双语阅读｜实体商店受到网络零售的冲击
WHEN AMERICA’S RETAIL bosses gathered in New York earlier this year for the annual shindig of their trade association, the National Retail Federation, there was much talk about new technology to improve the industry’s prospects, from sensors that read consumers’ facial expressions to machine-learning software that can optimise prices. The ghost at the banquet was the company that gave no presentations but made its presence felt everywhere: Amazon.
今年早些时候，当美国零售业大佬聚集在纽约参加全美零售协会年度盛会时，谈论了很多新技术来改善行业前景，从读取消费者的面部表情的传感器，到能够优化价格的机器学习软件，这场宴会上的幽灵是没有现身却无处不在的亚马逊。
Traditional retailing has had a tough time lately. Traffic in shopping centres in Europe’s biggest markets has been declining. In America, which has about five times as much space in shopping centres per person as Britain, the pain is acute. Chains that were faltering even before Amazon’s ascent are now in even deeper trouble. Macy’s, a department store, last year said it would close 100 of its 728 shops. Fung Global Retail & Technology, a consultancy, expects nearly 10,000 stores in America to close this year, about 50% more than at the height of the financial crisis in 2008. And there will be more to come.
传统零售业近来经历了一段艰难时期。在欧洲，最大的购物中心客流量一直在下降。在美国，购物中心的人均面积是英国的五倍，客流减少造成的痛苦是剧烈的。即使在亚马逊崛起之前，它们的供应链的麻烦重重。梅西百货2015年表示要关闭728家门 41 36470 41 14988 0 0 4187 0 0:00:08 0:00:03 0:00:05 4186中的100家。咨询机构Fung Global Retail&Technology预计，今年美国将有近一万家门店关闭，比2008年金融危机最严重时高出约50%。
Shops used to compete by offering a combination of selection, price, service and convenience. E-commerce’s most obvious edge is in selection and convenience. Even the biggest store cannot hold as many items as Amazon can offer. Walmart conquered America by saving consumers money; Amazon is doing the same by saving them time. Shops still provide immediacy and a personal experience. But though getting attentive service at Gucci may be fun, waiting to pay at the supermarket is not.
店家以往通过商品选择、价格、服务和便利性等综合因素竞争。 电子商务最明显的优势在于商品选择性和便利。即使是最大的商店也不能像亚马逊提供商品数量多。沃尔玛通过为消费者省钱用来征服美国；亚马逊则以节省消费者时间达到同样的效果。商店仍然提供即时性和个人体验，不过，虽然古驰（Gucci）提供的周到服务可能很有趣，在超市排除付款的体验却不是如此。
E-commerce firms are also competing on new kinds of service and pricing. A website knows more about you than any shop assistant can, enabling it to offer personalised recommendations straight away. Online, a shopper can easily compare prices between retailers. More intriguingly, merchants can quickly move prices up or down, using bots to match competitors’ offerings. Eventually this pricing may become more personalised. Alibaba and JD already use their troves of data to offer discounts on particular products to some of their customers.
电商企业在新型服务和定价方面竞争。一个网站对你的了解比任何商店的店员都要多，这使它能够直接为你提供个性化建议。在网上，购物者能很容易地比较零售商之间的价格。更有趣的是，商家可以通过机器人来匹配竞争对手的产品，快速上调或降低价格。最终，这种定价可能会变得更加个人化。阿里巴巴和京东利用数据向一些消费者提供特定产品的折扣。
All this has meant that consumers are now buying a wider range of goods online. The shift has been most dramatic in America, home to both a relentlessly disruptive e-commerce giant and a herd of entrenched retailers (which China lacks). Consumers still buy certain types of goods in stores, such as food and building equipment. But many shops have had no choice but to follow consumers online, setting up their own e-commerce businesses as they maintain their bricks-and-mortar ones. In the short term, this only exacerbates their problems. Building an e-commerce business on top of a traditional one is costly; firms must create websites and ship products to individual consumers, rather than to stores in bulk.
