2002年Amazon致股東信：品項持續增加，價格持續下降｜見識之旅

導讀

這封信是2002年Amazon的第6封致股東信。

上一封信中，Jeff Bezos提到Amazon已經開始降價，而且將持續不斷的降價，使消費者可以用最低的價格買到最多的商品。

所謂最低的價格，不是在短期之內為少量產品打折，而是每天降低價格，並將降價政策推廣在所有產品上。

Jeff Bezos向股東宣告：Amazon要提供最好的客戶體驗以及最低的價格。

然而，這兩件事情看起來是矛盾的。顧客支付更低的價格，就意味著Amazon收到更少的錢。這可能會讓Amazon沒有錢可以用於持續優化客戶體驗。

Jeff Bezos在這封信回答了這個問題。

好了，導讀結束，以下致股東信正文開始。

正文

To our shareholders:

致我們的股東：

In many ways, Amazon.com is not a normal store. We have deep selection that is unconstrained by shelf space. We turn our inventory 19 times in a year. We personalize the store for each and every customer. We trade real estate for technology (which gets cheaper and more capable every year). We display customer reviews critical of our products. You can make a purchase with a few seconds and one click. We put used products next to new ones so you can choose. We share our prime real estate — our product detail pages — with third parties, and, if they can offer better value, we let them.

從很多方面來看，Amazon不是一間一般的商店。我們的商品品項極多，不受貨架空間限制。我們的庫存每年可以周轉19次。我們為每位客人打造客製化商店。我們出售房產，只為技術。我們顯示用戶對產品的評論。你可以只用幾秒鐘和一個按鍵，買到想要的東西。我們把二手商品放在新品旁邊供你選擇。我們與第三方合作夥伴分享我們最有價值的資產－產品詳細資訊頁。如果他們運用產品明細頁，能提供消費者的價值比我們更高，我們很樂意他們這麼做。

One of our most exciting peculiarities is poorly understood. People see that we’re determined to offer both world-leading customer experience and the lowest possible prices, but to some this dual goal seems paradoxical if not downright quixotic. Traditional stores face a time-tested tradeoff between offering high-touch customer experience on the one hand and the lowest possible prices on the other. How can Amazon.com be trying to do both?

最令人感到興奮的特點之一是，我們所知甚少。我們決心提供世界領先的客戶體驗和最低價格，人們看到了，但也對此有些疑惑。傳統商店也面臨如何平衡這兩者的考驗，一方面是要提高客戶體驗，另一方面是要盡可能降低價格。Amazon如何做到這看似矛盾的兩件事？

The answer is that we transform much of customer experience — such as unmatched selection, extensive product information, personalized recommendations, and other new software features — into largely a fixed expense. With customer experience costs largely fixed (more like a publishing model than a retailing model), our costs as a percentage of sales can shrink rapidly as we grow our business. Moreover, customer experience costs that remain variable — such as the variable portion of fulfillment costs — improve in our model as we reduce defects. Eliminating defects improves costs and leads to better customer experience.

答案就是我們會把客戶體驗（多樣化的選擇、豐富的產品資訊、個人化推薦和其他新的功能）轉為固定費用。隨著業務增長，我們的成本占銷售額的比例會迅速降低。此外，當我們減少產品的缺陷時，我們控制成本的能力將會越來越好，並提供更好的客戶體驗。

We believe our ability to lower prices and simultaneously drive customer experience is a big deal, and this past year offers evidence that the strategy is working.

我們認為，降低價格並同時提升客戶體驗的能力非常重要，過去一年的表現證實了這一點。

First, we do continue to drive customer experience. The holiday season this year is one example. While delivering a record number of units to customers, we also delivered our best-ever experience. Cycle time, the amount of time taken by our fulfillment centers to process an order, improved 17% compared with last year. And our most sensitive measure of customer satisfaction, contacts per order, saw a 13% improvement.

首先，我們會持續提升客戶體驗。今年的假期就是其中一個例子。當我們為史上最多的的客戶提供服務時，我們也提供史上最好的客戶體驗。客戶中心處理一筆訂單的時間，相較於去年快了17%。我們用於衡量客戶滿意度的手段中，最敏銳的衡量方式是每筆訂單聯繫數（Contact Per Order），這個指標提升了13%。

Inside existing product categories, we’ve worked hard to increase selection. Electronics selection is up over 40% in the U.S. alone over the prior year, and we now offer 10 times the selection of a typical big box electronics store. Even in U.S. books, where we’ve been working for 8 years, we increased selection by 15%, mostly in harder-to-find and out-of-print titles. And, of course, we’ve added new categories. Our Apparel and Accessories store has more than 500 top clothing brands, and in its first 60 days, customers bought 153,000 shirts, 106,000 pairs of pants, and 31,000 pairs of underwear.

在現有的商品類別中，我們一直致力於增加商品的選項。僅在美國，電子產品的選項就增加了40%以上，我們現在可以提供選項是大型實體商店的10倍。即使是我們已經提供8年服務的圖書商品，我們也把書籍選項增加了15%，其中大部分是較難查找和絕版的書籍。當然，我們也增加了新類別。我們的服裝和配件商店目前有500多個頂級品牌，在最初的60天裡，消費者購買了15.3萬件T-Shirt、10.6萬件褲子和3.1萬條內衣。

In this year’s American Customer Satisfaction Index, the most authoritative study of customer satisfaction, Amazon.com scored an 88, the highest score ever recorded — not just online, not just in retailing — but the highest score ever recorded in any service industry. In ACSI’s words:

在最權威的客戶滿意度研究，今年的美國客戶滿意度指數中，Amazon獲得了88分，這是有史以來最高的記錄。這不只是線上銷售，也不只是零售行業，而是所有服務行業有史以來的最高記錄。 用美國客戶滿意度指數的話來說：

“Amazon.com continues to show remarkably high levels of customer satisfaction. With a score of 88 (up 5%), it is generating satisfaction at a level unheard of in the service industry…. Can customer satisfaction for Amazon climb more? The latest ACSI data suggest that it is indeed possible. Both service and the value proposition offered by Amazon have increased at a steep rate.”

