Part 2 Intensive Reading

Text A China’s Other E-commerce Giant Follows Its Own Path

JD is a product of its founder’s ambitions. The son of a cargo shipowner, Mr. Liu grew up in a small city of east China’s Jiangsu Province, before arriving in Beijing to study sociology at Renmin University.

During his spare time in college, he wrote software code and earned enough money to buy a small restaurant near campus.After college, Liu Qiangdong worked briefly for a Japanese company before going into business for himself. He rented space at an electronics market in the city’s high-tech zone,

software code：軟件代碼

go into business：創(chuàng)業(yè)

called Zhongguancun, to sell software and electronics, including compact disc burners. Within a few years, he owned brick-andmortar electronics shops in three cities.

In 2004, when his stores began selling goods on the web,online shopping was just beginning to take shape in China, led by start-ups like Dangdang, Joyo and Alibaba’s Taobao site. JD,whose English name at the time was 360Buy.com, thrived on low prices and fast delivery, part of its motto today.

With money running low in 2006, Mr. Liu sought US $2 million from a Hong Kong SAR China venture capital fir. The?rm, Capital Today, put up US $10 million instead, for a large minority stake. The stake is now worth close to US $2.4 billion,even after the ?rm sold some of its shares.

The capital injection helped JD expand its product offering beyond electronics and develop new systems and software. The expansion, in turn, helped lure bigger investors, such as the Waltons, the family behind Walmart Stores.

While Alibaba’s marketplace serves as a platform to connect buyers and sellers, JD buys goods from manufacturers and distributors and holds the inventory in its own warehouses, in a model that like Amazon’s.

In 2007, JD started building an integrated logistics network from scratch, promising to cater to customers from click to dropoff.

Today, the company has seven fulfillment centersand 118 warehouses in 39 cities. There are also 1,045 smaller pickup centers in about 500 cities.

Analysts call JD’s business model “a combination of Amazon and UPS”; other analysts say the company is beginning to look like Wal-Mart, focus on logistics and infrastructure and backed by a website.

JD has made it clear they will not only be a retailer but also an online supply chain and ?nance company. Retail is not profitable but it offers trading volume and cash flow. In the future, the main profits will come from finance and the supply chain.

Long overshadowed by its rival Alibaba, JD has emerged as China’s other online giant by carving out its own distinct identity.

compact disc burner：光盤刻錄機(jī)

brick-and-mortar：實(shí)體店

start-up：新創(chuàng)企業(yè)

thrive on：以……興旺/蓬勃發(fā)展

venture capital firm：風(fēng)險(xiǎn)投資公司

put up：提供

minority stake：少數(shù)股權(quán)

capital injection：資本注入；注資

manufacturer：廠商；生產(chǎn)商

distributor：批發(fā)商；分銷商

inventory：庫(kù)存清單

warehouse：倉(cāng)庫(kù)

logistics：物流

from scratch：白手起家，從零做起

click：點(diǎn)擊

fulfillment center：物流中心

pickup center：自提中心

business model：商業(yè)模式

infrastructure：基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施

online supply chain：網(wǎng)絡(luò)供應(yīng)鏈

trading volume:交易量

cash flow：現(xiàn)金流

Text B Major Types of E-commerce

There are a variety of different types of e-commerce and many different ways to characterize them. For the most part,we distinguish different types of e-commerce by the nature of the market relationship—who is selling to whom, like B2C,B2B, C2C, O2O, the exceptions are P2P (peer-to-peer) and m-commerce, which are technology-based types.

m-commerce：移動(dòng)電子商務(wù)

1. Major Business-to-Consumer (B2C) Business Models (see Picture 1.1)

Picture 1.1 B2C Shopping Process

Consumer shopping on the Web (or companies sell their finished product to consumers on the Web), often called B2C.Within this category, seven different B2C business models are:portals (such as Yahoo, MSN), online retailers (often called“e-tailers”, which refer to “brick-and-clicks” like Wal-Mart,“manufacturer-direct” Dell.com, and “virtual merchant” Amazon,JD.com), content providers(like CNN.com), transaction brokers (like Hotels.com), market creator (eBay’s auction business model), service provider (Google Maps and Gmail) and community provider (Facebook, Twitter).

finished product：產(chǎn)品；最終產(chǎn)品

portal：門戶網(wǎng)站

e-tailer：電子商務(wù)零售商

brick-and-click：結(jié)合在線電子商務(wù)和傳統(tǒng)零售渠道的公司

virtual：虛擬的

transaction broker：網(wǎng)絡(luò)交易經(jīng)紀(jì)人

2. Major Business-to- Business (B2B) Business Models (see Picture 1.2)

Transactions conducted between businesses on the Web(companies might purchase the materials they use to make the products from the other companies on the Web), often called B2B (sometimes called e-procurement). There are two primary business models used within the B2B world: (1) Net marketplaces,which include e-distributors (supply products ＆ services directly to individual businesses, like Grainger.com), e-procurement companies (create and sell access to digital electronic markets,such as Ariba use “value chain management” software help both vendors and purchasers organize their procurement process),exchanges (independently owned vertical digital marketplace for direct inputs, like www.ChemNet.com)etc. (2) Private industry networks, which include single firm networks (e.g. Wal-Mart,P＆G) and industry wide networks.

Picture 1.2 B2B Network

e-procurement：電子采購(gòu)；網(wǎng)上采購(gòu)

e-distributor：電子分銷商

value chain management：價(jià)值鏈管理

vendor：賣主；供應(yīng)商

purchaser：買家

exchange：（垂直）交易所

3. Other E-commerce Business Models

C2C (Consumer -to- Consumer) (see Picture 1.3) provides a way for consumers to sell to each other, with the help of an online market maker such as the auction site eBay, www.taobao.com.

Picture 1.3 C2C Model

O2O (online to offline) (see Picture 1.4), which means?nding consumers online and brings them into real-world stores.The consumer can purchase and make online payment, while the store can push the store information, promotion, products or services to consumer’s smartphone, e. g. meituan.com, ganji.com and the taxi-hailing APP, Didi Taxi.

APP：計(jì)算機(jī)應(yīng)用程序

Picture 1.4 O2O Model

P2P (Peer-to-Peer) (see Picture 1.5) networks make money by encouraging a very large audience of Internet users to share files, and in the process, expose the audience to advertising messages. P2P networks are in essence advertising networks.Widely used P2P networks include BitTorrent (which is used for downloading large video ?les) and eMule.

Picture 1.5 P2P Model

Picture 1.6 M-commerce model

M-commerce (mobile commerce) (see Picture 1.6), refers to the use of wireless digital devices to enable transactions on the web. It involves the use of wireless networks to connect laptops,smart phones to the web. Once connected, mobile consumers can conduct transactions, including stock trade, in-store price comparisons, banking, travel reservations, and more.

Finally, you will also note that some companies use multiple business models. For instance, eBay can be considered a B2C market maker. At the same time, eBay can also be considered to have a C2C business model and a B2C m-commerce business as well (customers can bid on auctions from their smart phones or wireless web devices). You can expect many companies will have closely related B2B, B2C, and m-commerce variations on their basic business model. The purpose will be to use investments and assets developed with one business model into a new business model.

wireless digital device：數(shù)字無線傳輸設(shè)備

in-store price: 庫(kù)存價(jià)格；店內(nèi)的價(jià)格

New words and Expressions