無所不能的亞馬遜

FOR SHOPPERS IN 2017, it can be hard to remember what life was like in the early 1990s. There was mail order, but by and large if you wanted to buy something you went to a shop. Jeff Bezos, Amazon』s founder, who was then working for a New York hedge fund, noticed the exponential growth of the internet. His idea was to create an online company that would bring together shoppers and manufacturers around the world, starting with books.

對於2017年的購物者來說，很難記得上世紀90年代初的生活是什麼樣的。雖有郵件訂購，總的來說，如果你想買東西，你還是要去商店。亞馬遜創始人傑夫?貝佐斯（Jeff Bezos）當時正在一家紐約對沖基金工作，注意到互聯網的指數級的增長。他想要創建一家在線企業將世界各地的購物者和製造商聚集在一起。於是，這個網站從銷售圖書起家。

Not everyone was convinced. A cover story in 1999 in Barron』s, a business weekly, entitled 「Amazon.bomb」, argued that the company would struggle to compete with mighty Walmart and Barnes & Noble. But like many of Amazon』s competitors, it failed to predict the firm』s ever-expanding scope, the feverish pace of its spending and the enthusiastic support from investors.

不是每個人都相信。1999年，商業周刊《巴倫周刊》的封面故事標題為《亞馬遜.炸彈》，認為該公司將難以與強大的沃爾瑪和巴諾公司競爭。但是，就像亞馬遜的眾多競爭對手一樣，它未能預測到自身不斷擴大的規模、狂熱的支出速度以及投資者的熱情支持。

For much of its life Amazon has bled red ink. As recently as 2014 it lost $241m on sales of $89bn. Its e-commerce side now makes money, but its most profitable arm is its cloud-computing business, which last year earned 74% of its operating income. Mr Bezos continues to value long-term growth more highly than short-term profits. Morgan Stanley, a bank, expects Amazon to grow by an average of nearly 20% a year between now and 2025. When the firm announced in September that it would build a second headquarters in North America in addition to its Seattle base (pictured), mayors queued up. In Seattle it now employs more than 40,000 workers, and globally a further 340,000.

大部分時間裡，亞馬遜都在虧損。在2014年，該公司的銷售額為890億美元，虧損2.41億美元。它的電商業務現在實現了盈利，但它最賺錢的業務是雲計算，去年的營業收入佔總營業收入的74%。貝佐斯仍然重視長期增長，而非短期利潤。摩根史丹利（Morgan Stanley）預計，到2025年，亞馬遜的年均增長率將達到近20%。今年9月，該公司宣布，除西雅圖總部外(如圖)，將在北美建立第二個總部。美國各地的市長蜂湧而至。在西雅圖，亞馬遜擁有4萬多名員工，而在全球範圍內，總共有34萬員工。

Amazon』s mission, to be 「Earth』s most customer-centric company」, places few limits on what it might do next. 「We want to invent on behalf of customers,」 says Jeff Wilke, who runs the company』s e-commerce business. 「We』re going to experiment in a host of ways and try things. Some of them will fail and many of them will succeed.」

亞馬遜的使命是成為「世界上最以客戶為中心的公司」，而對於接下來可能做的事情，幾乎沒有什麼限制。負責電商業務的傑夫?威爾克（Jeff Wilke）說：「我們想為客戶創造新產品，我們將以多種方式進行實驗和嘗試，可能會失敗，也可能會成功。"

The company has pursued a strategy of relentless investment to win new customers and generate more cash so it can win yet more customers. What is remarkable about this effort is the scale. In the year to June Amazon spent about $13bn on new technology products for its cloud and e-commerce businesses, nearly 20% more than Google and more than three times as much as Facebook, according to Goldman Sachs.

亞馬遜採取了一種持續不斷投資的策略，以贏得新客戶，併產生更多的現金，從而贏得更多的客戶。在這一努力中，值得注意的是投資規模。根據高盛的數據，截至6月，亞馬遜為其雲計算和電商業務的新技術產品投入了約130億美元的資金，比谷歌高出近20%，是Facebook的三倍多。

Amazon aims not just to meet customers』 expectations but to set new ones. Its Prime annual subscription ($99 in America) initially just made it easier to buy things online and covered shipping, but now includes audio and video streaming.

亞馬遜的目標不僅僅是滿足客戶的期望，而是設立新的目標。它的Prime年費會員增值服務(在美國為99美元)最初只是讓人們輕鬆網購，不要快遞費，而現在還包括了在線音樂和視頻服務。

With its cloud business, launched in 2006, Amazon created a new way to serve its own computing needs and those of other companies. Instead of investing in their own facilities, firms can rent computing power from Amazon. AWS now provides the infrastructure for startups and a growing number of big firms. Its basic computing business is larger than that of its three closest competitors combined.

亞馬遜在2006年推出雲計算業務，為自已和其它企業的計算需求創造了一種新的方式。企業租用亞馬遜的計算能力，而不用自己投資。現在，亞馬遜的雲計算平台AWS為創業企業和越來越多的大企業提供基礎設施，它的基本計算業務比它的三個最接近的競爭對手的總和還要多。

But Amazon』s biggest impact is still in e-commerce. In America it accounted for more than half the growth in online spending last year. More searches for products begin on Amazon than on Google. The company has found that its entertainment offerings complement its e-commerce business, keeping its Prime subscribers on board. That is important because those subscribers spend more than four times as much as other Amazon shoppers, estimates Brian Nowak of Morgan Stanley. He reckons that in America more than a third of all households have Prime. Its success depends in part on the speed of delivery, usually within a day or two, and the absence of incremental shipping costs. The result is that consumers buy more kinds of goods online.

