The Tipping Point for Retail

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When Warby Parker1一家在線時尚眼鏡初創公司。was founded in 2010, the pitch2pitch 推銷的話；宣傳論點。was simple:Don’t buy expensive designer eyeglasses in stores; buy cheaper ones on the internet.

[2]It was a good pitch.It was also a financial necessity: The founders had no outside capital and it was far cheaper to build a national brand online than to open a dozen storefronts in malls across the country with debt.But in 2013, as Warby Parker had grown to become a darling3darling 寵兒。of online retail, the founders had a funny idea.Maybe they should undisrupt the brick-and-mortar industry by opening a store or two.

[3]Within a year, there were eight Warby Parker brick-and-mortar locations nationwide.They weren’t just turning a profit.They were averaging $3,000 a square foot annually, higher than Tiffany4美國著名珠寶腕表品牌。, Ralph Lauren5高級時裝品牌。, and practically6practically 事實上；幾乎。every company not named Apple.By the end of 2017, the com-pany had about 65 storefronts.

[4]So, is Warby Parker still an“online retailer”? Obviously, no: More than half of its sales now occur in physical stores.But also, yes: As founder Dave Gilboa told PBS7全稱Public Broadcasting Service，美國的一家大型非營利性廣播電視機構。,“about 75 percent of our customers that shop in our stores have been to our website first.”

[5]Online shopping is having an offline moment, as more e-commerce companies, such as RentTheRunway8美國時尚與奢侈品租賃平臺。and Bonobos9美國最大的網絡服裝品牌。, invest in the very sort of physical stores they once made seem obsolete10obsolete 廢棄的；過時的。.Leading the trend is Amazon, the undisputed11undisputed不容置疑的；廣為接受的。king of online shopping, which spent $14 billion to buy Whole Foods and its nearly 500 physical locations.

[6]The retail industry is at a tipping point12tipping point 轉折點。, where several brick-and-mortar companies with large footprints are struggling while e-commerce companies that once launched pop-ups13pop-up=pop-up store快閃店，又稱游擊店（guerrilla store），指在商業發達的地區設置臨時性的鋪位，供零售商在比較短的時間內（若干星期）推銷其品牌，抓住一些季節性的消費者。pop up在英語中有“突然彈出”之意。as mere marketing tools have realized the value of storefronts.Indeed, Amazon sees an uptick14uptick 增長。in online shopping in regions where it’s opened a physical store, according to CNBC15美國全國廣播公司旗下的全球性財經新聞臺。.“Five years

16

catchphrase 標語，流行語。

17

喻指有墻壁的實體店和網上購物的網店。

[7]Here are three implications of this shift.

沃比帕克公司于2010年成立時，宣傳語很簡單：不要在商店里購買昂貴的設計師眼鏡，上網買便宜的。

[2]這既是一句不錯的宣傳語，也是一種財務上的需要：由于創始人們沒有外部資本，在網上建立一個全國性品牌要比在全國各地的購物中心負債開設十幾家門店要便宜得多。在2013年，隨著沃比帕克成為在線零售的寵兒，創始人們有了一個有趣的想法：或許他們應該通過開設一兩家商店來融入實體業。

[3]一年之內，沃比帕克在全國開設了8家實體店。這些實體店不僅贏利了，還產生了每平方英尺3000美元的年均收益，超過了蒂芙尼、拉夫·勞倫以及除蘋果外的幾乎所有公司。截至2017年底，該公司擁有了約65家門店。

[4]那么，沃比帕克還算是一個“在線零售商”嗎？顯然，答案是否定的：它目前超過一半的銷售額來自實體店。同時，答案也是肯定的：創始人戴夫·吉爾博告訴美國公共電視網：“來我們店里購物的顧客中，大約有75%的人訪問過我們的網站。”

[5]RentTheRunway和Bonobos等電子商務公司曾一度讓人覺得實體店過時了。但隨著越來越多的電子商務公司開始進行實體店投資，在線購物正進入線下時代。引領這一潮流的是無可爭議的電商之王亞馬遜，它用140億美元收購了全食超市公司及其近500家實體店。

[6]零售業正處于一個拐點。一些門店遍布全國的實體公司正在苦苦掙扎，而一度僅將開設快閃店作為營銷手段的電子商務公司已經意識到了門店的價值。事實上，根據美國全國廣播公司財經頻道的數據，在亞馬遜開設實體店的地區，網購也有了增長。“五年后，我們不會再討論‘電子零售商’是否從‘實體零售商’那里分得了一杯羹，”花旗研究分析師最近寫道，“因為它們都是一樣的。”這種趨勢甚至還伴隨著一個大勢所趨又令人嘆惋的流行語：“磚塊與點擊”。

[7]這種轉變有以下三種含義。

1.The new youth shopping slogan:“Let’s go to the mall to buy stuff online.”

