亞馬遜時代的零售競爭之道

????我最近一直在思考亞馬遜（Amazon）這家公司，部分原因是因為我近來正在讀布拉德?斯隆的一本有趣的著作——《什么都賣的商店：杰夫?貝佐斯與亞馬遜的時代》。

????我之前曾在一篇博文中談到過，亞馬遜是怎樣通過越來越大的成本優勢以及瘋狂追逐最低價格（至少大部分時間是這樣），從而對實體商家形成重大威脅的。（有興趣的讀者可點擊此處進行延伸閱讀。）同理，亞馬遜對于其它電子商務公司來說也是一個重大的競爭對手。

????很多人都知道，實體店幾乎已經成了網購的“樣品間”。很多顧客一走進實體店就掏出智能手機，把貨架上的價格與電商的價格進行對比——通常而言那家電商就是亞馬遜。消費者愛比價是不爭的事實，不論網上網下無不如此。而亞馬遜對其它電商也是一個殺手級的競爭對手。

????亞馬遜比其它電商更喜歡玩規模經濟，而且它們可以利用這種實力提供極其具有殺傷力的價格和快捷便宜的快遞服務。下圖就是亞馬遜的規模經濟示意圖，數據來自亞馬遜。

????I've had Amazon on my mind lately, partly because I'm reading Brad Stone's interesting book, The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon.

????I've described in earlier blog posts how Amazon (AMZN) is a brutal competitor for brick and mortar merchants due to their large and growing cost advantages and a maniacal commitment (at least most of the time) to having the lowest prices anywhere. (You can read more about it here.) These same drivers also make Amazon a heavyweight competitor for e-commerce companies.

????Much attention has been paid to the concept of "show-rooming" at brick and mortar stores, where customers use their smartphones to compare the cost of a product on a physical store's shelf against online competitors -- typically Amazon. But immediate cost-comparison is a fact of life, online or off. Amazon is a monster competitor to online merchants as well.

????Amazon enjoys economies of scale far beyond their online competition, and they can use that power to offer hyper-aggressive prices and fast, cheap shipping. Here is a simple illustration of their scale, using data from Internet Retailer:??

????從第二名以降，十幾家規模最大的網商綁成一團，也比不上亞馬遜一家的規模！由此可見亞馬遜的規模優勢非常巨大，而且他們還積極利用這種規模經濟帶來的優勢進行再投資，讓商品價格更低，快遞服務更快、更便宜，以帶動增長和進一步的規模優勢。所以當我們的霍洛維茨基金考慮每一筆電商領域投資的時候，都要努力地仔細評估來自亞馬遜的競爭風險。他們不是一句“重量級”就可以形容的——他們是全世界的重量級冠軍。

????那么，怎樣才能和亞馬遜競爭呢？以下是我們在網上和網下的零售商那里觀察到的一些策略。其中有些策略可以并行不悖，很多公司就同時采取了其中的好幾種。

????Amazon is larger than the next dozen largest e-tailers -- COMBINED! Its resulting scale advantages are staggering. And they aggressively re-invest the benefits of this scale into even lower prices and faster, cheaper shipping that in turn lead to growth and further scale advantages. When we consider an e-commerce investment at a16z, we always strive to carefully evaluate the risk of competition from Amazon. They're not just a heavyweight -- they're the heavyweight champion of the world.

????So how do you compete with Amazon? Here are some strategies that we're seeing in the market from both offline and online retailers. Not all are mutually exclusive -- i.e., many companies deploy multiple strategies:??