恐惧和贪婪：中国O2O热潮的动力

所属教程:金融时报原文阅读

浏览:

2020年07月18日

手机版

扫描二维码方便学习和分享

恐惧和贪婪：中国O2O热潮的动力

O2O即Online To Offline（在线离线/线上到线下），是指将线下的商务机会与互联网结合，让互联网成为线下交易的前台。在移动互联网基本已经成为生活构成要素的今天，抢占时下最热的O2O市场无疑就成了一块可以立于不败之地的战略抉择，百度等一些公司的大规模投入都是为了抢占这块未来的战略高地。

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

enthuse 充满热情地说

commodity 商品

wariness 小心

jargon 术语

hype 夸张的广告宣传

clout 影响力

阅读即将开始，建议您计算一下阅读整篇文章所用时间，并对照我们在文章最后给出的参考值来估算您的阅读速度。

Fear and greed drive China’s online to offline commerce craze（764words）

By Richard Waters

* * *

Sometimes, simply invoking the latest hot consumer internet trend is not enough. Chinese search engine Baidu learned that late last month, as its deepening investment in so-called “online to offline” commerce, or O2O, left a chill on its stock price.

In China, O2O has been all the rage. But the term has been slapped on such a broad range of businesses that it has become meaningless. Chinese consumers, for instance, think the most useful aspect of O2O is going to a physical store to pick up and return things bought online, according to consultancy firm McKinsey. Others use the term to describe online ordering of local services from independent suppliers. Elsewhere in the world this is known as the on-demand economy.

Low labour costs in China have made this model particularly attractive, according to its supporters. Local media enthuse breathlessly about manicurists who can make a multiple of the median wage and tour guides who are suddenly a hot commodity.

Investor wariness is therefore understandable. Some of the old categories of the consumer internet are breaking down, and it is not entirely clear what lasting new business models will emerge — let alone who will come out on top.

O2O, internet-plus, on-demand, full-stack start-ups — all of the half-formed jargon being applied to these new approaches is one indication of the definitional vagueness. It also leaves room for plenty of hype.

Of the many different O2O services being promoted, the most effective seem to link an online user interface to a service or product that has not been deeply touched by the internet. Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz calls these “full-stack start-ups”, because they offer a more integrated style of commerce.

Companies claiming part of this new market come in many shapes, but they share two broad aims.

One is to vacuum up online orders in volume, giving them extra clout in negotiations with real-world retailers or service providers.Dominant digital platforms that are able to aggregate large numbers of users — a trend accelerated by the shift to mobile apps — have been the main forces behind this.

In China, all but one of the 15 most actively used mobile apps is owned by or associated with one of the three leading internet companies: Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent. That is according to Weibo, the Twitter-like service that is itself affiliated with Alibaba.

Some specialist apps have had enough of a headstart that they have been able to establish themselves as platforms in their own right. Uber and Airbnb are prime examples. But many others are likely to be drawn into the orbits of the big internet companies, which have the ecommerce capabilities to support their operations.

This points to the second common aim of companies in the O2O space: they want to deliver an end-to-end service, from collecting an order to arranging for a service and handling the payment. Having a digital wallet offering is both a key part of “closing the loop” and, potentially, a highly profitable opportunity in its own right.

One question hanging over the heads of these companies is whether they can keep the high-margin online profits to themselves while shuffling off the more prosaic “offline” aspects of the job to others. In the US, this is under threat due to legal questions about whether the independent contractors that on-demand companies use to keep their costs low should be reclassified as employees.

However, another even bigger issue is how defensible these new businesses will be in the long run. For now, money is being poured into subsidising a land grab, as companies race to offer services at below cost to sign up users. In a bull market — where user numbers rather than profits are the key — the sums being committed are huge.

Once the dust settles, the companies that have signed up the most customers will be in control. Barriers to entry and switching costs for users will allow them to raise prices. But this is still only a theory. Those business that will not make it into the ranks of major platform players will face an even more uncertain future.

That explains the recent nervousness of Baidu’s investors, but the company has few options. Growth in PC-based online markets is slowing and established ways of making money — like the lead-based advertising on Baidu’s search engine — are under threat from the rise of the smartphone.

请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：

This is one internet craze that is being driven as much by fear as greed.

1. Which of the following factors in China have made the O2O model particularly attractive?

a. Grand online market

b. A great number of customers

c. Low labour costs

d. Support from the government

2. Which of the following names is not mentioned as one of the O2O’s alternative name?

a. Internet-plus

b. On-demand

c. Full-stack start-ups

d. Internet-to-offline