[8]Last year may have been the peak for the sheer amount of mall space in America, according to Cowen and Company, an investment bank.J.C.Penney,Macy’s, and Sears,18均為美國著名連鎖百貨商店。which often“anchor”malls as the largest leasers, have each announced more than 100 store closures this year.

[9]As US mall landlords lose their legacy anchors19anchor主力店。大型購物中心一般都以兩三家主力店（百貨、餐飲、家居等）為中心來打造自身形象，吸引消費者。, they are plugging20plug〈非正式〉（全力）推廣，宣傳。vacancies with restaurants, fi tness centers,and new storefronts for formerly“online”retailers.According to Sandeep Mathrani, the CEO of the mall operator GGP21全稱General Growth Properties Inc.，美國第二大購物中心運營商。, the ideal modern mall isn’t built around one department store, but rather a supermarket, a Tesla222一家美國電動車及能源公司。store, and busi-nesses that started out online, such as Warby Parker232010年上線的美國眼鏡電商網站，由沃頓商學院四名在讀學生創立。.

[10]Among the nation’s top 300 malls, brick-and-mortar space occupied by retailers that started online has grown by approximately 1,000 percent since 2012, according to the realestate data company CoStar Group.While they currently account for a minuscule24minuscule極小的。part of mall volume, landlords increasingly consider them critical to attracting Millennials to these malls in the first place.

[11]At Century City, an open-air mall in Los Angeles with a new billion-dollar makeover, tenants include Bonobos,the apparel25apparel 服裝。store recently bought by Walmart, Untuckit, which was founded selling casual men’s shirts, Warby Parker, and Amazon Books.Some of these stores, like Bonobos, don’t have inventory that shoppers can buy and take out of the store.Instead, shoppers place orders that are filled at fulfillment center26fulfillment center訂單履行中心即發貨倉庫。賣家直接把商品存放在亞馬遜的訂單履行中心。一旦有顧客下單，就由該中心直接打包、配送這些商品，同時由該中心負責售后服務。and shipped to their doorstep.It may be increasingly common to leave a mall having spent a couple hundred dollars without one bag to take to the car.

1.年輕人新的購物口號：“一起去購物中心網購吧。”

[8]根據投資銀行Cowen and Company的數據，就美國購物中心商鋪面積來說，去年可能已經達峰值。通常將購物中心“錨定”為最大出租方的杰西潘尼、梅西百貨和西爾斯，今年均宣布關閉100多家商店。

[9]由于傳統主力店流失，美國購物中心業主正不遺余力地招攬餐廳、健身中心和曾經的“在線”零售商的新門店入駐。根據購物中心運營商美國通用增長物業公司首席執行官桑迪普·馬斯拉尼的說法，一家理想中的現代購物中心不應該以百貨商店為中心，而應該圍繞大型超市、特斯拉門店或者像沃比帕克這樣發跡于網絡的企業進行打造。

[10]根據房地產數據公司CoStar Group的數據，在全美300強的購物中心里，發跡于網絡的零售商所占的實體店面積自2012年來增長了約1000%。雖然它們目前只占了購物中心的小小一塊，但是業主們越來越覺得它們首先就對吸引千禧一代走進購物中心起到了至關重要的作用。

[11]洛杉磯的世紀城露天購物中心剛剛進行了一次耗資十億美元的改造，其租戶包括沃爾瑪最近收購的服裝店Bonobos、以休閑男士襯衫起家的Untuckit、沃比帕克以及亞馬遜圖書。其中一些商店，比如Bonobos，沒有購物者可以購買并且帶出商店的庫存。相反，購物者只需下單，由履約中心發貨并送貨上門。在購物中心買了幾百美元的東西而不用自己拎著購物袋上車，這樣的場景可能會變得越來越常見。

2.The fall of the cashier, the rise of the box filler.

