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A Perfect Market When the technology bub

游客2024-06-08  12
问题                                     A Perfect Market
    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 dot-coms 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 traditional markets.
Tip of the iceberg
    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. Nor do the figures take in things like financial services, ticket-sales agencies. And there is more. The commerce department’s figures include the fees earned by Internet auction sites, but not the value of goods that are sold: an astonishing ＄24 billion-worth of trade was done last year on eBay, the biggest online auctioneer. Nor, by definition, do they include the billions of dollars-worth of goods bought and sold by businesses connecting to each other over the Internet. Some of these B2B (Business-to-Business) services are proprietary (专利的，专营的); for example, Wal-Mart tells its suppliers that they must use its own system if they want to be part of its annual turnover (营业额) of $＄250 billion.
    So e-commerce is already very big, and it is going to get much bigger. But the actual value of transactions currently concluded online is dwarfed by the extraordinary influence the Internet is exerting over purchases carried out in the offline world. That influence is becoming an integral part of e-commerce.
    To start with, the Internet is profoundly changing consumer behavior. One in five customers walking into a Sears department store in America to buy an electrical appliance will have researched their purchase online—and most will know down to a dime what they intend to pay. More surprisingly, three out of four Americans start shopping for new cars online, even though most end up buying them from traditional dealers. The difference is that these customers come to the showroom armed with information about the car and the best available deals. Sometimes they even have computer print-outs identifying the particular vehicle from the dealer’s stock that they want to buy.
    People seem to enjoy shopping on the Internet, if high customer-satisfaction scores are any guide. Websites are doing even more and cleverer things to serve and entertain their customers, and seem set to take a much bigger share of people’s overall spending in the future.
Why websites matter
    This has enormous implications for business. A company that neglects its website may be committing commercial suicide. A website is increasingly becoming the gateway to a company’s brand, products and services—even if the firm does not sell online. A useless website suggests a useless company, and a rival is only a mouse-click away. But even the coolest website will be lost in cyberspace if people cannot find it, so companies have to ensure that they appear high up in Internet search results.
    For many users, a search site is now their point of entry to the Internet. The best-known search engine has already entered the lexicon (辞典): People say they have "Googled" a company, a product or their plumber. The search business has also developed one of the most effective forms of advertising on the Internet. And it is already the best way to reach some consumers: teenagers and young men spend more time online than watching television. All this means that search is turning into the Internet’s next big battleground as Google defends itself against challenges from Yahoo! and Microsoft.
    The good way to get noticed online is to offer goods and services through one of the big sites that already get a lot of traffic. Ebay, Yahoo! and Amazon are becoming huge trading platforms for other companies. But to take part, a company’s products have to stand up to intense price competition. People check online prices, compare them with those in their local high street and may well take a peek at what customers in other countries are. paying. Even if websites are prevented from shipping their goods abroad, there are plenty of web-based entrepreneurs ready to oblige.
     What is going on here is arbitrage (套利，套汇) between different sales channels, says Mohanbir Sawhney, professor of technology at the Kellogg School of Management in Chicago. For instance, someone might use the Internet to research digital cameras, but visit a photographic shop for a hands-on demonstration. "I’ll think about it," they will tell the sales assistant. Back home, they will use a search engine to find the lowest price and buy online. In this way, consumers are "deconstructing the purchasing process", says Professor Sawhney. They are unbundling product information from the transaction itself.
All about me
    It is not only price transparency that makes Internet consumers so powerful; it is also the way the Net makes it easy for them to be fickle (改变主意). If they do not like a website, they swiftly move on. "The web is the most selfish environment in the world," says Daniel Rosensweig, chief operating officer of Yahoo! "People want to use the Internet whenever they want, how they want and for whatever they want,"
    Yahoo! is not alone in defining its strategy as working out what its customers are looking for, and then trying to give it to them. The first thing they want is to become better informed about products and prices. "We operate our business on that belief," says Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive. Amazon became famous for books, but long ago branched out into selling lots of other things too; among its latest ventures are health products, jewellery and gourmet food. Apart from cheap and many items such as garden rakes, Mr. Bezos thinks he can sell most things. And so do the millions of people who use eBay.
    And yet nobody thinks real shops are finished, especially those operating in niche markets. Many traditional bookshops still make a good living, as do flea markets. But many record shops and travel agents could be in for a tougher time. Erik Blachford, the head of the biggest Internet travel agent, thinks online travel bookings in America could quickly move from 20% of the market to more than half. Mr. Bezos reckons online retailers might capture 10-15% of retail sales over the next decade. That would represent a massive shift in spending.
    How will traditional shops respond? Michael Dell, the founder of Dell, which leads the personal-computer market by selling direct to the customer, has long thought many shops will turn into showrooms. There are already signs of change on the high street. The latest Apple and Sony stores are designed to display products, in the full expectation that many people will buy online. To some extent, the online and offline worlds may merge. Multi-channel selling could involve a combination of traditional shops, a printed catalogue, a home-shopping channel on TV, a phone-in order service and an ecommerce-enabled website. But often it is likely to be the website where customers will be encouraged to place their orders.
    One of the biggest commercial advantages of the Internet is lowering of transaction costs, which usually translates directly into lower prices for the consumer. So, if the lowest prices can be found on the Internet and people like the service they get, why would they buy anywhere else? [br] The benefit that consumers gain from the Internet is the ______.
选项
答案 the lower prices
解析 根据文章最后一段第一句话可知，网上贸易的一个最大的优势就是降低了运营成本，从而使商品的价格低廉。故正确答案为“the lower prices”。
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