订购一切

    男士内衣、在线文件共享以及加州沿海地区内往返航班之间有什么共同之处吗？由于现在越来越多的公司正在接受一种以订付为基础的销售模式（几乎包括任何商品），上述三类热门商品现在都以每月固定付费的方式进行销售。

    总部位于加州雷德伍德城的祖睿（Zuora）公司为各种订付式服务提供计费和支付软件。公司首席执行官左轩霆表示，目前消费者及企业两方面都正在发生这种转变。这家公司的客户包括云管理提供商RightScale、文件共享网站Box、车内互联网系统制造商Autonet Mobile。上周三，在旧金山举行的午餐会上，Zuora的几家客户汇聚在一起，讨论“订付式经济”面临的各种机遇和挑战。

    总部位于加州圣巴巴拉的RightScale公司CEO迈克尔•克兰德尔说：“我们必须每月向客户提供价值，否则客户会取消订付服务。”这家公司利用Zuora向用户收取服务订用月费，它提供的服务是让客户管理部署在各种私人云和公共云上的应用。”

    事实上，云已帮助开创了以订付为基础的销售趋势，因为它让软件能够作为一项服务在互联网上向客户提供，而不是通过标价高昂、但很少提供经常性收入机会的企业内部软件安装来提供。按照软件即服务的销售模式，企业通常按用户按月支付费用。基于云的软件厂商通常每月、甚至每周都会推出新的功能。这种趋势已经改变了软件开发、交付和定价的方式。

    但许多初创公司（以及规模较大的公司）也在尝试利用订付模式来销售其他各种商品。有例为证：从前，男性要开车去商店购买内衣。现在，一家叫做Manpacks的初创公司提供一种订付服务，每年数次向订户寄送一整盒新内衣和袜子。另外的例子还有Surf Air，这家初创公司提供一种全新的航空服务，让旅客每月支付1,650美元，就可以在加州内随意乘坐飞机。还有Dollar Shave Club，这家初创公司以每月低至1美元的收费向客户寄送剃须刀。目前，这家公司已经筹集到了1,000多万美元的风险投资。

    就连各大汽车公司也在尝试通过向客户收取月费的方式提供类似互联网接入及许多车内应用的服务。美国联合航空公司（United Airlines）很快将销售如下订付式服务：通过向乘客收取年费，不限航班次数的向乘客提供座位升级及免费搭运额外行李的服务。音乐和娱乐领域，网飞（Netflix）这类公司已经表明，人们不再在乎自己是否真正拥有内容，他们转而愿意通过支付月费来随时随地获取电影和电视节目。而在潘多拉（Pandora）和Spotify等流媒体音乐服务公司腾飞之后，重量级公司谷歌（Google）和苹果（Apple）也决定推出自己的以订付为基础的流媒体音乐服务。

    当然，这种会员制模式并不是对每种产品都奏效，而且一个固定、可预见的费用对于每一位消费者而言肯定并不都是合乎情理的（算算就能明白）。但是，订付式经济的扩展对于祖睿公司而言关系重大。采用订付式销售模式的公司越多，他们就越需要像Zuora那样的服务。但当然，祖睿公司同样也是以月订费的方式向用户收取费用的。（财富中文网）

    译者：iDo98

    What do men's underwear, online file sharing, and flights up and down the California coast have in common? All three of those hot commodities are now being sold for a monthly flat rate, thanks to a growing number of companies that are embracing a subscription-based model of selling, well, just about anything.

    This shift is happening both in the consumer and enterprise worlds, says Tien Tzuo, CEO of Redwood City, Calif.-based Zuora, whose billing and payment software powers all sorts of subscription-based services. The company's customers include cloud management provider RightScale, file sharing site Box, and Autonet Mobile, maker of in-car Internet systems. At a lunch in San Francisco on Wednesday, a handful of these clients gathered to discuss the opportunities -- and challenges -- of the so-called "subscription economy."

    "You have to deliver value every month, or customers can cancel," said Michael Crandell, CEO of Santa Barbara-based RightScale. The company uses Zuora to charge a monthly fee for its service -- software that lets customers manage applications across private and public "clouds."

    Indeed, the cloud has helped usher in the subscription-based trend because it enables software to be delivered as a service over the web -- not via on-premise installations that carry a hefty sticker price but offer little opportunity for recurring revenue. With software-as-a-service, companies typically pay a per-user, per-month fee. Cloud-based software vendors typically push out new features on a monthly, if not weekly, basis. The trend has changed the way software is built, delivered, and priced.

    But startups (and larger companies) are also experimenting with using the subscription model to sell all sorts of other goods. Case in point: Once upon a time, men used to drive to the store to buy underwear. Now, a startup called Manpacks offers a subscription service that ships a box full of new underwear and socks to them several times a year. There's also Surf Air, a new aviation service that lets travelers fly as much as they want (in California) for $1,650 a month, and Dollar Shave Club, a startup that ships razors for as little as $1 each month and has raised over $10 million in venture capital funding.

    Even auto companies are toying with charging customers monthly fees for services like Internet access and a slew of in-car applications. And United Airlines (UAL) will soon sell subscriptions that charge passengers an annual fee for extra leg room and baggage on an unlimited number of flights. On the music and entertainment side, companies like Netflix (NFLX) have shown that people don't care about owning their content anymore -- instead, they are willing to pay a monthly fee to access movies and TV shows when and where they want. And after companies like Pandora (P) and Spotify took off, heavyweights Google (GOOG) and Apple (AAPL) decided to launch their own subscription-based streaming music services.

    Of course, the membership-based model doesn't work for every product, and a flat, predictable fee certainly doesn't add up for every consumer (just do the math). But Zuora has a lot riding on the expansion of the subscription economy. The more companies adopt the subscription-based model of selling, the more they'll need services like Zuora -- which also charges its users a monthly subscription, but of course.