阿里巴巴在B2B電子商務領域的優勢

In 2000, analysts predicted a massive chunk of the world’s business-to-business commerce market would come online, resulting in trillions of dollars in B2B e-commerce. Gartner, the market research firm, predicted $7.3 trillion by 2004. Goldman Sachs predicted $4.5 trillion by 2005.

早在2000年，分析師們就大膽預測全球企業對企業（B2B）商務市場將大規模上線，從而帶來數萬億美元價值的B2B電子商務交易。市場研究公司Gartner曾預測，到2004年，全球B2B電子商務交易會達到7.3萬億美元。高盛也曾預測到2005年會達到4.5萬億美元。

That promise has remained largely unfulfilled.

但是這些預測在很大程度上仍未實現。

B2B e-commerce startup Chemdex flamed out spectacularly in the fallout of the dot-com bubble, and was blamed for taking the entire sector down with it. In 2013, B2B ecommerce hit $559 billion,according to Oracle estimates, a far cry from the trillions once predicted.

B2B電子商務初創公司Chemdex在上世紀90年代的互聯網泡沫破滅之後破產，人們指責其是導致當時整個行業崩盤的罪魁禍首。據甲骨文公司預估，2013年B2B電子商務市場交易額達到5590億美元，遠不及以前的預測。

Incredibly, many businesses today still buy and sell supplies and materials with paper invoices, faxes, and checks. It’s a huge opportunity on which the two largest e-commerce companies in the U.S., eBay and Amazon, have not focused. Both companies run marketplaces, but they specialize in consumer-facing goods, not wholesale items and business supplies. Amazon has been running AmazonSupply, a wholesale site, in beta for two years, as CEO Jeff Bezos promotes increasingly flashier schemes around drone delivery, TV shows, mobile phones, and publishing.

令人難以置信的是，如今許多企業仍在使用紙質發票、傳真和支票來買賣用品和材料。但美國兩家最大的電子商務公司eBay和亞馬遜（Amazon）都沒有專注於這個巨大的機遇。這兩家公司都運營電子交易市場，但它們專注於面向消費者的產品，而不是批發產品和商務用品。亞馬遜運營的批發網站AmazonSupply的測試已進行兩年。該公司首席執行官傑夫o貝佐斯不斷推出各種吸引眼球的商業計劃，領域涵蓋無人機送貨、電視節目、手機和出版等。

In recent years, a number of U.S. startups have sprung up to fill the gap. Joor andNuOrder do it for the fashion shake and Tradeshift do it for a variety of businesses.

近年來，B2B電子商務領域的美國初創公司如雨後春筍般出現，填補了這一空白。 Joor 和NuOrder主要針對時尚行業。Handshake和Tradeshift則爲各種企業提供服務。

But there is one true giant in the category: Alibaba, the Chinese retail darling that last week revealed plans for a $21.12 billion initial public offering, which has dominated in B2B e-commerce. I was reminded of this over the weekend while listening to Planet Money’s entertaining explainer of the Alibaba wholesale market. Through and , the company provides to people everywhere access to the Chinese supply chain. This means tinkerers, builders, entrepreneurs, and small businesses can order custom motors and parts from Chinese factories without having to travel there, find a scout, and forge a relationship with a manufacturer before doing business. It opens up the world of international suppliers to people who wouldn’t normally have access to it. They can buy in bulk through Alibaba, which acts as a trusted third party, vouching for the transaction.

但是該領域有一個真正巨頭——中國零售寵兒阿里巴巴集團（Alibaba），它是B2B電子商務領域的一支主導力量。上週阿里巴巴透露，其計劃通過首次公開發行募集211.2億美元。週末，我在聽金錢星球（Planet Money）節目[譯者注：該節目由美國全國公共廣播電臺（NPR）製作]中有關阿里巴巴在線批發市場的有趣講解，其中便提到了阿里巴巴的主導地位。該公司通過和向全球用戶提供進入中國供應鏈的渠道。這意味着修理工、建築商、企業家和小企業都可以從中國的工廠訂購定製的發動機和零件，而不必親自來到中國尋找聯繫人與製造商建立關係，然後開展業務。很多人通常沒有條件接觸國際範圍內的供應商，而阿里巴巴爲他們打開了一扇門。他們可以通過阿里巴巴進行批量購買所需產品，阿里巴巴則作爲受信任的第三方對交易的順利完成提供保障。

Alibaba has an advantage here, because of its proximity to so many of the world’s manufacturing assets. The reason Amazon hasn’t focused on it? Because it doesn’t have access to those sellers. “Much of it is representative of the differences in their markets, and where Chinese products have typically fallen in the supply chain,” says Mark Mahaney, an e-commerce analyst with RBC Capital Markets. Amazon AMZN -1.17% and eBay EBAY 0.61% simply have access to different wholesale and B2B products than Alibaba does.

阿里巴巴的一個優勢在於其在地理上靠近衆多的製造業企業。亞馬遜爲什麼沒有專注於此？因爲它沒有渠道接觸這些賣家。加拿大皇家銀行資本市場（RBC Capital Markets）的電子商務分析師馬克o馬哈尼表示：“這主要說明了這兩大巨頭各自市場的差異，中國產品通常處於供應鏈中。”只是亞馬遜和eBay平臺的批發產品和B2B產品與阿里巴巴的不同而已。

The majority of Alibaba’s revenue comes from its consumer-facing sites, such as AliExpress, Tmall, Taobao, and Juhusu. Wholesale represented 11.8% of Alibaba’s overall revenue in fiscal 2014, and most of that is from buyers outside of China. It is a small piece of Alibaba’s portfolio, relatively speaking, but that’s only because the company is such a behemoth. Alibaba’s wholesale revenue in fiscal 2014 was $1 billion, versus $8 billion from its retail operations. The company processed a total of $296 billion worth of sales on its platform in its last full fiscal year.

阿里巴巴的大部分收入來自於其面向消費者的電商網站，如全球速賣通、天貓商城、淘寶和聚划算。批發業務佔阿里巴巴2014財年總收入的11.8％，其中大部分買家來自於中國以外地區。相對而言，這只是阿里巴巴業務組合的很小一部分，不過這主要是因爲阿里巴巴規模龐大。阿里巴巴2014財年批發業務營收爲10億美元，而來自於零售業務的營收爲80億美元。在上一個財年中，該公司在其電商平臺上處理的交易價值總額達到2960億美元。