2014年Amazon致股東信：第三方賣家服務促成跨境電商興起｜見識之旅

導讀

這封信是2014年Amazon的第18封致股東信。

什麼是理想的商業產品？Jeff Bezos的定義是包含以下四種特徵的產品。

理想的商業產品有四個特徵，分別是受客戶喜愛、規模可擴張、資本回報率高、增長週期長。

在此定義下，一般企業有一款這樣的產品就很難得了，而Jeff Bezos說Amazon有3個！

這三款產品就是Prime、AWS和第三方賣家服務，而且這三款產品並非獨立增長，彼此還會形成循環，驅動Amazon前進。

每當第三方賣家將商品加入Prime計畫，就會讓顧客有更多可選擇的商品品項，提高Prime服務的價值，進而促成Prime會員的增長。

Amazon的影響力還可以體現在跨境電商的興起。

在Amazon推出第三方賣家服務之前，跨境電商非常不好做，因為物流配送、跨境客服等問題對於一般小型賣家來說很難處理。

而跨境電商產業，在Amazon推出第三方賣家平台、配送服務之後，逐漸蓬勃發展起來。

一家公司促成一個行業，除了讓我們一窺Amazon巨大的影響力，也讓我們再次見識到Amazon走在行業前沿抓住機會的能力。

好了，導讀結束，以下致股東信正文開始。

正文

To our shareowners:

致我們的股東：

A dreamy business offering has at least four characteristics. Customers love it, it can grow to very large size, it has strong returns on capital, and it’s durable in time — with the potential to endure for decades. When you find one of these, don’t just swipe right, get married

理想的商業產品至少具有四種特徵。第一是客戶喜歡它，第二是它可以成長至很大的規模，第三是具有夠高的資本回報率，第四是不隨時間變化－有可能持續增長數十年。當你找到商業產品具備任一種特徵時，千萬別向右滑（交友App上的拒絕手勢），選擇它就對了！

Well, I’m pleased to report that Amazon hasn’t been monogamous in this regard. After two decades of risk taking and teamwork, and with generous helpings of good fortune all along the way, we are now happily wed to what I believe are three such life partners: Marketplace, Prime, and AWS. Each of these offerings was a bold bet at first, and sensible people worried (often!) that they could not work. But at this point, it’s become pretty clear how special they are and how lucky we are to have them. It’s also clear that there are no sinecures in business. We know it’s our job to always nourish and fortify them.

我很高興地跟大家報告，Amazon在尋找商業機會上並不遵守「一夫一妻制」。經過二十多年的冒險與團隊合作，加上一路走來的好運，我們很高興地宣布Amazon已經擁有3個很棒的產品：第三方賣家平台Marketplace、Prime會員服務和Amazon網路服務AWS。這些產品都曾是大膽的賭注，不少明智的人曾很擔心無法成功。現在，我們已經很清楚它們的特殊性，也很幸運地把它們成功做好。我們很清楚，商業世界沒有不勞而獲的輕鬆事。我們很清楚，不斷優化它們是我們的職責。

We’ll approach the job with our usual tools: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, heartfelt passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and a willingness to think long-term. With good execution and a bit of continuing good luck, Marketplace, Prime, and AWS can be serving customers and earning financial returns for many years to come.

我們將會透過一貫的做法來優化產品。關注顧客，而不是關注競爭對手。對發明創新充滿熱情，對卓越許下承諾，並且總是長期思考。良好的執行加上一點運氣，Marketplace、Prime和AWS可以為客戶提供服務，並在未來很多年內獲得財務回報。

Marketplace

第三方賣家平台Marketplace

Marketplace’s early days were not easy. First, we launched Amazon Auctions. I think seven people came, if you count my parents and siblings. Auctions transformed into zShops, which was basically a fixed price version of Auctions. Again, no customers. But then we morphed zShops into Marketplace. Internally, Marketplace was known as SDP for Single Detail Page. The idea was to take our most valuable retail real estate — our product detail pages — and let third-party sellers compete against our own retail category managers. It was more convenient for customers, and within a year, it accounted for 5% of units. Today, more than 40% of our units are sold by more than two million third-party sellers worldwide. Customers ordered more than two billion units from sellers in 2014.