「Amazon繼續保持很高的客戶滿意度，憑藉88分（上升5％）的分數，Amazon的滿意度達到服務行業前所未有的水平……。Amazon的客戶滿意度能否進一步提高？最新的美國客戶滿意度數據表明確實有可能，因為Amazon的服務和價值都以驚人的速度增長。」

Second, while focused on customer experience, we’ve also been lowering price substantially. We’ve been doing so broadly across product categories, from books to electronics, and we’ve eliminated shipping fees with our 365 day-per-year Free Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. We’ve been taking similar actions in every country in which we do business.

其次，在關注客戶體驗的同時，我們也持續降低價格。從書籍到電子產品，只要訂單超過25美元，我們就以Free Super Saver服務免除運費。我們在開展業務的每個國家都採取類似的行動。

Our pricing objective is not to discount a small number of products for a limited period of time, but to offer low prices everyday and apply them broadly across our entire product range. To illustrate this point, we recently did a price comparison versus a major well-known chain of book superstores. We did not hand pick a choice group of books against which we wanted to compare. Instead, we used their published list of their 100 bestsellers for 2002. It was a good representation of the kinds of books people buy most, consisting of 45 hardcover titles and 55 paperbacks across many different categories, including Literature, Romance, Mystery and Thrillers, Nonfiction, Children’s, Self-Help, and so on.

我們的訂價目標，不是在短期之內為少量產品打折，而是每天降低價格，並將降價政策推廣在所有產品上。為了解釋這樣的目標，我們最近做了價格研究，對比了主要的知名連鎖書店。我們不是選擇自己想要比較的書籍，而是採用2002年的暢銷排行榜前100名的書。這些書代表了客戶買最多的書籍，其中包含了45本精裝書和55本平裝書。這些書籍分佈在許多不同的類別中，包括文學，浪漫，懸疑驚悚，非虛構小說、兒童、自助工具書等等。

We priced all 100 titles by visiting their superstores in both Seattle and New York City. It took us six hours in four of their different superstores to find all 100 books on their list. When we added up everything we spent, we discovered that:

我們在西雅圖和紐約的四間超級書店裡，花了六小時才找到這100本暢銷書。當我們把所有花費加起來計算後，我們發現：

• At their stores, these 100 bestselling books cost $1,561. At Amazon.com, the same books cost $1,195 for a total savings of $366, or 23%.
• 在他們的商店中，這100本暢銷書的售價為1561美元，而在只需要1195美元。在Amazon購買的話，一共可節省366美元，即23％。
• For 72 of the 100 books, our price was cheaper. On 25 of the books, our price was the same. On 3 of the 100, their prices were better (we subsequently reduced our prices on these three books).
• 100本書中，我們有72本書的價格比較便宜，有25本一樣價錢，有3本書比較貴（我們因此調整了這三本書的價格）。
• In these physical-world superstores, only 15 of their 100 titles were discounted — they were selling the other 85 at full list price. At Amazon.com, 76 of the 100 were discounted and 24 were sold at list price.
• 在這些實體超級書店裡，有15本書是有打折的－其他85本書都是原價銷售。在Amazon的線上書店，有76本書是有打折的，其他24本以原價販售。

To be sure, you may find reasons to shop in the physical world — for instance, if you need something immediately — but, if you do so, you’ll be paying a premium. If you want to save money and time, you’ll do better by shopping at Amazon.com.

可以肯定的是，你可能會找到在實體商店購物的理由（例如立即需要某種東西），但是如果這樣做的話，你將需要支付較高的費用。 如果你想節省金錢和時間，可以到Amazon上購物。

Third, our determination to deliver low price and customer experience is generating financial results. Net sales this year increased 26% to a record $3.9 billion, and unit sales grew at an even faster 34%. Free cash flow — our most important financial measure — reached $135 million, a $305 million improvement over the prior year.

第三，我們提供低價格和高體驗的決心，正在財務表現上產生成果。今年的淨銷售額增長26%，達到創紀錄的39億美元，而單位銷售額增長更快，達到34%。我們最重要的指標－自由現金流，達到1.35億美元，比上一年增加3.05億美元。

In short, what’s good for customers is good for shareholders.

簡而言之，對客戶好就是對股東好。

Once again this year, I attach a copy of our original 1997 letter and encourage current and prospective shareowners to take a look at it. Given how much we’ve grown and how much the Internet has evolved, it’s notable that the fundamentals of how we do business remain the same.

今年也一樣，我會附上1997年第一封致股東信，鼓勵現有股東和潛在股東對此進行研究。鑑於Amazon和整個互聯網的成長變化，你可以看到我們的業務基礎始終不變。

As always, we at Amazon.com are grateful to our customers for their business and trust, to each other for our hard work, and to our shareholders for their support and encouragement.

一如既往，我們很感謝客戶的業務和信任，感謝彼此的辛勤工作，也很感謝股東的支持和鼓勵。

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2002年Amazon致股東信。

想看隔年的Amazon致股東信，請至《2003年Amazon致股東信：以長期主義思考，以客戶體驗決策》。

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