这家公司有望成为阿里巴巴进军美国的桥头堡：ShopRunner

    今年9月，当阿里巴巴（Alibaba）在声势浩大的首次公开募股中筹得250亿美元时，美国的电子商务公司都很想知道，这家中国电商巨头准备何时拿这笔钱与它们展开竞争。

    没有人真正知道答案。阿里巴巴目前更注重在美国投资，而不是在美国运营。毕竟，中国市场本身就十分巨大。在上周中国的“双十一”购物狂欢日当天，阿里巴巴的销售额高达93亿美元。

    不过仔细观察，我们还是能够找到一些探究阿里巴巴战略的方法。比如，阿里巴巴的招股说明书中唯一提到的美国投资，是收购了ShopRunner 公司39%的股权。该公司的服务与亚马逊金牌会员服务（AmazonPrime）非常类似，其创始人曾经创建过亚马逊的竞争对手GSI Commerce公司，后者如今已被易趣(eBay)收购。去年，阿里巴巴在ShopRunner上投资了约2亿美元。该公司还投资了私家车搭乘服务应用Lyft和游戏制造商Kabam，不过招股说明书只提到了ShopRunner。

    为了进一步了解ShopRunner，我最近参观了它在加利福尼亚州圣马特奥的办公室，并对该公司首席执行官斯科特•汤普森进行了采访。你也许记得他曾经担任过雅虎（Yahoo）首席执行官，后来因为履历有水分而被迫在2012年离职。加入雅虎之前，他曾担任易趣支付平台贝宝公司（PayPal）总裁。

    事实证明，ShopRunner拥有一个有趣的小众市场。亚马逊金牌服务的顾客能够以每年99美元的价格，让买到的任何东西（后来还包括流媒体视频）送货上门。而ShopRunner顾客可选择的品牌经过了进一步筛选，也更系统一些。他们可以花79美元获得免费的两日内送货上门服务。此举不仅是为了吸引顾客，还试图吸引那些不愿意和亚马逊其他商品捆绑在一起的商家。

    科技高管汤普森正学着像一个店主那样说话。“零售商会问：‘我在购物中心里会与谁为邻？’在零售业中，大量品牌毗邻而居。亚马逊的库存量很大，所以如果你非常在意自己的品牌，你就会发现自己被太多东西包围了。我们的看法是：如果你要买必需品，那就去找亚马逊金牌服务；如果你要真正喜欢的，对你有特殊感情的东西，那就来找我们。”

    When Alibaba raised $25 billion in its blockbuster I.P.O. in September, U.S.-based e-commerce companies were curious to know when the Chinese giant planned to begin spending that money to compete against them.

    The answer is that no one really knows: Alibaba has been focused more on investing in the U.S. than in operating there. The China market, after all, is huge. Witness the $7-billion “Singles Day” shopping orgy the country celebrated on Tuesday.

    Look more closely, though, and there are ways to discern Alibaba’s strategy. For instance, the only U.S. investment it discussed in its I.P.O. filing was the 39% stake it took in ShopRunner, an Amazon Prime-like service founded by the same team that started an Amazon competitor called GSI Commerce, now part of eBay . Alibaba invested about $200 million in ShopRunner last year. It also has invested in taxi-killer Lyft and game maker Kabam, but only ShopRunner earned the prospectus mention.

    To learn more about ShopRunner I recently visited its offices in San Mateo, Calif. and the company’s CEO, Scott Thompson. You might remember him as the one-time CEO of Yahoo who left after reports that his resume wasn’t altogether accurate. He left Yahoo in 2012 and before that had been a top PayPal executive at eBay.

    ShopRunner, it turns out, has an interesting niche. Whereas Amazon Prime customers can get anything under the sun—and then some, including streaming videos—delivered to them for $99 a year, ShopRunner customers get a more select, slightly more curated collection of brands. They pay $79 for free, two-day delivery. It’s a deal designed to attract consumers but also merchants, who see the value of not being glopped together with everyone else over at Amazon.

    Thompson, the technology executive, is learning to talk like a merchant. “Retailers ask, ‘Who is my neighbor in the mall?’ There’s a lot of brand adjacency in retailing. Amazon has a lot of SKUs. So if you’re someone who is very thoughtful about your brand, you’re in the middle of a lot of stuff. Our attitude is, if it’s something you need, go with Amazon Prime. If it’s something you want and have an emotional connection to, that’s us.”