老外看中国：淘宝为何让人沉迷

    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。

    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.