如今互聯網與捆綁銷售的複雜結合

Forty years ago, when Janet Yellen, chairwoman of the US Federal Reserve, was an economist at Harvard University, she was interested in the film Five Easy Pieces. She noted the scene in which a diner waitress refuses to bring Jack Nicholson’s character an omelette with coffee and wheat toast because it serves omelettes with cottage fries and rolls. “I know what it comes with, but it’s not what I want,” he retorts.

40年前，現任美聯儲主席珍妮特•耶倫(Janet Yellen)還是哈佛大學(Harvard University)的一名經濟學家時，她對電影《五隻歌》很感興趣。她注意到電影中的一個場景，餐廳女招待拒絕給傑克•尼克爾森(Jack Nicholson)飾演的角色端上煎蛋卷配咖啡和全麥麪包片，因爲店裏供應的是煎蛋卷配農家煎土豆和麪包卷。尼克爾森反駁：“我知道這個的配菜是什麼，但那不是我想要的。”

The lesson that Ms Yellen and her co-author drew in a study of the economics of bundling was that it repays a restaurant to offer its customers an à la carte option alongside items on the set menu. Most people will be happy to choose from a fixed list, with lower prices, but “the à la carte menu is designed to capture consumer surplus from those gastronomes with extremely high valuations of particular dishes”.

耶倫和她的合著者進行了一項關於捆綁銷售經濟學的研究，結論是，如果一家餐廳在固定菜單以外提供顧客單點的選擇，餐廳能得到相應的回報。絕大多數人樂意通過比較便宜的固定菜單點菜，但“單點菜單是爲了捕捉那些對某些菜品有極高評價的美食家消費者”。

For Nicholson’s restless young oil-rig worker in Five Easy Pieces, read a generation of rebellious millennials who have been angry at being forced to buy a cable subscription to watch Game of Thrones and True Detective on the HBO network. All they want are those shows, they protest, not the entire package.

尼克爾森在《五支歌》中飾演的不安分的年輕油田鑽井工，折射出富有反叛精神的千禧年一代(millennial)。爲了收看美國家庭電影頻道(HBO)的節目《權力的遊戲》(Game of Thrones)和《真探》(True Detective)，他們被迫訂閱有線電視服務，爲此他們感到憤怒。他們抗議稱，他們只想看這些節目，而不是打包的全部頻道。

HBO gave in last week, announcing that it will offer a separate service for broadband users who have “cut the cord” to cable television or did not subscribe in the first place. It told investors it will go direct to the 10m Americans who use a cable or digital line for broadband rather than paying $100 a month for a multichannel subscription including HBO or Showtime.

HBO近期做出了讓步，宣佈將爲停止訂閱或從未訂閱有線電視的寬帶用戶提供單獨服務。HBO告訴投資者，服務將直接面向這1000萬美國人，他們使用有線方式上網，而不是每月支付100美元訂閱包括HBO和娛樂時間(Showtime)在內的多個有線電視頻道。

HBO’s move, in response to the rise of Netflix, an “over the top” service that does not require a cable subscription, is a big moment in broadcast history. It was followed by CBS, the broadcast network, unveiling a $5.99 a month online service, and promises to reset how US customers watch and pay for their television programmes.

HBO的舉措是爲應對Netflix（一項無需訂閱有線電視就能向客戶提供節目的OTT(over the top)視頻服務）的崛起而做出的，這是廣播電視史上的重大時刻。哥倫比亞廣播公司(CBS)之後也效仿了HBO的做法，推出了5.99美元每月的在線服務，並承諾將改革美國用戶收看電視和付費的方式。

Some analysts go further, suggesting that this will undermine bundling itself, and with it the economics of television. If people decide to buy popular programmes and channels à la carte rather than taking the 500-channel set menu, $70bn of revenue could vanish in the US. “Unbundling dwarfs any other risk to the television ecosystem,” Laura Martin, an analyst at Needham, an investment bank, wrote last year.

一些分析師更進一步，指出這將削弱捆綁銷售模式本身乃至電視製播的經濟性。如果人們決定按照單點的方式購買受歡迎的節目和頻道，而不是按照固定菜單訂閱500個頻道，700億美元的營收可能在美國就此蒸發。“和去捆綁化相比，電視生態體系面臨的其它任何風險都相形見絀，”投行Needham的分析師勞拉•馬丁(Laura Martin)去年寫道。

If, that is. There is clearly a move to what Ms Yellen called “mixed bundling” – the combination of set menu and à la carte. But the bundle is not dead simply because it is possible for the internet to fragment distribution entirely, with customers making micropayments for every ingredient of every dish.

不過，那只是如果而已。業界顯然出現了耶倫所說的“混合捆綁”的動向——將固定菜單和單點菜單結合起來。但僅僅因爲互聯網可以使電視節目的銷售完全碎片化，讓顧客爲每一道菜的每一種食材支付少量費用，並不會導致捆綁銷售的消亡。

In practice, most people prefer a simple life and some choices to be made for them, as long as they feel that they are getting a bargain. Indeed, consumers and businesses are increasingly paying subscriptions for digital packages of software and content, rather than buying them piecemeal.

