论电商的发展趋势「电商时代的发展」

本期导读

本文节选自《经济学人》20210102期的封面文章。中国电商行业发展迅速并处于领先地位，其市场规模早在2013年就已经超过了美国；而如今，中国电子零售市场的市值比美国和欧洲加起来还要多。

The online boom

The future of global e-commerce

Retailers everywhere should look to China

（接上文：《经济学人精读 | 电商行业的未来》）

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.

come of age 是个动词短语，本意是“成年；达到法定年龄”，在这里表示“成熟；发达”effervescent 意思是“充满活力的”list 表示“上市”demolish 指“拆毁，拆除”boundary 意思是“界限，分界线”passé 是一个源于法语的单词，意思是“过时的；陈旧的”，类似于 outmodedlive-stream 是动词，表示“网络直播”；live-streaming celebrity 就是指那些直播网红。

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.

Silicon Valley 指美国的“硅谷”（计算机和电子公司的聚集地）underestimate 是 under estimate ，estimate 是动词，意为“估计”，因此underestimate 意思是“低估”；同理，overestimate 就是“高估”的意思。stake 指“ 股本；股份”cosy 意思是“温暖舒适的”silo 指“筒仓；地窖”go bust 是个俚语，表示“失败，破产” fold 在这里意为“倒闭；结束”，它的另一个常用意思是“折叠”。