聚焦阿里巴巴上市专题

· 阿里上千员工或分得人均数千万财富
· 阿里的收购野心及其背后的风险
· 阿里巴巴能从亚马逊和谷歌的IPO中借鉴什么
· 硅谷怎么看阿里巴巴？
· 阿里巴巴IPO：对投资者来说这是一笔“捡漏”的买卖

    Alibaba started dominating in China, simply enough, by connecting big Chinese manufacturers with big buyers across the world. Its business-to-business site, Alibaba.com, went public in 2007 (before going private again seven years later) to great fanfare. The site allowed business to buy everything from Chinese-made mopeds to blue jeans in bulk.

    Alibaba’s advantage wasn’t hard to discern, and it remains the reason the Chinese tech giant’s IPO has been mentioned on every news site and TV broadcast for the past week: size.

    Alibaba is just plain big, even by Chinese standards. Its marketplaces attract 231 million active buyers, 8 million sellers, 11.3 billion orders a year—and Alibaba is just the middleman. Unlike Amazon, it doesn’t host big inventories. It uses incentives for people to use its markets—not charging small sellers a percentage of the sale, for one— and keeps them coming back.

    If you want a glimpse into how pervasive Alibaba is in daily Chinese life, take my experience. I moved to Beijing almost a year ago and quickly got tired of visiting small stores across the crowded, polluted city of 20 million people in search of new electronics, bathroom furnishings, and anything else my wife wanted. “You’re looking for what exactly?” my Chinese teacher asked me one day. With that, my wonderful new relationship with Alibaba began.

    Alibaba’s original business-to-business model now is secondary to consumer buying. Chinese retail buying generates 80% of Alibaba’s revenue, and leading that group is Taobao, a sort of advanced eBay, with 800 million items for sale and the most bizarre selection of things you’ll ever find. (You could buy Harvard email addresses for $390, a boyfriend for $130 a day, and industrial 3M ear plugs for quiet studying for 30 cents.) TMall.com is Alibaba’s other big site, where you can find brand name goods from Nike and Unilever near the lowest prices, similar to Amazon.com.

    What I have a hard time explaining to friends and family back in the U.S. is how China has leapfrogged traditional shopping—big-box retailers especially–in favor of online purchases on Taobao and a few other sites. In smaller towns than Beijing, where big retailers have not yet traveled, shopping online is shopping, and shopping is Taobao.

    Amazon’s ease of use might promote binge-buying, but it’s got nothing on Taobao, which is just as easy to use (granted you read Mandarin, or have friends who do), usually includes free shipping, and includes candid reviews of a product’s quality.

    Here’s a list of some of my recent purchases on Taobao for a sense of how extensive the marketplace is. Almost everything arrived a day or two after ordering with free shipping. I’m not even a big buyer, because I need friends to help me navigate the Chinese-language site. When I was searching my purchase history on my Chinese teacher’s iPad, who helps me buy stuff, I waded through about 10 of her purchases for every one of mine.

    阿里巴巴公司(Alibaba)在中国电商领域占据主导地位。它成功的方法很简单，那就是在中国大型制造商与世界各地的大买家之间建立起联系的桥梁。该公司旗下B2B网站Alibaba.com于2007年在香港高调上市（但5年之后完成私有化退市）。从本土轻便摩托车到蓝色牛仔裤，企业可以在这家网站批量购买任何商品。

    阿里巴巴的优势很明显，即规模巨大。正因如此，在过去一周内，这家中国电商巨头IPO的消息充斥着各大新闻网站和电视广播。

    即使按中国的标准而言，阿里巴巴也是巨大无比。它的网络市场吸引了2.31亿活跃买家和800万卖家，每年有113亿订单成交，而阿里巴巴只扮演中间商的角色。与亚马逊（Amazon）不同，阿里巴巴没有大量库存。阿里巴巴采用激励措施鼓励人们使用其电商平台并成为回头客，其中一项措施就是对小型卖家不收费。

    要想了解阿里巴巴如何影响中国人的日常生活，可以看看我的经历。一年前我来到北京，我的太太总叫我去买一些电子产品、卫浴家具等物品。在这座特别拥挤（北京拥有2000万人口），空气污染严重的城市中穿行，只为到五花八门的小商店里搜罗这些玩意，我很快就疲惫不堪了。有一天，我的中文老师问我：“你到底要买什么东西？”从此，我便开启了精彩的阿里巴巴之旅。

    阿里巴巴原来的B2B模式现在居于其网购零售平台之后。网上零售占阿里巴巴营收的80％，而淘宝网正是该领域的领头羊。淘宝网相当于进化版的eBay，出售的商品多达8亿种，品类繁多，应有尽有，只有想不到，没有找不到。[消费者可以花390美元买到美国哈佛大学(Harvard University)的电子邮箱地址列表，花130美元租男友一天，30美分就可以买到3M工业防噪音耳塞，那玩意的确是确保安心学习的绝佳用品。]天猫商城(TMall.com)是阿里巴巴公司旗下的另一大网站，与Amazon.com类似，在这里可以低价买到品牌产品，如耐克（Nike）和联合利华（Unilever）等。