實際上，對大多數人來說，只要他們認爲自己享受了優惠，他們更喜歡簡單的方式，讓他人替自己做出一些選擇。的確，越來越多的用戶和企業選擇訂購軟件和內容的數字服務包，而不是零散購買。

This is evident in music. Digital piracy and services such as Apple’s iTunes initially fragmented consumption, leading consumers to stop buying albums and to choose individual tracks instead. A growing number, however, now subscribe to all-you-can-hear subscription services such as Spotify.

這一點在音樂方面表現得很明顯。電子盜版以及如蘋果(Apple) iTunes這樣的服務最早使消費碎片化，致使消費者停止購買專輯，改爲購買單曲。然而，現在有越來越多的用戶付費訂購如Spotify這樣的“無限量收聽”服務。

It is occurring in software, with cloud-based subscription packages replacing shrink-wrapped discs. The rise of software-as-a-service companies such as has challenged software providers such as Oracle.

軟件方面也是如此，基於雲服務的訂購服務包替代了塑封光盤。類似這樣提供“軟件即服務”的企業正在崛起，挑戰像甲骨文(Oracle)這樣的軟件供應商。

IBM ’s poor financial results this week come as it struggles to compete with providers such as Amazon, which are offering cloud-based technology.

IBM近期公佈的財務業績不佳，無獨有偶的是，該公司正面臨亞馬遜(Amazon)等雲服務提供商的激烈競爭。

It is also happening in television. In parallel with the push toward wider access to premium shows, cable and satellite companies are drawing customers into combined “triple play” subscriptions that fuse together telephone, broadband and television. Of British Sky Broadcasting’s customers, 37 per cent are now on triple play, compared with 23 per cent four years ago.

電視業也在發生同樣的事情。在努力擴大精品電視節目的覆蓋人羣的同時，有線電視公司和衛星電視公司正在引導用戶訂購將電話、寬帶和電視融爲一體的“三合一”服務。英國天空廣播公司(British Sky Broadcasting)目前有37%的用戶使用三合一服務，而4年前使用該服務的用戶佔23%。

The fact that bundling refuses to die is not surprising. As Ms Yellen and other economists have pointed out, it is an attractive pricing strategy for businesses because it is an effective way of appealing to groups of consumers with similar appetites, without the hassle of setting hundreds of prices.

捆綁銷售拒絕退出歷史舞臺，這個事實並不令人驚訝。正如耶倫和其他經濟學家指出的，對企業來說，這是一種富有吸引力的定價策略，因爲捆綁銷售能有效地吸引口味相似的消費者羣體，企業又不必費心設定數百種價格。

Consumers like bundles for several reasons. One is that they are a form of insurance – paying a flat fee and being able to watch as much as you like is akin to insuring against an unpleasant shock when the bill arrives. Another is that it takes too much mental effort to keep on calculating whether any individual programme or channel is worth the à la carte price by itself.

消費者喜歡捆綁銷售的原因有幾個。一個原因是捆綁銷售是一種保險——支付一筆固定費用後，你可以想看多少節目就看多少節目，與投保以避免賬單到來時感到震驚和不愉快的行爲非常類似。另外一個原因是，要不停地計算花費單點的價格訂閱某個節目或者頻道是否值得太費精力。

Although digital technology seems to foster fragmentation, it makes bundling simpler and more attractive. There is logic to the fact that most physical goods are priced individually while digital ones are often grouped. In the online world, it is easier to discover the right price – one that attracts most consumers – for combinations.

儘管數字技術似乎促進了碎片化，但它也使捆綁銷售顯得更簡單，更有吸引力。絕大多數實體商品採用單獨定價，而數字產品往往採用捆綁定價，這個事實符合邏輯。在網絡世界，發現套餐的合理價格更容易——也就是吸引最多消費者的價格。

The marginal cost of online distribution is near-zero: once a customer has a broadband link, it costs nothing to offer another item. This helps networks to discriminate flexibly – HBO thinks it can appeal to disenchanted cord-cutters without losing committed cable subscribers. Rather than abolishing bundling, the internet enables it to be practised with greater efficiency.

在線銷售的邊際成本幾乎爲零：一旦客戶有寬帶連接，要銷售另外一件商品或者服務幾乎不用花費任何成本。這幫助電視公司採取靈活的區分策略——HBO認爲，它既可以吸引失去興趣的“掐線族”，又不會失去忠實的有線電視訂戶。互聯網沒有廢除捆綁銷售，而是提高了捆綁銷售的效率。

That is what we are witnessing. The choice of everything or nothing is giving way not to anarchy but to a wider menu of set meals and à la carte. The bundle is dead; long live the bundle.

這就是我們見證的潮流。“要麼全買，要麼別用”的選擇並沒有變得混亂無序，而是讓位於一份囊括固定套餐和單點菜品的更大菜單。舊的捆綁銷售已經過時；爲新的捆綁銷售歡呼萬歲吧！