly trafficked areas but leaves“bookable time”for shoppers to order the merch36merchandise的缩写。to their front door.■

3.自动驾驶汽车将再次颠覆一切。

[15]零售企业可能会把自动驾驶汽车视为最终的商业不动产。这是未来学家的一个悖论，也是一个令人兴奋（或担忧）的愿景。零售企业会说，明明快闪店可以自己开过来，你干嘛还要开车去快闪店？沃尔玛和亚马逊等公司需要低廉的送货上门方式，自动驾驶汽车的普及对它们显然有用。但事实可能还会证明，自动驾驶汽车对于“歌利亚”似的商业巨头和“大卫”般的普通企业均有帮助。自动驾驶时代的零售初创企业可能会始于一辆满载小商品的自动卡车。它虽然会在交通繁忙的区域按预定行程停靠，但也会给购物者留下“可预定时间”，让他们能够网上下单、门口收货。□

（译者曾获第五届“《英语世界》杯”翻译大赛优秀奖）