在早期，Marketplace並不容易。首先，我們推出了Amazon Auction。把我的父母和兄弟姊妹都算上，一共就七個人使用吧！接著，Auction轉變為zShops，zShops基本上就是一個固定價格版的Auction。結果和Auction一樣，沒有人使用zShops。於是，我們將zShops轉變為Marketplace。在Amazon內部，Marketplace被稱為「單頁式詳細資訊頁」。我們的想法是將Amazon最有價值的資產，也就是產品詳細資訊頁提供給第三方賣家，讓第三方賣家跟我們自己的零售經理競爭。這麼做對於消費者來說更加方便，在一年內提升5%銷量。如今，超過40%的銷量來自全球200萬個第三方賣家，消費者向他們購買超過20億個產品。

The success of this hybrid model accelerated the Amazon flywheel. Customers were initially drawn by our fast-growing selection of Amazon-sold products at great prices with a great customer experience. By then allowing third parties to offer products side-by-side, we became more attractive to customers, which drew even more sellers. This also added to our economies of scale, which we passed along by lowering prices and eliminating shipping fees for qualifying orders. Having introduced these programs in the U.S., we rolled them out as quickly as we could to our other geographies. The result was a marketplace that became seamlessly integrated with all of our global websites.

混合第三方賣家和我們的商業模式，加速Amazon的「飛輪」轉動速度。消費者最初是被我們的快速增加的商品數、優惠的價格及良好的客戶體驗吸引，接著我們開放第三方賣家平台，讓消費者擁有更多選擇，進而吸引更多賣家到Amazon販售商品。我們持續降價，並讓符合條件的商品能夠免除運費，進一步提升了我們的商業規模。最終的結果是，第三方賣家平台Marketplace和我們的網站無縫銜接。以上所提到的做法已經在美國實行，我們將會盡快推行到更多地方。

We work hard to reduce the workload for sellers and increase the success of their businesses. Through our Selling Coach program, we generate a steady stream of automated machine-learned “nudges” (more than 70 million in a typical week) — alerting sellers about opportunities to avoid going out-of-stock, add selection that’s selling, and sharpen their prices to be more competitive. These nudges translate to billions in increased sales to sellers.

我們致力於降低賣家的工作負擔，提升賣家的業務量。透過Selling Coach計畫，我們一周發出超過7千萬次基於機器學習的自動化提醒，提醒賣家商品即將完售，或是給予建議讓他們的商品價格更具競爭力。這些提醒幫助賣方增加銷售額數十億美元。

To further globalize Marketplace, we’re now helping sellers in each of our geographies — and in countries where we don’t have a presence — reach out to our customers in countries outside their home geographies. We hosted merchants from more than 100 different countries last year, and helped them connect with customers in 185 nations.

為了進一步擴大Marketplace的全球化範圍，我們目前在各個區域幫助賣家，也積極在尚未開展業務的區域與客戶聯繫。去年，我們服務了全球超過100個國家的賣家，幫助他們與全球185個國家的客戶建立聯繫。

Almost one-fifth of our overall third-party sales now occur outside the sellers’ home countries, and our merchants’ cross-border sales nearly doubled last year. In the EU, sellers can open a single account, manage their business in multiple languages, and make products available across our five EU websites. More recently, we’ve started consolidating cross-border shipments for sellers and helping them obtain ocean shipping from Asia to Europe and North America at preferential, bulk rates.

現在，第三方賣家的銷售額有近五分之一是產生於賣家所在國家以外的地方，賣家的銷售額去年幾乎翻了一倍。在歐盟，賣家只要開設一個帳戶，就可以在我們的五個歐盟國家的網站，以多國語言管理其業務。最近，我們開始為賣家合併訂單進行跨境運輸，幫助他們以更低的價格將貨品從亞洲送到歐洲和北美。

Marketplace is the heart of our fast-growing operations in India, since all of our selection in India is offered by third-party sellers. Amazon.in now offers more selection than any other e-commerce site in India — with more than 20 million products offered from over 21,000 sellers. With our Easy Ship service, we pick up products from a seller and handle delivery all the way to the end customer. Building upon Easy Ship, the India team recently piloted Kirana Now, a service that delivers everyday essentials from local kirana (mom and pop) stores to customers in two to four hours, adding convenience for our customers and increasing sales for the stores participating in the service.

Marketplace是我們在印度快速增長的驅動核心，因為我們在印度的所有商品都是由第三方賣家提供，Amazon印度站目前是全印度品項最多的電子商務網站－由2.1萬名賣家提供超過2000萬種商品。我們提供Easy Ship服務，從賣家到買家的整個物流都由我們來處理。印度團隊基於Easy Ship的基礎上，最近開始了一項新業務Kirana Now。這項服務可在兩到四個小時內，向消費者提供kirana商店的日常必需品。這為我們的顧客增加便利，並增加了kirana商店的銷售額

Perhaps most important for sellers, we’ve created Fulfillment by Amazon. But I’ll save that for after we discuss Prime.

