经济学人2021.3.13/E-commerce profits may become harder to make
The marketplace
市场
E-commerce profits may become harder to make
电子商务的利润可能会变得更难获得
The Amazons and Alibabas are not as impregnable as they might seem
亚马逊和阿里巴巴并不像它们看起来那样坚不可摧
Mar 11th 2021 |
THE E-COMMERCE company that retailers talk about most these days is neither Amazon, the American juggernaut, nor Alibaba, China’s biggest. It is Pinduoduo (PDD), a Chinese firm that started in 2015 as an online food supplier, but whose success has driven its market value above $200bn. Last year it was China’s fastest-growing internet stock, rising by 330%.
如今，零售商们谈论最多的电子商务公司既不是美国巨头亚马逊(Amazon)，也不是中国最大的电子商务公司阿里巴巴(Alibaba)。而是拼多多(PDD)，一家成立于2015年的中国在线食品供应商，但它的成功使其市值超过2000亿美元。去年，它是中国增长最快的互联网股票，上涨了330%。
词汇
Juggernaut/主宰者
PDD attracts attention for two reasons. One is its business model. David Liu, vice-president of strategy, explains that it has ridden the rise of Smartphone penetration in China to create an e-commerce experience in which people club together to buy products from robot vacuum-cleaners to bananas. During the pandemic this has expanded into a fast-growing business across thousands of towns and villages, in which PDD’s users gather to bid for shipments of local farm produce at bargain prices. Some term this “community group-buy”. Mr Liu calls it “interactive commerce”. It is one of the hottest parts of the Chinese internet.
拼多多引起人们的注意有两个原因。其一是它的商业模式。该公司战略副总裁刘大卫(David Liu)解释称，该公司利用智能手机在中国普及率的上升，创造了一种电子商务体验，人们聚集在一起购买从机器人吸尘器到香蕉等各种产品。在疫情期间，这已发展成为一项遍及数千个城镇和村庄的快速业务，在这些城镇和村庄，拼多多的用户聚集在一起，以低廉的价格竞标当地农产品的运输。有人称之为“社区团购”。刘先生称之为“互动商务”。它是中国互联网上最热门的部分之一。
词汇
Penetration/ 渗透；突破
Shipment/装载的货物
The second is the way PDD has shattered the myth of an impregnable fortress surrounding the titans of online shopping. Until a few years ago, China’s e-commerce market seemed a two-way contest between Alibaba and JD.com, a rival platform. No longer. Elinor Leung of CLSA, a brokerage, expects PDD’s share of online retail in China to overtake that of JD in 2021. She expects the number of users to surpass Alibaba. And although PDD shells out huge subsidies to entice customers from poorer parts of China to its app, she thinks it may turn profitable this year.
第二，拼多多打破了围绕着网上购物巨头的坚不可摧的堡垒的神话。直到几年前，中国电子商务市场似乎还是阿里巴巴和京东(JD.com)之间的双向竞争。不再。里昂证券(CLSA)的Elinor Leung预计，2021年拼多多在中国在线零售市场的份额将超过京东。她预计用户数量将超过阿里巴巴。尽管拼多多支付了巨额补贴来吸引中国贫困地区的用户使用其应用程序，但她认为该应用程序今年可能会盈利。
词汇
Impregnable/无法攻取的
Brokerage/佣金；回扣；中间人业务
Remarkably, it has done this less by displacing its bigger rivals than by tapping parts of the market they have been unable to reach. Although online sales of groceries have rocketed during the pandemic, less than a tenth of the 8.1trn yuan ($1.25trn) farm-produce market is bought and sold digitally. “We are continuing to grow the pie,” says Mr Liu. That lesson applies elsewhere too. [这句话有歧义，删了], there is opportunity for upstarts because e-commerce is at an early stage of development.
值得注意的是，它不是通过取代规模更大的竞争对手，而是利用它们无法触及的部分市场。尽管在疫情期间，食品杂货的网上销售飙升，但在8.1万亿元(1.25万亿美元)的农产品市场中，只有不到十分之一是通过数字方式进行买卖的。刘先生表示:“我们正在继续做大蛋糕。”这个经验也适用于其他地方。[这句话有歧义，删了]，新贵们都有机会，因为电子商务正处于发展的早期阶段。
词汇
sew up/缝合，缝入
The issue of competition in China has convulsed share prices because of the actions of antitrust authorities. In November 2020 the State Administration for Market Regulation published draft guidelines for platform companies aimed at maintaining orderly competition. In December enforcement of the 2008 antitrust law was strengthened, leading to new investigations and fines. These have included scrutiny of mergers and acquisitions, community group-buy schemes, price-discounting and discrimination against competitors. Ms Leung wrote in January that the chance of a forced break-up of Chinese internet platforms is remote, because of its impact on industry, the economy and consumers. But she expects more regulation, especially over customer data.
