亞馬遜的“終極便利店”之夢

Just when we thought we understood Amazon, it surprises us. We are used to observing an online retailer that cuts prices relentlessly to undermine brick and mortar stores. It has now decided to buy Whole Foods Market, a premium chain for Americans who can afford fancy cheese and fish.

就在我們自以爲了解亞馬遜(Amazon)的時候，它讓我們吃了一驚。我們習慣於看到一家電商通過大幅降價搶走實體店鋪的生意。它現在決定收購全食超市(Whole Foods Market)，後者是一家美國高檔超市連鎖店，面向的是買得起高級奶酪和魚的顧客。

If it wanted to turn physical, the Amazon of our imagination might have followed Aldi, the private German retailer, by investing $5bn to expand its US discount stores, or have directly taken on Walmart’s 3,500 grocery and hardware Supercentres. Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, is instead entering the top end of the grocery market by offering $13.7bn for Whole Foods.

按照我們的想象，如果亞馬遜想進軍實體店，它可能效仿投資50億美元拓展其美國折扣商店的德國非上市零售商阿爾迪(Aldi)，或者直接挑戰沃爾瑪(Walmart)的3500家售賣食品雜貨和五金產品的超級購物中心(Supercentre)。但實際上，亞馬遜創始人傑夫?貝索斯(Jeff Bezos)將通過以137億美元收購全食超市，進入高端食品雜貨市場。

This suggests either that Mr Bezos has lost his bearings or that many people think about Amazon in the wrong way. In fact, it is not so much an online discounter as a vast convenience store. Making things easier, either by cutting prices or by delivering goods simply, is his master plan.

這要麼表明貝索斯迷失了方向，要麼表明許多人對亞馬遜的看法出了錯。實際上，與其說亞馬遜是一家折扣電商，還不如說它是一家龐大的便利店。貝索斯的總體規劃是通過降價或者將商品簡單地送達，來讓人們的生活容易一點。

The Whole Foods deal brings to mind not Walmart, Aldi, or Kroger, the largest traditional US supermarket, but a company that predated them: the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company. A & P was a precursor of US supermarkets and the way that it combined efficient technology with high street grocery outlets provides clues to Mr Bezos’s thinking.

收購全食超市的交易讓人想起的不是沃爾瑪、阿爾迪或者美國最大的傳統超市克羅格(Kroger)，而是一家歷史遠比它們悠久的公司：大西洋和太平洋茶葉公司(Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company，簡稱A&P)。A&P是美國超市的前身，它將高效科技與商業街食品雜貨店結合起來的方式，爲理解貝索斯的想法提供了線索。

Before A & P, Americans shopped at small-town stores that were “often run in a haphazard manner” and purchased their supplies from “a byzantine collection of jobbers and middle men that was rife with corruption”, according to Paul Ellickson, an economics professor at Rochester university.

羅徹斯特大學(University of Rochester)經濟學教授保羅?埃利克森(Paul Ellickson)表示，在A&P誕生之前，美國人在小城商店購物，這些商店“往往經營散漫”，進貨渠道“由各種批發商和中間商組成，錯綜複雜、充滿腐敗”。

Like an early 20th-century Amazon, A & P cut through all of that. In 1913, it opened “economy stores” on high streets, supplying them through its own network of warehouses and delivery trucks. It offered its own private label brands, which were fresher and less likely to be out of stock. A & P expanded to 16,000 stores in 1930 as economies of scale allowed it to undercut independents.

與如今的亞馬遜一樣，A&P在20世紀初顛覆了這一切。在1913年，它在各條商業街上開了“經濟店”，通過自己的倉庫網絡和送貨車供貨。它提供自有品牌的商品，這些商品更加新鮮，而且不那麼可能斷貨。A&P在1930年擴張到1.6萬家門店——規模經濟讓它得以用低價打敗非連鎖商店。

It eventually became a victim of its own success. Smaller operators lobbied for it to be curtailed and price discrimination was banned by the 1936 Robinson-Patman Act to stamp out discounting. It went into decline, replaced by large supermarkets built by Kroger and Safeway in warehouse districts and away from high streets.

它最終受自身成功所累。中小型商店展開遊說、要求限制A&P，1936年出臺的《魯賓遜-帕特曼法》(Robinson-Patman Act)禁止價格歧視以打壓打折。A&P逐漸走向衰落，被克羅格(Kroger)和Safeway在倉庫區建造的、遠離商業街的大型超市取代。

But the combination of Amazon and Whole Foods suggests that history is starting to repeat itself. The supermarket itself has reached an apotheosis in huge suburban stores run by Walmart, as well as Carrefour and Tesco in Europe, and many shoppers are looking for alternatives. Amazon’s Whole Foods deal is an experiment rather than the solution, but it is intriguing.