也許對第三方賣家來說，最重要的是Amazon物流服務。我會在Prime服務之後討論它。

Amazon Prime

Prime服務

Ten years ago, we launched Amazon Prime, originally designed as an all-you-can-eat free and fast shipping program. We were told repeatedly that it was a risky move, and in some ways it was. In its first year, we gave up many millions of dollars in shipping revenue, and there was no simple math to show that it would be worth it. Our decision to go ahead was built on the positive results we’d seen earlier when we introduced Free Super Saver Shipping, and an intuition that customers would quickly grasp that they were being offered the best deal in the history of shopping. In addition, analysis told us that, if we achieved scale, we would be able to significantly lower the cost of fast shipping.

10年前，我們發布了Prime服務，最初是為了提供吃到飽的快速運送服務。我們被一再告知，這會有很大的風險。從某些層面來說，的確如此。最初的一年，我們因此犧牲了數百萬的物流收入，而且無從證明這麼做是有價值的。我們之所以選擇繼續實行，是因為我們看到先前的Free Super Saver Shipping得到的積極結果，因此直覺地認為顧客會迅速了解Prime服務有多麼棒，能夠提供他們有史以來最優惠的服務。此外，分析師告訴我們，如果我們形成規模經濟，將能夠大大降低物流的成本。

Our owned-inventory retail business was the foundation of Prime. In addition to creating retail teams to build each of our category-specific online “stores,” we have created large-scale systems to automate much of inventory replenishment, inventory placement, and product pricing. The precise delivery-date promise of Prime required operating our fulfillment centers in a new way, and pulling all of this together is one of the great accomplishments of our global operations team. Our worldwide network of fulfillment centers has expanded from 13 in 2005, when we launched Prime, to 109 this year. We are now on our eighth generation of fulfillment center design, employing proprietary software to manage receipt, stowing, picking, and shipment. Amazon Robotics, which began with our acquisition of Kiva in 2012, has now deployed more than 15,000 robots to support the stowing and retrieval of products at a higher density and lower cost than ever before. Our ownedinventory retail business remains our best customer-acquisition vehicle for Prime and a critical part of building out categories that attract traffic and third-party sellers.

我們既有的零售業務，正是Prime服務的基礎。除了創建零售團隊，建立我們線上各類別的商店外，我們也建立大型自動化系統，調節庫存數量、庫存商品放置和定價。由於Prime會員的商品需要在兩天內送達，因此對我們配送中心的運營方式有更高的要求。將這些整合在一起，是我們的全球運營團隊的一大成就。2005年剛推出Prime服務時，我們的全球配送網絡只有13個配送中心，今年則擴展到109個。我們正在設計第8代配送中心，採用專門的軟體來管理收貨、存貨、撿貨和運送。Amazon機器人的發展，始於2012年我們對Kiva的收購，如今已經佈署了1.5萬個機器人，以更高的機器人密度和更低的成本支持庫存商品的存放和撿取。我們卓越的零售業務，依然是幫助擴大Prime會員數的最佳利器，帶來更多的流量，也吸引更多的第三方賣家。

Though fast delivery remains a core Prime benefit, we are finding new ways to pump energy into Prime. Two of the most important are digital and devices.

儘管快速到貨仍然是Prime服務的核心優勢，但我們正在尋找增強Prime服務的新方法。最重要的兩件事分別是數位化和硬體裝置。

In 2011 we added Prime Instant Video as a benefit, now with tens of thousands of movies and TV episodes available for unlimited streaming in the U.S., and we’ve started expanding the program into the U.K. and Germany as well. We’re investing a significant amount on this content, and it’s important that we monitor its impact. We ask ourselves, is it worth it? Is it driving Prime? Among other things, we watch Prime free trial starts, conversion to paid membership, renewal rates, and product purchase rates by members entering through this channel. We like what we see so far and plan to keep investing here.