[12]As more high-end shopping takes place in showrooms27showroom 陳列室，樣品間。where shoppers can place online orders, there will be less need for cashiers.

[13]The cashier job was buoyed28buoy 浮漂；使振奮。by the last evolutionary stage of retail, the rise of the big-box store29big-box store 大賣場。.These superstores, like Walmart, were a boon30boon 恩惠，福利。for low prices and all low pay.Retail productivity doubled between 1987 to 2007, but average real wages for retail workers declined during this time.E-commerce, however, makes shopping even more productive, mostly by replacing the vast majority of consumer“work.”

[14]“Americans spend 1.2 billion hours each week driving to the mall,finding a parking space, wandering around the aisles, checking out, and driving home,”the economist Michael Mandel writes.All of that unpaid activity is being turned into paid work in fulfillment centers.These warehouses, where online orders are filled and shipped, have added more than 400,000 jobs in the last decade.Some of Amazon’s largest fulfillment centers have more than 2,000 permanent employees with up to 1,000 seasonal workers31seasonal worker 季節工，臨時工。.

2.收銀員的衰落，裝箱機的崛起。

[12]隨著越來越多的高端購物發生在支持購物者在線下單的樣品間里，對于收銀員的需求將會越來越小。

[13]零售業的最后一個進化階段——大賣場的興起——振興了收銀員的工作。沃爾瑪等超市促進了低價格、低工資的運營模式。1987年至2007年期間，零售業生產率翻了一番，零售業工人的平均實際工資卻有所下降。然而，電子商務主要通過代勞大部分的消費者“工作”使購物行為變得更具生產力。

[14]經濟學家邁克爾·曼德爾寫道：“美國人每周開車去購物中心、找停車位、掃貨、結賬、開車回家，得花掉12億小時。”所有這些無償活動正變成履約中心的有償工作。過去10年間，這些負責網絡訂單裝箱發貨的倉庫增加了40多萬個就業崗位。亞馬遜的幾個大型履約中心擁有2000多名固定員工和高達1000名季節性員工。

3.Self-driving cars are going to change everything, all over again.

[15]Self-driving cars are a futurist’s paradox32paradox 悖論；自相矛盾。.One potentially exciting(or concerning)vision is that retail companies will see an autonomous vehicle as the ultimate commercial real estate.Why drive to a popup store, they will say, when the pop-up store can drive to you? The proliferation of self-driving cars would be of obvious use to companies like Walmart and Amazon, who need cheap ways to move products to people’s doorsteps.But they may prove to be helpful to both the Goliaths33《圣經》中記載的巨人。他是非利士將軍，力大無窮所向披靡，卻在進攻以色列時被大衛所殺。文中指商業巨頭。and the Davids34《圣經》中記載的古以色列第二代國王。他原是一名普通的牧童，卻用投石彈弓射殺了歌利亞，幫助以色列軍隊戰勝了非利士軍隊。文中指普通企業。of commerce.Retail start-ups of the self-driving age may start with an autonomous truck full of boutique355 boutique （商店）精品的。merchandise that makes scheduled stops in highly trafficked areas but leaves“bookable time”for shoppers to order the merch36merchandise的縮寫。to their front door.■

3.自動駕駛汽車將再次顛覆一切。

[15]零售企業可能會把自動駕駛汽車視為最終的商業不動產。這是未來學家的一個悖論，也是一個令人興奮（或擔憂）的愿景。零售企業會說，明明快閃店可以自己開過來，你干嘛還要開車去快閃店？沃爾瑪和亞馬遜等公司需要低廉的送貨上門方式，自動駕駛汽車的普及對它們顯然有用。但事實可能還會證明，自動駕駛汽車對于“歌利亞”似的商業巨頭和“大衛”般的普通企業均有幫助。自動駕駛時代的零售初創企業可能會始于一輛滿載小商品的自動卡車。它雖然會在交通繁忙的區域按預定行程停靠，但也會給購物者留下“可預定時間”，讓他們能夠網上下單、門口收貨。□

（譯者曾獲第五屆“《英語世界》杯”翻譯大賽優秀獎）