所有这一切都意味着消费者现在在网上购买更多的商品。这一转变在美国最为引人注目，因为它有一个极具破坏力的无情电子商务巨头，也有一群根深蒂固的零售商(这是中国缺乏的)。消费者仍在商店购买某些品类的商品，如食品和建筑设备。但是，许多商店别无选择，只能在网上追踪消费者，创建自己的电子商务部门，以维持自己的实体店。在短期内，这只会加剧他们的问题。在传统的基础上建立电子商务业务成本很高；企业必须为个人消费者创建网站和运输产品，而不是大量的实体店。
It does not help that Amazon has conditioned consumers to think delivery should be free. Moreover, online sales often cannibalise those from existing shops. Analysts at Morgan Stanley reckon that for each additional percentage point of shopping that moves online, a retailer’s margins shrink by about half a point. Bricks-and-mortar shops also often have trouble recruiting technology staff. For a hotshot data scientist, working at a department store is not an obvious choice. Traditional chains must routinely pay a premium to lure skilled tech workers. Amazon has no such difficulty.
亚马逊对消费者认为送货应该是免费制造了条件，但这并没有效果。此外，网络销售往往会吞噬既有店铺的销售量。摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)的分析师估计，在网上购物的每增加一个百分点，零售商的利润率就会缩水约0.5个百分点。实体店也常常很难招到技术人员。对于一个炙手可热的数据科学家来说，在百货公司工作并不是不二之选。传统的连锁店必须经常通过加价方式来吸引有经验的技术人员。亚马逊则没有这样的困难。
Startups, tech firms and consultants are offering tools to help smaller retailers adjust. Some of the more interesting ones promise to narrow the gap between what e-commerce sites and physical stores know about their customers. Floor mats can measure store traffic, video analytics will track shoppers’ age, sex and mood, and beacons can gather data about what customers do in the shop once they have signed up for free Wi-Fi. For now, though, many American firms are reluctant to invest in such expensive new technology for shops that may not be there for much longer.
创业企业、科技企业和咨询机构都在提供工具，帮助小零售商转型。一些更有趣的工具能保证缩小电商网站和实体店之间的差距。地板垫可以测量商店的流量，视频分析将追踪购物者的年龄、性别和情绪，而一旦用户注册了免费wifi后，信标就可以收集有关他们在商店里做的事情的数据。然而，就目前而言，许多美国企业不想为这些可能不会太久后就可能不存在的商店投资购买这些昂贵的新技术。
In China, those offering to remedy retailers’ woes include some of the big e-commerce firms, and retailers may be happy to work with them because their platforms are so pervasive. In the West, small merchants already pay Amazon to list products on its site and store goods in its warehouses. The small sellers can reach more consumers more easily; Amazon earns fees and, thanks to sellers’ listings, can offer a broader selection.
在中国，那些为解决零售商困境提供服务的企业包括一些大型电商企业，而零售商可能乐于与他们合作，原因是他们的平台很受欢迎。在西方，一些小商家通过付费的方式，在亚马逊网站上陈列产品，并在亚马逊仓库里储存货物。小卖家能更容易地接触到更多的消费者，同时亚马逊也赚取费用，而且由卖家上架的产品，亚马逊为消费者提供更多的选择。
Big retailers, on the other hand, seem much less likely to team up with Amazon. Target and Toys“R”Us chose Amazon to handle their e-commerce businesses in the early 2000s, but both ended the partnership, with Toys”R”Us doing so in court. Unlike Alibaba, Amazon owns much of the stuff it sells, so competes directly with any seller that uses its services.
另一方面，大型零售商似乎不太可能与亚马逊合作。塔吉特和玩具反斗城（Toys“R”Us）在21世纪初选择了亚马逊(Amazon)来负责他们的电商业务，但两家都终止了合作关系——玩具反斗城通过法律手段结束的。与阿里巴巴不同，亚马逊拥有大部分销售的产品，因此是直接与使用其服务的卖家竞争。
Despite such troubles, there are examples of how bricks-and-mortar shops might thrive. One strategy is to offer distinctive products that are not available elsewhere (as does Zara, a clothing chain owned by Inditex), or which are difficult to sell online. A second is to give shoppers a great deal. TJX, an American firm, offers manufacturers’ surplus goods at bargain prices. Another option is a great experience: champagne at Louis Vuitton, perhaps, or personalised advice at Nike. The most difficult route is to try to match Amazon’s retail standards and offer more.