2011年，我們新增了Prime Instant Video作為Prime服務的內容。現在，美國站有成千上萬種電影和電視劇可供用戶無限次數播放。我們也開始擴大英國站和德國站的Prime服務。我們大量投資於內容，並不斷關注內容的影響力。我們會問自己：這麼做是否值得？它能驅動Prime會員數增長嗎？我們還觀察了Prime的免費試用者數量、轉換為付費用戶的比率、續訂率和購買率。目前為止，我們對此表現感到滿意，並計畫加大投資。

While most of our PIV spend is on licensed content, we’re also starting to develop original content. The team is off to a strong start. Our show Transparent became the first from a streaming service to win a Golden Globe for best series and Tumble Leaf won the Annie for best animated series for preschoolers. In addition to the critical acclaim, the numbers are promising. An advantage of our original programming is that its first run is on Prime — it hasn’t already appeared anywhere else. Together with the quality of the shows, that first run status appears to be one of the factors leading to the attractive numbers. We also like the fixed cost nature of original programming. We get to spread that fixed cost across our large membership base. Finally, our business model for original content is unique. I’m pretty sure we’re the first company to have figured out how to make winning a Golden Globe pay off in increased sales of power tools and baby wipes!

儘管我們的支出多用於授權內容，但我們也開始推出我們的原創內容。團隊開局表現不錯。我們的節目《Transparent》是流媒體服務中第一個獲得金球獎（Golden Globe）的系列影集，而《Tumble Leaf》則獲得了安妮獎（Annie）學齡前兒童最佳動畫片獎。除了廣受好評外，數據表現也很亮眼。原創內容的一個優點是，它在其他地方都沒出現過，首次開播就是在Prime上進行。加上節目的質量很好，首次開播似乎是吸引觀眾的原因之一。我們還喜歡原創內容的「固定成本」特性。我們將固定成本分攤至我們的廣大會員基礎上。最後，我們原創內容的商業模式是獨一無二的。我敢肯定，我們是第一家找到如何透過增加電動工具和嬰兒濕巾的銷售額來贏得金球獎的公司！

Amazon designed and manufactured devices — from Kindle to Fire TV to Echo — also pump energy into Prime services such as Prime Instant Video and Prime Music, and generally drive higher engagement with every element of the Amazon ecosystem. And there’s more to come — our device team has a strong and exciting roadmap ahead.

Amazon設計和製造的設備－從Kindle到Fire TV再到Echo，也將能量注入Prime服務。例如Prime Instant Video和Prime Music，驅動Amazon生態系統各個要素的彼此相連。未來將會更加精采可期－我們的硬體團隊擁有強大而令人興奮的發展計畫。

Prime isn’t done improving on its original fast and free shipping promise either. The recently launched Prime Now offers Prime members free two-hour delivery on tens of thousands of items or one-hour delivery for a $7.99 fee. Lots of early reviews read like this one, “In the past six weeks my husband and I have made an embarrassing number of orders through Amazon Prime Now. It’s cheap, easy, and insanely fast.” We’ve launched in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Miami, Baltimore, Dallas, Atlanta, and Austin, and more cities are coming soon.

Prime沒有違背其最初的快速免費送貨承諾。最近，我們推出Prime Now。只要7.99美元，Prime會員可以在1小時內收到商品。若你可以接受2小時內收穫，那將不用收取額外費用。先前的評論都是這樣寫的：「過去六週，我和我的丈夫透過Amazon Prime Now下了許多訂單訂單。這項服務便宜、方便、快捷。」我們已經在曼哈頓、布魯克林、邁阿密、巴爾的摩、達拉斯、亞特蘭大和奧斯汀推出這項服務，並且很快就會推展到更多城市。

Now, I’d like to talk about Fulfillment by Amazon. FBA is so important because it is glue that inextricably links Marketplace and Prime. Thanks to FBA, Marketplace and Prime are no longer two things. In fact, at this point, I can’t really think about them separately. Their economics and customer experiences are now happily and deeply intertwined.

現在，我想談談Amazon配送服務。它之所以如此重要，是因為它將第三方賣家平台Marketplace與Prime緊密聯繫在一起。有了Amazon配送服務，Marketplace和Prime不再是兩件不同的事。實際上，此刻我無法把它們分開思考。現在，它們的商業價值和客戶體驗已深深地交織在一起。

FBA is a service for Marketplace sellers. When a seller decides to use FBA, they stow their inventory in our fulfillment centers. We take on all logistics, customer service, and product returns. If a customer orders an FBA item and an Amazon owned-inventory item, we can ship both items to the customer in one box — a huge efficiency gain. But even more important, when a seller joins FBA, their items can become Prime eligible.

