eBay当日达送货服务将覆盖全美

    eBay首席执行官约翰•多纳霍称，当日达送货服务是大势所趋。

虽然eBay目前还只在美国三个城市开通了当日达服务eBay Now（另有两个城市将在今夏开通该服务），但多纳霍预期，未来从波特兰市到皮奥瑞亚市，客户在1个小时内就能收到来自美国各地的塔吉特（Target）、家得宝（Home Depot）以及城市旅行者（Urban Outfitters）等合作伙伴的数千款商品。多纳霍告诉《财富》杂志（Fortune）：“我们的着眼点在于消费者和零售商的利益，两者具体如何结合是完全开放的。”

    它意味着ebay要积极探索如何和第三方物流公司合作，以更好地利用后者的“过剩产能”。有些公司已经做出了类似的尝试，例如租房软件Airbnb 能列出空闲房屋和房间；而打车软件Uber则能很好的利用豪华轿车和出租车司机的空闲时间。与此类似，eBay Now能利用UPS等快递公司的过剩产能。确实，eBay已与两家知名的物流公司就合作进行了初步磋商，它们将有效地扩展eBay Now的服务范围。

    多纳霍说：“不少报社的人跑到我这里跟我商量，我们有的是卡车。我们每天都运送报纸，不过上午8点之后这些卡车就都没事干了。所以我们有司机，我们有空卡车。我们能加入你们吗？”多纳霍随后信心满满地指出，美国每座城市都不缺送报纸的卡车。

    多纳霍发表上述言论前不久，也就是上周，谷歌（Google）宣布推出“Shopping Express”当日送达服务。这项服务将首先在旧金山湾地区试点。参与早期测试的用户将享受为期6个月的不限量当日达服务，商家数目将不少于九家，其中包括玩具反斗城（Toys R Us）、北美秃鹰（American Eagle）、史泰博（Staples）和蓝瓶子咖啡（Blue Bottle Coffee）等知名品牌。

    当日达快递服务的竞争似乎在迅速升温。早些时候，路透社（Reuters）报道称，沃尔玛（Wal-Mart）正在慎重考虑一项非正统的众包快递服务，让自己的顾客为网络买家送货。当然，关于亚马逊（Amazon）要大范围提供当日达服务（比其广受欢迎的三日达服务更高级）的消息一直不绝于耳，现在看来，这只是迟早的事。日本电商巨头乐天（Rakuten）首席执行官三木谷浩近日向《财富》表示，当日达服务未来有望成为电子商务的标准服务。

    eBay于去年八月推出了eBay Now移动应用程序，目前旧金山、纽约以及圣何塞已经开通了这项服务，另外芝加哥和达拉斯将于今夏开通该服务。这是eBay对亚马逊又一次警示，而许多零售商担心后者可能会抢走自己的生意。多纳霍最近声称，零售商纷纷涌向eBay，寻求技术合作以保持竞争力。“eBay Now当日达这样的服务是通过组织已经存在的资产，而不是复制这些资产，这与我们北方的朋友做事的方法恰恰相反。”eBay市场部总裁德文•维尼格去年底向《财富》表示，同时点出了eBay同总部位于西雅图的竞争对手——亚马逊在处事原则上的差异。

    多纳霍赞同维尼格的观点。多纳霍说：“如果所有商家都可以效仿沃尔玛现在的做法，那他们就可以送货上门，但他们效仿不来。”而eBay似乎愿意试着帮这些商家达成这个愿望。（财富中文网）

    译者：项航

    Same-day shipping is inevitable, according to eBay CEO John Donahoe.

     While eBay's (EBAY) same-day shipping program, eBay Now, may be available in just three U.S. cities -- with another two coming this summer -- Donahoe foresees a day when customers can get thousands of items from partners like Target (TGT), Home Depot (HD), and Urban Outfitters everywhere within an hour, from Portland to Peoria. "We're looking at the consumer benefits and the retailer benefits," Donahoe tells Fortune. "How it gets connected is wide open."

    That means exploring other third-party shipping and transportation systems to exploit excess capacity. Just as say, Airbnb lists available homes and rooms and Uber leverages the downtime of black car and taxi drivers, eBay Now could utilize the excess capacity of shipping services like UPS (UPS). Indeed, the company has already had early talks with two well-known shipping and transportation companies about potential partnerships that would expand eBay Now's coverage.

    "I've had newspaper companies come to me and say, we have all these trucks. We deliver these newspapers, and these trucks don't get used after 8 a.m. in the morning. So we have drivers, and we have empty trucks. Can we help deliver?" says Donahoe, who readily points out there are newspaper trucks in every city in America.

    Donahoe's statements come on the heels of Google's (GOOG) announcement this week that it too is entering same-day shipping with "Shopping Express," a service kicking off in the San Francisco Bay Area first. Early testers of the service will receive unlimited, same-day delivery for six months of items ordered from at least nine merchants, including Toys R Us, American Eagle, Staples (SPLS), and Blue Bottle Coffee.

    Same-day shipping competition appears to be heating up quickly. Earlier this week, Reuters reported Wal-Mart (WMT) is mulling over an unorthodox crowdsourcing plan to have its own customers deliver items to online buyers. And of course, rumors of Amazon (AMZN) doing widespread same-day shipping -- atop its popular two-day delivery option -- continue to circulate, seeming more like an inevitability by the day. Hiroshi Mikitani, CEO of Japanese giant Rakuten, recently told Fortune that same-day delivery is likely to be a standard feature of e-commerce in the future.

    EBay launched its eBay Now mobile app last August and is currently available in San Francisco, New York, and San Jose, with service to Chicago and Dallas coming this summer. It's yet another salvo across Amazon's bow, which some retailers are concerned could usurp their business. Donahoe recently claimed that retailers flock to eBay seeking a technology partner to keep up. "Things like eBay Now with same day, they're organizing assets that are already in the world, rather than replicating those assets. That's 180 degrees opposite from the way our friends up north are approaching things," eBay Marketplaces President Devin Wenig told Fortune late last year, outlining the difference in philosophy between eBay and its Seattle-based competitor.

    Donahoe echoes Wenig. "If everyone could do what Wal-Mart is doing, they could do home delivery, but others can't do that." EBay, it seems, is willing to try it for them.