不翻译了，讲国内监管的
词汇
Convulse/震撼；使剧烈震动
antitrust /反垄断的
Robin Zhu of Bernstein says the crackdown means tech platforms may have to restrain aggressive sales practices such as selling goods at huge discounts. That may reduce growth, but jobs and innovation plus their support for consumer spending argue in their favour. Alibaba seems the biggest target, but PDD has also drawn fire. Alibaba is flying “closest to the sun”, Mr Zhu suggests, partly because of heat on its sister company, Ant Group. But he says up to a fifth of China’s retail sales flow through its doors. Chinese regulators stress their support for the platform economy, he notes, so a crackdown is unlikely to be devastating.
不翻译了，讲国内监管的
词汇
draw fire/受到抨击
The rampant competition in China’s retail market suggests no platform, however large, can expect fully to dominate it. Alongside PDD, Alibaba, JD and Meituan, a food-delivery firm, all target China’s lower-tier cities with community group-buy and other schemes. Alibaba’s Taobao Live platform has led the growth of live-streaming and video, in which influencers sell branded goods at huge discounts. But the explosive live-streaming market has attracted vigorous competitors, such as Douyin, sister to TikTok, a global social-media app. WeChat, part of a super-app owned by Alibaba’s rival Tencent, allows brands to sell on its site, and gives customers instant access to digital payments. Everyone is jostling for a share of online advertising. This is especially true in live-streaming, where it is easy to measure the bang for an advertiser’s buck through real-time data, says Michael Jais of Launchmetrics, a fashion-and-beauty analytics company.
中国零售市场的激烈竞争表明，无论多大的平台，都不可能完全占据主导地位。除了拼多多，阿里巴巴、京东和送餐公司美团都在中国二三线城市推出了社区团购和其他计划。阿里巴巴旗下的淘宝直播平台引领了直播和视频的增长，在这些平台上，网红们以巨大的折扣销售品牌商品。但爆炸式增长的直播市场吸引了活跃的竞争对手，比如全球社交媒体应用抖音（TikTok）的姊妹抖音（Douyin）。微信是阿里巴巴的竞争对手腾讯(Tencent)旗下超级应用的一部分，它让各类品牌可以在其网站上销售（估计说的是微店），并可以让客户即时接入数字支付。每个人都在争夺在线广告的份额。来自时尚美容分析公司Launchmetrics的Michael Jais说，在直播中尤其如此，通过实时数据可以很容易地衡量广告商的收入。
词汇
rampant /猖獗的；蔓延的
Jostle/争夺；推挤
In Europe and America, by contrast, the view is that the game has been won by Amazon. The gap between Amazon’s e-commerce market share in America and that of Walmart, the next in line, is far bigger than Alibaba’s lead over the number two in China. Though Bernstein’s Mark Shmulik reckons Amazon earns little profit on its core retail business, its fast-growing cloud and online-advertising arms generate huge margins that it can plough back into retail expansion. It had $42bn of cash on its balance-sheet at the end of 2020. Marc-André Kamel of Bain, a consultancy, says Amazon may spend $100bn more on information technology over the next five years than each of the world’s top ten traditional retailers. It will also continue to invest heavily in logistics, putting more pressure on the likes of UPS and FedEx.
相比之下，在欧洲和美国，人们认为亚马逊已经赢得了这场游戏。亚马逊在美国的电子商务市场份额与接下来的沃尔玛(Walmart)之间的差距，远远大于阿里巴巴在中国的领先优势。尽管伯恩斯坦的Mark Shmulik认为亚马逊在其核心零售业务上几乎没有利润，但其快速增长的云计算和在线广告部门产生了巨大的利润，它可以将这些利润用于零售扩张。截至2020年底，它的资产负债表上有420亿美元现金。咨询公司贝恩(Bain)的Marc-André Kamel表示，未来5年，亚马逊在信息技术方面的投入可能比全球十大传统零售商都多1000亿美元。它还将继续大力投资物流，给联合包裹（UPS，美国一快递公司）和联邦快递(FedEx)等公司带来更大压力。
Like Alibaba in China, Amazon has drawn regulatory heat. In October 2020 a congressional committee in America said it was looking at overhauling antitrust laws to counter the power of the big tech platforms. It drew attention to the dominance that Amazon has over third-party sellers on its marketplace, and its practice of selling its own goods in competition with them. In November the European Commission accused Amazon of violating competition laws by using non-public data from third-party sellers to benefit its own retail business.
和中国的阿里巴巴一样，亚马逊也受到了监管部门的关注。2020年10月，美国国会的一个委员会表示，他们正在考虑彻底改革反垄断法，以对抗大型科技平台的力量。它让人们注意到，亚马逊在其市场上对第三方卖家的主导地位，以及它在与第三方卖家竞争时销售自己商品的做法。11月，欧盟委员会指控亚马逊违反了竞争法，使用第三方卖家的非公开数据为自己的零售业务谋利。
词汇
Overhaul/全面改革（制度、方法等）
Amazon says none of this is true. Although it stands tall online in America, by total sales Walmart is larger. Amazon dominates categories like books, but in groceries it is one of many. Trustbusters may have their eye on how it sells products on its website to compete with those sold by third parties, but this is little different from big retailers selling own-label products. Amazon also has political capital. Brian Nowak of Morgan Stanley says the jobs it provides, its support for Small and medium-sized firms, and its technological prowess may all work in its favour.