Amazon配送服務是針對第三方賣家的服務。當賣家決定使用Amazon配送服務時，他們會將庫存商品放在我們的庫存中心。我們負責所有物流、客服和退貨服務。如果顧客訂購的商品分別是Amazon自有商品和第三方賣家的商品，我們可以將兩件商品裝在同一個盒子寄給客戶－這樣極大地提高效率。更重要的是，當賣家加入Amazon配送服務時，他們的商品對Prime會員更有吸引力。

Maintaining a firm grasp of the obvious is more difficult than one would think it should be. But it’s useful to try. If you ask, what do sellers want? The correct (and obvious) answer is: they want more sales. So, what happens when sellers join FBA and their items become Prime eligible? They get more sales.

即使一件事情的價值很明顯，但要持續堅持自己的想法，並不是一件很容易的事。但是，堅持過後你會發現這麼做很有價值。如果你問，賣家想要什麼？正確且顯而易見的答案是：他們想要更多的銷售額。那麼，當賣家加入Amazon配送服務後，在他們的商品成為Prime會員可購買的免運商品時會發生什麼事？他們如願獲得更多的銷售額。

Notice also what happens from a Prime member’s point of view. Every time a seller joins FBA, Prime members get more Prime eligible selection. The value of membership goes up. This is powerful for our flywheel. FBA completes the circle: Marketplace pumps energy into Prime, and Prime pumps energy into Marketplace.

另一個值得關注的是，從Prime會員的角度來看這會形成循環。每當賣家加入Amazon配送服務，Prime會員都會獲得更多可使用Prime的品項，Prime會員的價值上升。這對於我們的飛輪而言很有幫助，Amazon配送服務完成了這一循環：Marketplace將能量注入Prime，Prime也將能量注入Marketplace。

In a 2014 survey of U.S. sellers, 71% of FBA merchants reported more than a 20% increase in unit sales after joining FBA. In the holiday period, worldwide FBA units shipped grew 50% over the prior year and represented more than 40% of paid third-party units. Paid Prime memberships grew more than 50% in the U.S. last year and 53% worldwide. FBA is a win for customers and a win for sellers.

2014年，在一個對美國的第三方賣家調查顯示，加入Amazon配送服務之後，71％的賣家表示單位銷售量增長20％以上。在假期期間，全球範圍的Amazon配送服務運送量比上一年增長50％，佔第三方賣家發貨量的40％以上。去年美國的Prime會員數量增長了50％以上，全球會員則增長了53％。Amazon配送服務對客戶和賣家而言都是雙贏。

Amazon Web Services

Amazon雲端運算服務

A radical idea when it was launched nine years ago, Amazon Web Services is now big and growing fast. Startups were the early adopters. On-demand, pay-as-you-go cloud storage and compute resources dramatically increased the speed of starting a new business. Companies like Pinterest, Dropbox, and Airbnb all used AWS services and remain customers today.

九年前推出AWS時，這是一個激進的想法。如今，AWS已經發展壯大並發展迅速。新創公司是最早採用的客戶。按需購買，用多少付多少的雲存儲和計算資源，極大提高了新業務的開展速度。諸如Pinterest、Dropbox和Airbnb等公司，都使用AWS服務，而且今天還是我們的客戶。

Since then, large enterprises have been coming on board as well, and they’re choosing to use AWS for the same primary reason the startups did: speed and agility. Having lower IT cost is attractive, and sometimes the absolute cost savings can be enormous. But cost savings alone could never overcome deficiencies in performance or functionality. Enterprises are dependent on IT — it’s mission critical. So, the proposition, “I can save you a significant amount on your annual IT bill and my service is almost as good as what you have now,” won’t get too many customers. What customers really want in this arena is “better and faster,” and if “better and faster” can come with a side dish of cost savings, terrific. But the cost savings is the gravy, not the steak.

自那時起，大型企業也逐漸成為我們的客戶，他們選擇使用AWS的原因與新創企業相同：速度和彈性。IT成本較低是一件很有吸引力的事，有時省下來的成本非常可觀。但是，僅憑降低成本，並不能克服性能或功能上的不足。AWS所牽涉的是至關重要的任務－因為企業仰賴IT。因此，「我可以為你節省大筆IT帳單，而我們提供的服務幾乎和你現在使用的服務一樣好」的主張並不能吸引足夠多的客戶。客戶真正想要的是「更快、更好」的服務，而這樣的服務如果可以帶來「成本上的優勢」，那就太棒了。節省成本是附帶的肉汁，而不是牛排本身。

IT is so high leverage. You don’t want to imagine a competitor whose IT department is more nimble than yours. Every company has a list of technology projects that the business would like to see implemented as soon as possible. The painful reality is that tough triage decisions are always made, and many projects never get done. Even those that get resourced are often delivered late or with incomplete functionality. If an IT department can figure out how to deliver a larger number of business-enabling technology projects faster, they’ll be creating significant and real value for their organization.

