A. If there's a sentence that sums up Amazon, the weirdest major technology companyin America, it's one that came from its own CEO, Jeff Bezos, speaking at the AspenInstitute's 2009 Annual Awards Dinner in New York City: "Invention requires a long-term willingness to be misunderstood." In other words: if you don't yet get what I'mtrying to build, keep waiting.
B. Four years later, Amazon's annual revenue and stock price have both nearly tripled,but for many onlookers, the long wait for understanding continues. Bezos's companyhas grown from its humble Seattle beginnings to become not only the largestbookstore in the history of the world, but also the world's largest online retailer, thelargest Web-hosting company in the world, the most serious competitor to Netflix instreaming video, the fourth-most-popular tablet (平板电脑 ) maker, and a sprawlingintemational network of fulfillment centers for merchants around the world. It is nowrumored to be close to launching its own smartphone and television set-top box. Theevery-bookstore has become the store for everything, with the global ambition tobecome the store for everywhere.
C. Seriously: What is Amazon? A retail company? A media company? A logistics (物流 ) machine? The mystery of its strategy is deepened by two factors. Firstis the company's communications department, which famously excels at notcommunicating. (Three requests to speak with Amazon officials for this articlewere delayed and, inevitably, declined.) This moves discussions of the company'sintentions into the realm of mind reading, often attempted by the researchdepartmentsof investment banks, where even optimistic analysts aren't really sure what Bezos isup to. "It's very difficult to define what Amazon is," says R. J. Hottovy, an analystwith Momingstar, who nonetheless champions the company's future.
D. Second, investors have developed a seemingly unconditional love for Amazon,despite the company's reticence ( 沉默寡言 ) and, more to the point, its financialperformance. Some 19 years after its founding, Amazon still barely turns a profit--when it makes money at all. The company is pinched between its low margins as adiscount retailer and its high capital spending as a global logistics company. Lastyear, it lost $39 million. By comparison, in its latest annual report, Apple announceda profit of almost $42 billion--nearly 22 times what Amazon has eamed in its entirelife span. And yet Amazon's market capitalization, the value investors place on thecompany, is more than a quarter of Apple's, placing Amazon among the largest techcompanies in the United States.
E."I think Amazon's efforts, even the seemingly eccentric ones, are centered on securingthe customer relationship," says Benedict Evans, a consultant with Enders Analysis.The Kindle Fire tablet and the widely rumored phone aren't boring experiments,he told me, but rather purchasing devices that put Amazon on the coffee table soconsumers can never escape the tempting glow of a shopping screen.
F.In a way, this strategy isn't new at all. It's ripped from the mildewed playbooks of thefirst national retail stores in American history. Amazon appears to be building nothingless than a global Sears, Roebuck of the 21st century--a large-scale operation thataims to dominate the future of shopping and shipping. The question is, can it succeed?
G.In the late 19th century, soon after a network of rail lines and telegraph wires hadstitched together a rural country, mail-order companies like Sears built the firstnational retail corporations. Today the Sears catalog seems about as innovativeas the prehistoric handsaw (手锯 ) , but in the 1890s, the 500-page "Consumer'sBible" popularized a truly radical shopping concept: The mail would bring stores toconsumers.
H.But in the early 1900s, as families streamed off farms and into cities, chains like J.C. Penney and Woolworth sprang up to greet them. Sears followed. The company'sfocus on the emerging middle-class market paid off so well that by mid-century,Sears's revenue approached 1 percent of the entire U.S. economy. But its dominancehad deflated by the late 1980s, after more competitors arose and as the blue-collarconsumer base it had leaned on collapsed.
I.Now that Internet cables have replaced telegraph wires, American consumers arereverting to their turn-of-the-century shopping habits. Families have rediscovered theConsumer's Bible while sitting on their couches, and this time, it's in a Web browser.E-commerce has nearly doubled in the past four years, and Amazon now takes inrevenue of more than $60 billion annually. The Internet means to the 21st centurywhat the postal service meant to the late 1800s: it welcomes retailers like Amazoninto every living room.
J."Sears took advantage of the U.S. postal system and railways in the early 20th centuryjust as transportation costs were falling," says Richard White, a historian at Stanford,"and Amazon has done the same with the Web." Its national logistics machineimitates Sears's pneumatic-tube-powered ( 气动管驱动的 ) Chicago warehouse, butis more powerful, and much faster.
K.Like the mail-order giants did a century ago, Amazon is moving to the city. In thepast few years, the company has added warehouses in the most-populous metrosto cut shipping times to urban customers. People subscribing to Amazon Prime orAmazonFresh (which, in exchange for an annual payment, provides fast deliveryof most goods or groceries you'd like to order) commit themselves financially, withPrime members spending twice as much as other buyers. If those subscriptions grownumerous enough, Amazon's search bar could become the preferred retail-shoppingengine.
L.At least, that's the vision. Defenders say Amazon is trading the present for the future,spending all its revenue on a global scatter plot of warehouses that will make thecompany indomitable. Eventually, the theory goes, investors expect Amazon tocomplete its construction project and, having swayed enough customers and destroyedenough rivals, to "flip the switch", raising prices and profits greatly. In the meantime,they're happy to keep buying stock, offering an unqualified thumbs-up for heavyspending.
M.But this theory assumes a practically infinite life span for Amazon. The modernhistory of retail innovation suggests that even the giants can be overtaken suddenly.Sears was still America's largest retailer in 1982, but just nine years later, its annualrevenues were barely half those of Walmart.
N.Amazon is not as insulated from its rivals as some think it is. Walmart, eBay, and lotsof upstarts ( 新贵) are all in the race to dominate online retail. Amazon's furiousspending on new buildings and equipment isn't an elective measure; it's a survivalplan. The truth is Amazon has won investors' trust with a reputation for spendingeverybody to death, and it can spend everybody to death because it has won investors'trust. For now.
O."Amazon, as best I can tell, is a charitable organization being run by elements ofthe investment community for the benefit of consumers," Slate's Matthew Yglesiasjoked earlier this year. Of course, Amazon is not a charity, and its investors are notphilanthropists ( 慈善家) . Today, they are funding an effort to fulfill the dreamsof the turn-of-the-century retail kings: to build the perfect personalized shoppingexperience for the modern urban household. For once, families are reaping thedividends of Wall Street's generosity. The longer investors wait for Amazon to fulfilltheir orders, the less we have to wait for Amazon to fulfill ours.