亚马逊说这些都不是真的。尽管亚马逊在美国的网络销售额很高，但从总销售额来看，沃尔玛比它更大。亚马逊在图书等类别中占据主导地位，但在杂货领域，它只是众多类别之一。反托拉斯者可能会关注该公司如何在其网站上销售产品，以与第三方销售的产品竞争，但这与销售自有品牌产品的大型零售商没有什么不同。亚马逊还有政治资本。摩根斯坦利的Brian Nowak说，它提供的就业机会，对中小企业的支持，以及它的技术实力都可能对它有利。
词汇
Trustbuster/反托拉斯法(反垄断法)的执行人（或机构）
The recent decision by Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, to hand the chief executive job to Andy Jassy will not end the regulatory fire. But if the pressure rises, it could spin out Amazon Web Services, the world’s biggest cloud-computing company. As in China, as long as the pie is growing, new challengers may emerge. Some will come from big tech. Many online retailers pay Facebook and Google for their products to be found via search. Online advertising remains the strongest part of their businesses, but Facebook and Google are adding sales channels. Facebook has 160m Small firms on its site. In 2020 it let them set up a single online store on its app and on Instagram, its sister platform. Last year Google scrapped commissions for retailers selling directly from its site.
亚马逊(Amazon)创始人杰夫·贝佐斯(Jeff Bezos)最近将首席执行官一职交给安迪·雅西(Andy Jassy)的决定，不会结束监管之火。但如果压力上升，它可能会分出全球最大的云计算公司亚马逊网络服务(Amazon Web Services)。就像在中国一样，只要蛋糕还在增长，新的挑战者就可能出现。其中一些将来自大型科技公司。许多在线零售商向Facebook和谷歌支付费用，以便他们的产品能通过搜索被找到。在线广告仍然是它们业务中最强大的部分，但Facebook和谷歌正在增加销售渠道。Facebook网站上有一亿六千万小公司。2020年，它允许他们在其应用程序和姊妹平台Instagram上建立一个单独的在线商店。去年，谷歌取消了零售商在其网站上直接销售的佣金。
词汇
Commission/佣金；服务费
Another source of competition will come from changes in online shopping. Smartphones may overtake personal computers in America and Europe for e-commerce. That will boost the popularity of “social commerce”, or commerce via social media and video. TikTok, a medium for promoting brand awareness, may let its most popular celebrities market products on its site, according to the Financial Times. The battle will extend to logistics and payment services. In America Amazon delivers more of its own parcels than the US Postal Service. But rivals like Walmart are developing subscription services like Amazon Prime that offer free delivery and other perks.
竞争的另一个来源将来自网上购物的变化。在美国和欧洲，智能手机在电子商务方面可能会超过个人电脑。这将推动“社交商务”的普及，即通过社交媒体和视频进行的商务。据《金融时报》报道，作为提升品牌知名度的媒介，TikTok可能会让旗下最受欢迎的名人在其网站上推销产品。这场战斗将延伸到物流和支付服务。在美国，亚马逊自己递送的包裹比美国邮政服务的还要多。但沃尔玛等竞争对手正在开发亚马逊Prime等订阅服务，提供免费送货和其他优惠。
词汇
Perk/特殊待遇
Tax is another threat. In both East and West, tax authorities have their eye on the digital giants. In 2020 Amazon saw a big increase in its tax liability, yet the administration of Joe Biden is considering imposing higher taxes on America’s most profitable companies. European governments are levying digital-services taxes on tech firms in an effort to force them to pay more where their consumers are located. Some have drawn attention to the low business rates that e-commerce platforms pay on out-of-town warehouses, compared with those of retailers on the high street. Even China plans to raise taxes on its biggest tech firms.
税收是另一个威胁。在东方和西方，税务当局都把目光投向了数字巨头。2020年，亚马逊的纳税义务大幅增加，但Joe Biden政府正在考虑对美国最赚钱的公司征收更高的税。欧洲各国政府正在向科技公司征收数字服务税，以迫使它们在消费者所在的地方支付更多费用。一些人注意到，与商业街上的零售商相比，电子商务平台在城外仓库支付的营业税较低。甚至中国也计划对其最大的科技公司增税。
Ultimately, higher taxes, greater regulatory scrutiny and rising competition may make profits in e-commerce harder to come by. But even if they end up regulated like utilities, few will shed a tear. The e-commerce giants have had a fabulous run so far.
最终，更高的税收、更严格的监管审查和日益激烈的竞争可能会让电子商务领域的利润更难获得。但即使它们最终像公用事业公司一样受到监管，也不会有人掉泪。到目前为止，这两家电子商务巨头的表现都非常出色。
词汇
Fabulous/ 难以置信的；传说的