IT的槓桿率很高。你不會想看到競爭對手的IT部門比你的更敏捷。每家公司都有一份技術項目清單，企業希望盡快實現的技術項目清單。然而，資源有限帶來的現實是必須取捨，總會有許多項目無法完成。即使是那些投入資源的項目，往往也無法準時交付，或者功能並不完整。如果IT部門能夠找到更高效地交付技術項目的方法，那麼他們將為組織創造巨大的價值。

These are the main reasons AWS is growing so quickly. IT departments are recognizing that when they adopt AWS, they get more done. They spend less time on low value-add activities like managing datacenters, networking, operating system patches, capacity planning, database scaling, and so on and so on. Just as important, they get access to powerful APIs and tools that dramatically simplify building scalable, secure, robust, high-performance systems. And those APIs and tools are continuously and seamlessly upgraded behind the scenes, without customer effort.

這就是AWS快速發展的主因。IT部門了解到，當他們採用AWS時，他們能做更多事情。他們將較少的時間花在低附加價值的事情上，例如管理數據中心、建立網絡、修復操作系統補丁、擴容、數據庫擴展等等。同樣重要的是，他們可以使用強大的API和工具，將構建可擴展、安全、強大的高性能系統的過程大大簡化。這些API和工具由我們持續升級，無需客戶耗費心力。

Today, AWS has more than a million active customers as companies and organizations of all sizes use AWS in every imaginable business segment. AWS usage grew by approximately 90% in the fourth quarter of 2014 versus the prior year. Companies like GE, Major League Baseball, Tata Motors, and Qantas are building new applications on AWS — these range from apps for crowdsourcing and personalized healthcare to mobile apps for managing fleets of trucks. Other customers, like NTT DOCOMO, the Financial Times, and the Securities and Exchange Commission are using AWS to analyze and take action on vast amounts of data. And many customers like Conde´ Nast, Kellogg’s, and News Corp are migrating legacy critical applications and, in some cases, entire datacenters to AWS.

如今，隨著各種規模的公司和組織，在各個領域中使用AWS，AWS擁有超過一百萬名活躍客戶。2014年第四季度，AWS使用量同比增長了約90％。通用電氣、美國職業棒球大聯盟、塔塔汽車和澳洲航空等公司，正在AWS上建構新應用－從眾籌、個人化醫療到管理卡車車隊的新應用。NTT DOCOMO、金融時報和證券交易委員會，正在使用AWS來分析大量數據並以此採取行動。Conde´ Nast，Kellogg’s和News Corp等客戶，正在將舊應用遷移至AWS，有些客戶甚至將整個數據中心遷移至AWS。

We’ve increased our pace of innovation as we’ve gone along — from nearly 160 new features and services in 2012, to 280 in 2013, and 516 last year. There are many that would be interesting to talk about — from WorkDocs and WorkMail to AWS Lambda and the EC2 Container Service to the AWS Marketplace — but for purposes of brevity, I’m going to limit myself to one: our recently introduced Amazon Aurora. We hope Aurora will offer customers a new normal for a very important (but also very problematic) technology that is a critical underpinning of many applications: the relational database. Aurora is a MySQL-compatible database engine that offers the speed and availability of high-end commercial databases with the simplicity and cost effectiveness of open source databases. Aurora’s performance is up to 5x better than typical MySQL databases, at one-tenth the cost of commercial database packages. Relational databases is an arena that’s been a pain point for organizations and developers for a long time, and we’re very excited about Aurora.

我們一直不斷創新。2012年，AWS包含近160種新功能和服務，到2013年這個數字是280種，到2014年則變成516種。這中間有很多有趣的話題－從WorkDocs、WorkMail到AWS Lambda，從EC2 Container Service到AWS Marketplace。為了篇幅簡潔起見，我將只提及一項：我們最近推出的Amazon Aurora。我們希望Aurora為客戶提供一項非常重要（但經常是個問題）的技術方案，提供很多應用的關鍵基礎－關係數據庫。Aurora是與MySQL兼容的數據庫引擎，可提供高端商業數據庫所需的速度及可用性，並兼具開源數據庫的易用性和低成本。Aurora的性能比典型的MySQL數據庫高出5倍，價格卻是商業數據庫的十分之一。關係數據庫是解決長期困擾組織和開發人員痛點的起點，我們對Aurora的前景感到無比興奮。

I believe AWS is one of those dreamy business offerings that can be serving customers and earning financial returns for many years into the future. Why am I optimistic? For one thing, the size of the opportunity is big, ultimately encompassing global spend on servers, networking, datacenters, infrastructure software, databases, data warehouses, and more. Similar to the way I think about Amazon retail, for all practical purposes, I believe AWS is market-size unconstrained.

