沃尔玛电商业务能超越亚马逊吗

    既然亚马逊销售额（以美元计）增长速度是沃尔玛电商的五倍，问题就在于它是否有足够的内在优势继续大幅领先沃尔玛。答案是毫无疑问的。显而易见的理由有：卓越的电商品牌，大量的回头客，更精通数据应用，等等。尽管这些因素都很难复制，但更重要的问题是，沃尔玛的销售网络是否能胜过亚马逊的呢？

    目前亚马逊有125个在用库房为全球终端用户服务，而沃尔玛却只有不多的几个。这似乎有点让人吃惊，因为沃尔玛毕竟是全球最大的零售商。但要知道，为实体店补充存货所用的分销中心，和直接运往终端用户所用的库房是完全不同的两种东西。最近沃尔玛宣布，该公司计划在印第安纳州修建120万平方英尺，专供电子商务使用的库房。沃尔玛目前将其现有的4200家零售店作为向终端用户发货的枢纽。约有20%的在线订单是从这些店发货的。相对亚马逊的库房而言，这种战略的效率可能要低得多，而且成本可能要高得多。

    本文我选了亚马逊与沃尔玛进行对比，沃尔玛毕竟是最有实力和电商竞争的零售商。其他零售商当然更难抵御电商的攻势。（财富中文网）

    迈克•科瓦提勒茨是投资公司Azure Capital Partners的创始普通合伙人，专注于软件和相关的基础设施技术领域。他本人及其公司都并未投资亚马逊或沃尔玛。本文摘自其博客SoundbytesII。

    译者：清远

    Given the fact that Amazon is adding sales (in dollars) at 5 times the rate of Wal-Mart online, the question is whether it has enough inherent advantages to continue to significantly outpace Wal-Mart. The answer is yes. The obvious reasons include: a superior online brand, a multiple of customers that are regulars, more knowledge of how to use data, etc .. While these are not easy to replicate, if at all, an even more important issue is whether Wal-Mart’s distribution network could rival Amazon’s?

    Amazon currently has 125 active warehouses that serve end-customers around the world while Wal-Mart only has a handful. This may seem surprising for the world’s largest retailer but keep in mind that a distribution center for resupplying stores with inventory is a completely different animal than a warehouse for shipping directly to end customers. Recently, Wal-Mart has announced plans to build a 1.2 million square-foot warehouse in Indiana dedicated to e-commerce. Wal-Mart currently uses its 4,200 existing retail stores as a nexus for shipping to end customers. Approximately 20% of online orders are now shipped from a store. This strategy is likely much less efficient and could prove quite costly relative to Amazon warehouse that have been optimized solely for online orders.

    I’ve chosen to compare Amazon to Walmart, the retailer with the greatest capacity to compete with them. Others will be even harder pressed to hold off online retailers.

    Mike Kwatinetz is a founding general partner at Azure Capital Partners, where he specializes in software and related infrastructure technologies. Neither he or his firm have investments in Amazon or Wal-Mart. This post is from his blog,SoundbytesII.