日趋完善的电子商务------外文翻译.doc

A perfect market
October 30, 2011
From The Economist print edition

E-commerce is coming of age, says Paul Markillie, but not in the way predicted in the bubble years
When the technology bubble burst in 2000, the crazy valuations for online companies vanished with it, and many businesses folded. The survivors plugged on as best they could, encouraged by the growing number of internet users. Now valuations are rising again and some of the dotcoms are making real profits, but the business world has become much more cautious about the internet’s potential. The funny thing is that the wild predictions made at the height of the boom—namely, that vast chunks of the world economy would move into cyberspace—are, in one way or another, coming true.
The raw numbers tell only part of the story. According to America’s Department of Commerce, online retail sales in the world’s biggest market last year rose by 26%, to $55 billion. That sounds a lot of money, but it amounts to only 1.6% of total retail sales. The vast majority of people still buy most things in the good old “bricks-and-mortar” world.
But the commerce department’s figures deal with only part of the retail industry. For instance, they exclude online travel services, one of the most successful and fastest-growing sectors of e-commerce. InterActiveCorp (IAC), the owner of expedia.com and hotels.com, alone sold $10 billion-worth of travel last year—and it has plenty of competition, not least from airlines, hotels and car-rental companies, all of which increasingly sell online.



当2000年科技泡沫爆发时，备蔃@醋鞯耐瞎竞孟笏嬷舴⒘耍诙嗟耐厦骋滓脖黄攘鞑＝俸笥嗌瞎疚抟徊唤羲跎涛瘢迷谟肴站阍龅幕チ没г诩だ潘恰Ｏ衷冢酝瞎镜钠兰塾钟兴岣吡耍⑶液芏?com公司的确也已开始赢利了，但工商界还是谨慎地评价互联网的潜能。尽管如此，有人已大胆的预言：世界上大量经济巨头不久都会以某种方式移师电脑空间。
据商务部不完全统计表明，去年网上零售额增加了26%，达到550亿美元。这听起来的确是一个很大的数目，但这仅相当于全球零售业总额的1.6%。大部分的成年消费者依然习惯于到“砖+混凝土”（bricks-and-mortar）的世界里消费。
其实商务部公布的数字仅涉及部分产业。例如，该数字虽然包括了网上旅游服务，这一电子商务界最成功也是增长最快的行业之一。IAC (InterActiveCorp)，expedia.com 和 hotels.com两个站的拥有者，去年仅它一家就有100亿美元的营业额，包括航空业、宾馆业、出租车公司在内的竞争对手去年网上营业总额也有大幅攀升，但这些网上营业额攀升的企业在商务部的数字中并未得到体现。