我相信AWS將在未來很多年為客戶提供服務，並獲得財務回報的夢幻產品。為什麼我如此樂觀？AWS面向的商業規模巨大，涵蓋了全球的伺服器、網絡、數據中心、基礎架構軟體、數據庫等方面。用我對Amazon零售業務的思考方式來看，我相信AWS的市場規模將不受限制。

Second, its current leadership position (which is significant) is a strong ongoing advantage. We work hard — very hard — to make AWS as easy to use as possible. Even so, it’s still a necessarily complex set of tools with rich functionality and a non-trivial learning curve. Once you’ve become proficient at building complex systems with AWS, you do not want to have to learn a new set of tools and APIs assuming the set you already understand works for you. This is in no way something we can rest on, but if we continue to serve our customers in a truly outstanding way, they will have a rational preference to stick with us.

其次，AWS目前的市場領先地位將持續帶給我們優勢。我們努力工作，非常努力地使AWS盡可能易於使用。即便如此，出於它自身的特質，它依然是複雜的一套工具組。AWS具備豐富的功能，因此學習起來也很複雜。然而，一旦你精通使用AWS構建系統後，你就不會想再學習一套新的工具和API。你將對這套工具產生依賴，但這絕不是我們可以懈怠的理由。我們相信若我們繼續以出色的方式為客戶提供服務，出於理性他們將會持續支持我們。

In addition, also because of our leadership position, we now have thousands of what are effectively AWS ambassadors roaming the world. Software developers changing jobs, moving from one company to another, become our best sales people: “We used AWS where I used to work, and we should consider it here. I think we’d get more done.” It’s a good sign that proficiency with AWS and its services is already something software developers are adding to their resumes.

此外，由於我們具備市場領先地位，我們現在擁有成千上萬名、遍及全球的AWS宣傳大使。當軟體開發人員從一家公司換到另一家公司，他們會成為我們最好的銷售人員：「我以前工作過的地方使用AWS，我認為我們應該也考慮使用AWS。如此一來，我們能把更多事情做好。」這證明了「熟悉AWS及其服務」已成為軟體開發人員能寫上履歷的內容。

Finally, I’m optimistic that AWS will have strong returns on capital. This is one we as a team examine because AWS is capital intensive. The good news is we like what we see when we do these analyses. Structurally, AWS is far less capital intensive than the mode it’s replacing — do-it-yourself datacenters — which have low utilization rates, almost always below 20%. Pooling of workloads across customers gives AWS much higher utilization rates, and correspondingly higher capital efficiency. Further, once again our leadership position helps: scale economies can provide us a relative advantage on capital efficiency. We’ll continue to watch and shape the business for good returns on capital.

最後，我對AWS將獲得可觀的資本回報感到樂觀。由於AWS是資本密集的投資，因此我們團隊曾對這項投資進行研究。好消息是，分析得到的結果是我們樂見的。從整體來看，AWS相較於其所取代的模式，也就是自己動手建立數據中心相比，其資本密集度低得多。後者的使用率較低，從頭到尾幾乎都低於20％。由於需服務多個不同客戶，因此AWS的使用率更高，相應地提升了資本效率。此外，我們的市場領先地位也有助於形成規模經濟，這可以提升我們在資本效率層面的相對優勢。我們將繼續關注和塑造AWS業務，以取得良好的資本回報。

AWS is young, and it is still growing and evolving. We think we can continue to lead if we continue to execute with our customers’ needs foremost in mind.

AWS還很年輕，還在不斷發展和演進。我們認為，如果我們始終聚焦客戶的需求，我們將持續保持市場領先地位。

Career Choice

職業選擇計畫

Before closing, I want to take a moment to update shareowners on something we’re excited about and proud of. Three years ago we launched an innovative employee benefit — the Career Choice program, where we pre-pay 95% of tuition for employees to take courses for in-demand fields, such as airplane mechanic or nursing, regardless of whether the skills are relevant to a career at Amazon. The idea was simple: enable choice.

