Why retailers everywhere should look to China
That is where they will see the future of e-commerce
为什么零售业/零售商都应该吧目光投向中国
那是他们能够看到的电商未来的地方（中国是电商的未来）
Jan 2nd 2021
Over the past ten months most people in the rich worldhave participated in the biggest shopping revolution in the West since malls and supermarketsconquered suburbia 50 years ago. The pandemic has led to a surge in online spending, speeding up the shift from physical stores by half a decade or so. Forget the chimney; Christmas gifts in 2020 came flying through the letterbox orwere dumped on the doorstep. Workers at a handful of firms, including Amazon and Walmart, have made superhuman efforts to fulfil online orders, and their investors have made supernormal profits as Wall Street has bid up their shares on euphoria that Western retailing is at the cutting edge.
S1：
- people in the rich world : 富裕国家的人
- malls and supermarkets : 购物中心和超市（有区别）
- conquered suburbia：suburbia指的是郊区， conquered除了指“征服”， 这里指的是“占领”， 该词本意源自 "攻克，打败之意"
S2:
- pandemic: 瘟疫，流感
- a surge in online spending: a surge in : ...的激增， online spending: 线上消费
- physical stores : 实体店
- half a decade or so : 五年左右
S3:
- chimney ['tʃɪmni] ：烟囱
- flying through the letterbox : 从信箱飞来
- were dumped on the doorstep : 被扔在门阶上了
S4:
- a handful of : 一把，一撮，少量
- have made asuperhuman efforts to fulfil ...:做出了超人般的努力来完成网上订单
- have made supernormal profits: 获得了超正常的利润。
- at the cutting edge: 处在最前沿
- bid up : 哄抬价格，竞出高价
- euphoria [ju'fɔriə] ：欣喜 （通常指的是持续时间较短的喜悦）
- 【全段翻译】：少数几家公司的员工，包括亚马逊和沃尔玛，已经做出了超人般的努力来完成网上订单，他们的投资者也因为西方零售业走在前沿而欣喜若狂，华尔街推高了他们的股票，从而获得了超正常的利润。
Yet as we explain this week (see article) it is in China, not the West, where the future of e-commerce is being staked out. Its market is far bigger and more creative, with tech firms blending e-commerce, social media and razzmatazz to become online-shopping emporia for 850m digital consumers. And China is also at the frontier of regulation, with the news on December 24th that trustbusters were investigating Alibaba, co-founded by Jack Ma, China’s most celebrated tycoon, and until a few weeks ago its most valuable listed firm. For a century the world’s consumer businesses have looked to America to spot new trends, from scannable barcodes on Wrigley’s gum in the 1970s to keeping up with the Kardashians’ consumption habits in the 2010s. Now they should be looking to the East.
S1:
- staked out : 显现出来 ， 该句在讲电商未来将在中国而不是西方国家
- blending : 摇晃，混合 （卖健身喝蛋白粉用的摇摇杯，有一个美国大牌，叫做blenderbottle）
- razzmatazz [ˌræzmə'tæz] : 令人眼花缭乱的活动
- online-shopping emporia : 大型在线购物商业中心， emporia 这个单词本身指大型商业中心，又中文音译为 ： 恩波利亚
S2:
- And China is also at the frontier of regulation ： 中国也处于监管的最前沿， regulation这个词用的最多的指的是“规矩，规则”， 还可以指“监管，条例法规”
- trustbusters: 为防止公司之间的非法交易而工作的个人或组织, buster 指的是“破坏者”
- co-founded by Jack Ma： 由马云联合创立， co-founded 本身指的是和其他人一起创立某个组织
- celebrated tycoon [taɪˈkuːn]: 著名的大亨, celebrated 本身可以指 “杰出的，著名的，受人尊敬的”， tycoon 这个词则指的是 “大亨，大款，将军，巨头”
S3:
- spot new trends: 发现新的趋势
- Wrigley's gum : 绿箭口香糖
- 【全段翻译】：一个世纪以来，全世界的消费企业都把目光投向了美国，从20世纪70年代箭牌口香糖上的可扫描条形码，到21世纪10年代跟上卡戴珊家族的消费习惯。现在他们应该把目光投向东方。
China’s lead in e-commerce is not entirely new. By size, its market overtook America’s in 2013—with little physical store space, its consumers and retailers leapfrogged ahead to the digital world. When Alibaba listed in 2014 it was the world’s largest-ever initial public offering. Today the country’s e-retailing market is worth $2trn, more than America’s and Europe’s combined. But beyond its sheer size it now stands out from the past, and from the industry in the West, in several crucial ways.