但是，亞馬遜影響力最大的仍然是電商業務。2016年，它佔到了美國網路消費增長的一半多。亞馬遜上的產品搜索量要超過了谷歌。該公司發現其娛樂產品是對電商業務的補充，維繫了Prime服務訂閱用戶。這很重要，原因是據摩根斯丹利的布萊恩?諾瓦克（Brian Nowak）估計，這些用戶的花費是亞馬遜其他消費者的四倍。他估計，在美國超過三分之一的家庭擁有Prime服務。這個服務的成功在一定程度上取決於送貨的速度，通常在一到兩天，以及沒有遞增的送貨費用，這讓消費者在網上購買了更多種類的商品。

In America at least, an exception so far has been groceries, for which most people still trek to supermarkets. But that may change. When Amazon announced in June that it would buy Whole Foods, an upmarket grocer, for $13.7bn, supermarkets』 share prices plunged.

至少在美國，迄今為止，百貨還是一個例外，大多數人還是會去超市購買這些東西。但這種情況可能會發生變化。2017年6月，亞馬遜宣布將以137億美元收購高檔食品商全食超市時，各大超市的股價暴跌。

The company』s investments in its warehouses have persuaded ever more independent sellers to use them, too. Amazon』s own inventory now accounts for less than half the sales on its site. Revenue from independent merchants around the world that list their products on Amazon reached $23bn in 2016, about twice as much as two years earlier. Customers enjoy a broader selection and Amazon reaps more profits to reinvest.

亞馬遜在倉庫方面的投資說服了越來越多的獨立賣家也使用其倉儲。亞馬遜自己的庫存現在只佔其網站銷售的一半還不到。2016年，世界各地的第三方店家的收入達到了230億美元，約為兩年前的兩倍。消費者享受更廣泛的選擇，而亞馬遜則獲得更多利潤來進行再投資。

It is a dizzying way to do business. Amazon』s many sources of revenue, as well as its masses of data and comprehensive distribution system, make it difficult for competitors to keep up. And when new ones have emerged, Amazon has often ended up buying them, as it did with Quidsi, an online nappy business, and Zappos, a shoeseller.

這種做生意的方式讓人看不懂。亞馬遜的收入來源眾多，同時擁有大量的數據和全面的分銷系統，讓競爭對手難以跟進。當新的競爭對手出現時，亞馬遜通常會收購它們，猶如亞馬遜收購賣尿布網站Quidsi和賣鞋網站Zappos。

The next thing it might do is to reinvent physical stores—whether Whole Foods or others. In an experimental Amazon shop in Seattle, customers can choose items and pay automatically, without stopping at a checkout, thanks to sensors and machine learning. If it catches on, it could be widely deployed.

接下來，它可能要做的就是徹底改造實體店——不管是全食超市還是店鋪。在西雅圖的一家實驗性亞馬遜商店裡，消費者能挑選商品並自動付款，不用在收銀台結賬，這要歸功與感測器和機器學習功能。如果這種購物方式流行起來，就可以推廣開來。

Among the company』s most interesting new tools is its voice assistant, Alexa, available through its Echo speaker. It offers a way for customers to order goods from Amazon. But the company has also opened the assistant to other firms so that they can enable Alexa to operate their products. In this field, Amazon is competing against Google, Microsoft and Apple. Techies reckon voice assistants could replace phones and tablets as the interface with the digital world. For now, Amazon is far ahead, holding 76% of the American market for smart home speakers.

亞馬遜最感興趣的新工具就是能通過Echo音箱接入的語音助手Alexa。它能為消費者從亞馬遜上訂購商品。不過，該公司也向其他公司開放了這個語音助手，這們就能讓Alexa操控這些企業的產品。在這個領域裡，亞馬遜正在與谷歌、微軟和蘋果展開競爭。技術人員認為，語音助手可以取代手機和平板電腦，成為數字世界的介面。目前，亞馬遜遙遙領先，佔據了美國智能家居市場76%的市場份額。

Amazon is still seeking new ways to enmesh itself further in its customers』 lives. Consumers in rich countries, in particular, are spending more on services, health care and entertainment as opposed to goods. Amazon intends to follow that business. In America, customers can already use the company to deliver a Chinese meal to their home, hire someone to assemble a flatpack, manage their newspaper subscriptions or search for a local dermatologist.

亞馬遜仍在尋找新的方式，讓自己更加深入消費者的生活之中。富裕國家的消費者在服務、醫療和娛樂方面的支出超過了購買商品的支出。亞馬遜打算跟進這一塊業務。在美國，消費者已經可以用亞馬遜來點中國菜外賣並送到家裡，僱人組裝簡式房屋，管理報紙訂閱或者尋找當地的皮膚科醫生。

In effect, Amazon has become a conglomerate—a model that has had its ups and downs. Not everything it has touched has turned to gold. Its Fire phone flamed out disastrously soon after it was launched in 2014. But the company is happy for some of its ventures to flop as long as many thrive. So it will probably continue to expand, reaching ever farther into people』s daily lives. That may seem overambitious, but a precedent already exists: Alibaba in China.

實際上，亞馬遜成為了一個「無所不有的集團」——一個經歷了起起伏伏的模式。不是所有它經營的業務都成功了。亞馬遜的Fire phone在2014年推出後，很快就出現了災難性的反應。儘管有一部分業務失敗了，但有很多成功了，讓它感到高興。因此，亞馬遜或許會繼續擴張，更為深入到人們的日常生活之中。雖然這似乎有點過頭了，但已有了一個先例做了：中國的阿里巴巴。

編譯：雷月營

審校：李文卓

編輯：翻吧君

來源：經濟學人

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