在結束之前，我想花一點時間向股東們介紹一些我們感到興奮和自豪的事。三年前，我們推出了一項創新的員工福利計劃－職業選擇計畫（Career Choice）。此計劃為員工預付95％的學費，供他們選修飛機修護或護理等領域的課程，無論該課程教授的技能是否與員工在Amazon的工作有關。這個計畫背後的想法很簡單：提供員工選擇權。

We know that, for some of our fulfillment and customer service center employees, Amazon will be a career. For others, Amazon might be a stepping stone on the way to a job somewhere else — a job that may require new skills. If the right training can make the difference, we want to help, and so far we have been able to help over 2,000 employees who have participated in the program in eight different countries. There’s been so much interest that we are now building onsite classrooms so college and technical classes can be taught inside our fulfillment centers, making it even easier for associates to achieve these goals.

我們很清楚，對於我們的某些配送中心和客服中心的員工而言，Amazon是他們的職業選擇。對於其他人而言，Amazon可能是通往其他工作的墊腳石，而之後的工作可能需要新技能。如果經過適當的培訓對員工有益處，我們樂於提供幫助。到目前為止，我們已經能夠幫助8個國家的2000多名員工參加了該計劃。員工們非常感興趣，我們正在建立線下教室，以便可以在我們的配送中心內教授大學課程和技術課程，從而使員工更容易實現自己的職業目標。

There are now eight FCs offering 15 classes taught onsite in our purpose-built classrooms with high-end technology features, and designed with glass walls to inspire others to participate and generate encouragement from peers. We believe Career Choice is an innovative way to draw great talent to serve customers in our fulfillment and customer service centers. These jobs can become gateways to great careers with Amazon as we expand around the world or enable employees the opportunity to follow their passion in other in-demand technical fields, like our very first Career Choice graduate did when she started a new career as a nurse in her community.

目前在8個配送中心中，設有15間專用教室提供現場授課。這些教室採用玻璃牆設計，激勵人們參與並與同儕互相鼓勵。我們認為，職業選擇計畫是一種創新方案，可以吸引優秀人才到Amazon工作，為客戶提供服務。隨著我們在全球範圍內的事業拓展，這些工作將為Amazon員工開啟偉大的職業生涯，給予員工機會追尋他們在其他領域的熱情。就像我們第一位職業選擇計畫的畢業生一樣，她在社區開始了新的護理師職涯。

I would also like to invite you to come join the more than 24,000 people who have signed up so far to see the magic that happens after you click buy on Amazon.com by touring one of our fulfillment centers. In addition to U.S. tours, we are now offering tours at sites around the world, including Rugeley in the U.K. and Graben in Germany and continuing to expand. You can sign up for a tour at www.amazon.com/fctours.

我還想邀請你參觀我們的配送中心，目前為止已有2萬4千多人報名，以了解點擊Amazon網站上的「購買」按鈕之後會發生的事。除了美國站的導覽，我們也在世界各站提供導覽，包括英國的Rugeley和德國的Graben，開放參觀的站點也會越來越多，你可以在www.amazon.com/fctours上報名參加。

Marketplace, Prime, and Amazon Web Services are three big ideas. We’re lucky to have them, and we’re determined to improve and nurture them — make them even better for customers. You can also count on us to work hard to find a fourth. We’ve already got a number of candidates in work, and as we promised some twenty years ago, we’ll continue to make bold bets. With the opportunities unfolding in front of us to serve customers better through invention, we assure you we won’t stop trying.

Marketplace、Prime和AWS是我們事業的三大支柱，我們非常幸運能擁有它們。我們決心優化它們，為顧客提供更好的產品。你也可以期待我們努力尋找下一個支柱，我們已經有很多候選方案了。正如我們二十年前所承諾的那樣，我們將繼續大膽押注。在我們面前，機會不斷湧現。我們可以透過發明為客戶提供更好的服務。我們向你保證，我們將繼續努力。

As always, I attach a copy of our original 1997 letter. Our approach remains the same, because it’s still Day 1.

如同往常，我把我們在1997年寫的致股東信附在文末。我們的價值觀依然不變，今天依舊是第一天。

Jeffrey P. Bezos

Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Amazon.com, Inc.

傑夫·貝佐斯

Amazon創始人暨CEO

以上就是2014年Amazon致股東信。

想看隔年的Amazon致股東信，請至《2015年Amazon致股東信：如何成為史上最快達到年銷售額千億美元的公司？》。

想看全系列導讀目錄，請至《Amazon 1997–2019年致股東信導讀目錄》。