For a start it is more dynamic. In the past few years new competitors, including Meituan and Pinduoduo, have come of age with effervescent business models. One sign of fierce competition is that Alibaba’s share of the market capitalisation of the Chinese e-commerce industry has dropped from 81% when it listed to 55% today. Competition has also led e-commerce and other tech firms to demolish the boundaries between different types of services that are still common in the West. Point and click are passé: online-shopping platforms in China now blend digital payments, group deals, social media, gaming, instant messaging, short-form videos and live-streaming celebrities.
The obvious, multi-trillion-dollar question is whether the Chinese model of e-commerce will go global. As has been the case for decades, Silicon Valley’s giants still tend to underestimate China. There are few direct links between the American and Chinese e-commerce industries, partly owing to protectionism on both sides (Yahoo sold much of its stake in Alibaba, far too early, in 2012). And Western firms have long been organised in cosy, predictable silos. So Visa specialises in payments, Amazon in e-commerce, Facebook in social media, Google in search, and so on. The main source of uncertainty in e-commerce has been just how many big traditional retailers will go bust—over 30 folded in America in 2020—and whether a few might manage the shift online, as Walmart and Target have.
Yet however safe and siloed Western e-retailing may appear to be, it is now unlikely that it will become the world’s dominant mode of shopping. Already, outside rich countries, the Chinese approach is gaining steam. Many leading e-commerce firms in South-East Asia (Grab and Sea), India (Jio), and Latin America (Mercado Libre) are influenced by the Chinese strategy of offering a “super-app” with a cornucopia of services from noodle delivery to financial services. The giant consumer-goods firms that straddle the Western and Chinese markets may transmit Chinese ideas and business tactics, too. Multinationals such as Unilever, L’Oréal and Adidas make more revenue in Asia than in America and their bosses turn to there, not to California or Paris, to see the latest in digital marketing, branding and logistics.
Already, Chinese characteristics are emerging in the retail heartlands of the West, partly as a result of the pandemic. The silos are breaking down as firms diversify. Facebook is now promoting shopping services on its social networks, and engaging in “social commerce”, including in live-streaming and the use of WhatsApp, for messaging between merchants and shoppers. In December Walmart hosted its first live shopping event within TikTok, a Chinese-owned video app in which it hopes to buy a stake. In France in the past quarter the sixth-most-downloaded e-commerce app was Vova, linked to Pinduoduo’s founder. And new entrants may finally make progress in America—the share price of Shopify, a platform for Amazon exiles and small firms, has soared so that it is now valued at more than $140bn.
This shift to a more Chinese-style global industry promises to be excellent news for consumers. Prices would be lower, as China has seen fierce discounting by competing firms. Choice and innovation would probably grow. Even so, Chinese e-commerce has flaws. In a Wild West climate, fraud is more common. And there are those antitrust concerns. It is tempting to see the crackdown on Mr Ma as just another display of brutal * Party power (see article). It may partly be that, but China’s antitrust regulators are also keen to boost competition. That means enforcing interoperability, so that, for example, payments services on one e-commerce platform can be used seamlessly on a rival one. And it means preventing e-commerce firms from penalising merchants who sell goods in more than one place online. So far American and European trustbusters have been ineffectual at controlling big tech, despite a flurry of lawsuits and draft laws at the end of 2020. They, too, should study China, for a sense of where the industry is heading and how to respond.
There is a pattern to how the West thinks about Chinese innovation. From electronics to solar panels, Chinese manufacturing advances were either ignored or dismissed as copying, then downplayed and then grudgingly acknowledged around the world. Now it is the Chinese consumer’s tastes and habits that are going global. Watch and learn.■