    我很难向美国的朋友和家人解释，中国的淘宝和其他购物网站是如何超越传统商店（尤其是大型零售商）的。在那些比北京小，大型零售商还未踏足的城镇，人们买东西多用网购，而网购就是上淘宝。

    亚马逊操作简易，可能会促进疯狂购物，但与淘宝相比，这不算什么，淘宝也很容易操作（只要你懂中文，或者有懂中文的朋友），而且通常免费送货，网站上还有关于产品质量的中肯评论。

    下面是我最近在淘宝的购物清单，从中可见淘宝市场覆盖面之广。一般下了订单之后一两天内免费送货上门。我还不算是频繁的买家，因为我在浏览中文网站时还不太熟练，需要朋友的帮助。当我在中文老师（她帮我网购）的iPad上搜寻我的购买记录时，通常每10个购买记录里只有1个是我的。

    LIST:

    iPad cover: $4.60

    清单：

    iPad保护套：4.60美元

    Fake Kindle-branded cover: $7.50

    Christmas napkins: $2.50

    山寨版Kindle保护套：7.50美元

    圣诞节餐巾纸：2.50美元

    A money safe (because China, annoyingly, is still a cash-based society): $35.70

    Toaster: $9.50

    Coffee maker: $11.20

    保险箱（购买它是因为中国仍然是以现金流通为主的国家）：35.70美元

    烤面包机：9.50美元

    咖啡壶：11.20美元

---

    Coffee bean grinder: $22.10

    Plant fertilizer: $1.60

    American-brand cat food (because my wife still doesn’t trust Chinese brands): $15

    Vacuum plastic tube piece to replace broken one (for the exact same model): $1.64. $2.30 delivery fee for two.

    咖啡豆研磨机：22.10美元

    植物肥料：1.60美元

    美国品牌猫粮（因为我太太还是不信任中国品牌）：15美元

    真空塑料管件（用来替换已坏的管件，型号完全相同）：1.64美元， 购买两件的运费为2.30美元。

    Moped hand warmers for winter riding: $3

    Moped helmets: $12 a piece

    Two-wheeled cart to transport a 50-lb. moped battery: $4

    Industrial chain bike lock: $11.80 Plus $3 shipping fee

    Room fan: $9.50

    HEPA filters for the room fan, to clean air where our top-of-the-line Swiss-made air purifier doesn’t reach: $22.90

    The promise Alibaba talks about, and why investors are valuing the company north of $160 billion, is its network effect— essentially, that when more people join, the more people buy, and the better it is for everyone including Alibaba.

    The counterfeit problem seems mostly fixed because you either know you are buying fake goods on Taobao, or if fakes arrive, your money to the seller sits in escrow until you’re satisfied. If you’re not, you simply return.

    Taobao is already engrained in Chinese life, and investors are considering the possibilities of monster growth to come for Alibaba because online shopping is still at relatively low levels in China, as the company points out in its IPO filing (49% of Internet users in China shop online vs. 74% in the U.S.). As more Chinese buy stuff online, Alibaba’s network should create more repetitive buyers like me.

    Now, I can’t imagine life without Taobao.

    冬天骑电动车用的暖手套：3美元

    电动车头盔：每个12美元

    用于运输50磅电动车电池的双轮车：4美元

    自行车链条锁：11.80美元加3美元运费

    电风扇：9.50美元

    HEPA风扇过滤器（用来在我家的瑞士造高端空气净化器无法企及的地方清洁空气）：22.90美元

    阿里巴巴许下的承诺，以及投资者给它估值1600亿美元的原因,归根结底在于其网络效应，本质上就是更多人加入，更多人购买，对所有人越有益，包括阿里巴巴。

    假冒问题似乎基本得以解决，如果消费者发现在淘宝上购买的商品是假货，或者拿到手的是假货，都不用担心，因为向卖家支付的钱由第三方保管，直到消费者满意之后才会将钱转给卖家。如果不满意，可以退款。

    淘宝已经深入到中国人的日常生活之中，投资者认为阿里巴巴还有巨大的增长潜力。正如阿里巴巴在其IPO申请文件中所指出的那样，中国的网购仍处于较低水平（49％的中国网民在网上购物，而美国的比例为74％）。随着越来越多的中国人在网上购物，阿里巴巴的网络将会拥有更多和我一样的重复买家。

    现在，我都无法想象没有淘宝的生活怎么过。（财富中文网）

    译者：Lina