尽管有这样的麻烦，但也有一些例子表明实体店可以蓬勃发展。一种策略是提供独家的出众产品(如Inditex旗下的Zara服装连锁店)，或是很难在网上销售。第二种是给购物者提供大折扣。美国公司TJX以便宜的价格销售产商过剩的商品。另一个很好的例子很好的体验：路易威登的香槟，或者耐克的个性化建议。最困难的方式是尝试与亚马逊的零售标准相匹配，并提供更多优质产品。
Walmart, once the undisputed king of American retailing, is mounting the boldest counteroffensive. It can no longer simply open stores to boost growth; 90% of Americans already live within ten miles of a Walmart. So the company is seeking to protect its margins by making stores even more efficient—saving $7m by printing shorter receipts, for instance—while investing online. Last year it spent $3.3bn buying Jet.com, an e-commerce site founded by Marc Lore, who now oversees Walmart’s suite of online businesses. He is not trying to match Amazon’s breadth. “We are focused on being a retailer,” he declares. But Walmart is trying to catch up with Amazon in other ways. The company now offers free two-day shipping. Just as JD’s integration with Tencent is helping it challenge Alibaba, Walmart may succeed by partnering with tech giants. In August it said it would sell through Google’s voice assistant, in a bid to counter Amazon’s Alexa.
沃尔玛曾是美国零售业无可争议的霸主，如今却发起了最大胆的反攻。它再也不能简单地开设商店以促进增长；90%的美国人住在沃尔玛方园10英里以内。因此，沃尔玛通过提高商店的效率来努力维护自己的利润率，如打印尺寸更短的小票能节省700万美元，与此同时，它投资电商。去年，沃尔玛斥资33亿美元收购了由马克•洛尔(Marc Lore)创立的电商网站Jet.com。该网站目前负责沃尔玛的在线业务。洛尔并不想走亚马逊的广度。“我们专注于做零售商，”他宣称。但是沃尔玛正试图以其它方式赶上亚马逊。该公司现在提供免费的两天快递服务。正如京东与腾讯的合力有助于挑战阿里巴巴，沃尔玛可能会通过与科技巨头合作取得成功。今年8月，沃尔玛表示将通过谷歌的语音助手销售，以对抗亚马逊的Alexa语音助理。
Walmart can also use its vast network of stores to do things Amazon cannot. In one experiment, Walmart staff drop off customers’ orders on their way home. And as America’s biggest grocer, it has developed an easy way for customers to order food online, then drive to a Walmart where staff load it into their car.
沃尔玛还可以利用其庞大的门店网去做亚马逊做不到的事情。在一项实验中，沃尔玛的员工在回家的路上把货物送至消费者手中。作为美国最大的杂货商，沃尔玛制订出一种简单的方式，让消费者在网上订购食物，然后开车到沃尔玛，由员工将食品装进车。
Even as Walmart adapts, however, Amazon continues to morph. It is using machine learning to measure the ripeness of a peach and to determine how many blue shirts to stock in which size. Constant innovation gives it a huge competitive advantage which many retailers will struggle to match. Too many physical stores lack the strategy or distinctive merchandise that might help them thrive in retail’s new era. And in the main they still rely on the customers coming to them to choose their purchases, whereas their rivals deliver.
然而，即使是沃尔玛很熟练，亚马逊仍在继续发展，正在使用机器学习来测桃子的成熟度，并确定每个尺码的蓝色衬衫的库存数量。不断的创新给它带来了巨大的竞争优势，这让许多零售商难以匹敌。很多实体店缺乏帮助他们在零售新时代茁壮成长的策略或特色商品。他们仍然主要依靠消费者到店里来挑选他们的产品，而他们的竞争对手提供送货上门服务。
编译：石婷婷
审校：李颖
编辑：翻吧君
来源：经济学人