[E400]Virtual headaches
本文音频及原文摘自杂志The Economist 2016年第16期
Special report : Business in Africa
E-commerce
E-commerce firms like Jumia have to beat multiple handicaps
Apr 16th 2016
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注释
[1]industrial district工业区
Abidjan 阿比让（科特迪瓦首都）
[2][倒装]Boxes and boxes of deliveries sit at the other end.
[3]washing machines 洗衣机
pile up 积累，堆放起来
[4]Ivory Coast 科特迪瓦；首都 Abidjan
[5]postal service 邮政服务
[6]hardly any 几乎没有
credit cards 信用卡
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Investors chasing the African middle class like to build malls, as Actis has done in Nairobi, but a growing number are getting interested in e-commerce too. The warehouse in Abidjan is run by a firm called Jumia, which started in Lagos but now has operations in ten other African countries, including Kenya, Ghana, Cameroon and Tanzania[1]. Much of its funding comes from Rocket Internet, a German firm that tries to replicate successful Western internet businesses in countries that do not have them yet. Rocket Internet also owns Hellofood, a food delivery app similar to Seamless, and Easy Taxi, rather like Uber.
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注释
[1]Actis 英联投资
Nairobi 内罗比（肯尼亚首都）
Lagos 拉各斯（尼日利亚的首都）
Kenya 肯尼亚（东非国家）
Ghana 加纳（西非国家）
Cameroon 喀麦隆（西非国家）
Tanzania 坦桑尼亚（东非国家）
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Jumia is having to learn to adapt to local conditions. Importing its own goods and supplying them directly, as Amazon does in the West, would mean dealing with customs officials[1] and facing delays and demands for bribes[2]. So instead Jumia sets prices, takes payment and arranges delivery, but gets local firms to provide the products as they are ordered and send them to Jumia's warehouse. This means they take a few days to arrive.
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注释
[1]customs official 海关人员
[2]bribe
or a that you give to someone so that they will do something for you, usually something
贿赂He was of /taking bribes from .他被指控收受富商们的贿赂。
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Jumia started out using private delivery firms in Ivory Coast, but they were not reliable enough, so now it has its own contractors[1]. Processing payments is another headache. The firm would like to take mobile money[2], but many customers prefer to pay cash on delivery[3]. All new online orders are confirmed from a call centre, but even so perhaps a fifth of deliveries end up back at the warehouse[4], estimates Francis Dufay, the firm's director in Ivory Coast.
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注释
[1]contractor 承包商
[2]移动支付/钱包
[3]pay cash on delivery 货到付款
[4]尽管所有的网上订单都经过呼叫服务中心进行确认，但估计还是有五分之一的包裹最终被退回仓库。
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It is perhaps unsurprising that so far Jumia is not profitable[1]. It has high fixed costs[2] and has to sell things more cheaply than shops to compete. But there are reasons to be optimistic: on a continent where proper shopping centres[3] are still rare and traffic jams are ubiquitous[4], ordering things online ought to hold wide appeal. And Amazon itself, after all, still only barely turns a profit[5].
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注释
[1]可能不足为奇的是，到目前为止Jumia还没有盈利。
[2]fixed costs 固定成本
[3]proper 正规的；像样的(购物中心都还比较少)
[4]traffic jams are ubiquitous. 堵车现象普遍存在。
ubiquitous
to be in all
普遍存在的，似乎无处不在的Leather is very much in this , as of is the ubiquitous .皮装在这个季节非常流行，当然牛仔服也似乎无处不在。The Swedes are not in under from the ubiquitous of .不仅仅是瑞典人感觉到了自己的语言正承受着英语无处不在所带来的压力。The , that most ubiquitous of consumer-electronic , is about to a new .作为使用最普遍的消费电器，收音机将进入一个新时代。
[5]only barely 仅仅/勉强能
turn a profit：to begin to earn a profit=make a profit
He’s been in business five years, but has not yet turned a profit.
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以上言论不代表本人立场。
原文摘自The economist，仅外语学习之用。
其中生词解释来源于Cambridge Dictionaries
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