但亞馬遜和全食的聯手錶明，歷史開始重演。超市本身的發展已經到了頂，沃爾瑪經營的大型郊區門店、歐洲的家樂福(Carrefour)和樂購(Tesco)就代表着它的巔峯；許多顧客正在尋找替代選擇。亞馬遜收購全食是一場試驗而非解決方案，但這筆交易饒有趣味。

The supermarket’s strength is becoming its vulnerability in an age when technology is changing the rules of retailing. It reduces costs and prices by grouping together many kinds of goods in one place, from tins of beans to fresh fish and meat, and persuading shoppers to bear the cost of final delivery. They drive to stores to load their trolleys and purchase everything at once.

在一個技術正在改變零售規則的時代，超市的優勢正在變成其劣勢。超市憑藉兩點降低了成本和價格，一是將從豆子罐頭到鮮魚鮮肉等許多種商品集中在同一個地方，二是說服顧客承擔了終端派送成本。他們驅車前往商店，裝滿購物車，一次買下所有東西。

Technology now offers a way to unbundle the traditional supermarket — to sell different things in different ways. Instead of having to shop for bulk household items, dried pasta and rice, and fresh fish all at once, the shopper’s leisure time can be allocated more enjoyably and effectively. Routine goods can be ordered online and delivered directly, leaving time to pick the choicest produce in person.

現在技術讓我們有辦法“拆散”傳統超市——以不同方式銷售不同的東西。顧客可以更愉快且有效地配置閒暇時間，而不必一次買齊大量家居用品、意大利麪、大米以及鮮魚。常購商品可以網上下單、直接派送到家，把時間留給親自挑選最優質的產品。

It is more complex than that, of course. For one thing, people’s shopping habits and sense of convenience vary according to where they live. Online grocery providers such as Ocado in the UK and FreshDirect in the US do best in cities, where people want to avoid traffic jams on the way to the supermarket. In the suburbs, it is often easier to drive to a Walmart or Kroger store.

當然，實際情況會複雜一些。一方面，人們的購物習慣和便利感因居住地不同而有所不同。英國Ocado和美國FreshDirect等食品雜貨電商在城市裏生意最好，因爲人們害怕驅車去超市會遭遇堵車。在郊區，驅車前往沃爾瑪或者克羅格門店往往更容易些。

Shopping habits also depend on income. Whole Foods and chains such as Trader Joe’s draw people who can afford fresh and organic produce and can pay higher prices. They are also likely to be busy professionals who might buy the same food online if they were offered freshness and variety.

購物習慣還取決於收入。全食和喬氏商店(Trader Joe's)等連鎖店吸引的是這樣的顧客：買得起新鮮有機食品並能支付較高價格的人。他們也可能是忙碌的專業人士——如果食品新鮮而且品種也多，這些人也可能在網上買。

The challenge for online grocers is that freshness and variety are hard to combine — if they sell one type of tomato, their stock will turn over fast and be very fresh. If they offer 20 types, the choice is wider but the tomatoes will sit in warehouses longer. The supply chain for groceries is trickier and costlier than for non-perishables.

食品雜貨電商的挑戰在於，很難兼顧新鮮度和多樣性——如果它們只銷售一種西紅柿，那庫存週轉將非常快，東西將非常新鮮。如果它們銷售20個品種的西紅柿，顧客的選擇餘地更大了，但西紅柿呆在倉庫裏的時間就會更長。生鮮食品的供應鏈比非易腐品的供應鏈更棘手，成本也更高。

Having experimented with Amazon Fresh, its online grocery service, in cities in the US and elsewhere, Amazon has clearly realised that it needs a physical network as well. It has to expand in order to attain what Chris Baker, a partner of the consultancy Oliver Wyman, calls “a virtuous cycle of volume, turnover and freshness”.

亞馬遜已經在美國和其他地方的城市試着推出了在線食品配送服務——亞馬遜生鮮(Amazon Fresh)，現在它明顯已意識到，自己也需要實體網點。亞馬遜必須擴張，以實現奧緯諮詢(Oliver Wyman)合夥人克里斯?貝克(Chris Baker)所說的“數量、週轉和新鮮度之間的良性循環”。

Beyond the Whole Foods acquisition lies a tantalising vision of the 21st-century A & P, an enormous, efficient retail enterprise that deliver a wide array of fresh, cheap groceries to a network of small and large outlets, as well as directly to homes. That would be the ultimate convenience store and I imagine that Mr Bezos knows it.

目光越過收購全食的交易，可以看到如下誘人的前景：一個21世紀的A&P——龐大而高效的零售企業，將各種新鮮的廉價食品雜貨送到規模不等的實體網點，或直接送到消費者家中。這將是終極的便利店，我想貝索斯知道這一點。