科技前沿:亞馬遜開國舊將挑戰前老闆
There are few dot-com era startups more ignominious than Webvan, the online grocery business that spent over $800 million in three years before collapsing in 2001. It remains a cautionary tale for entrepreneurs like 26-year-old Toronto-raised Apoorva Mehta, whose seven-month-old business Instacart is trying to succeed in a $568 billion domestic market in which Webvan notoriously failed. In doing so, he finds himself going toe-to-toe with Amazon (AMZN) -- not to mention a swath of other competitors -- where he once worked as a software design engineer, creating complex strings of math to find the most efficient routes for shipping packages to customers.
誕生於互聯網泡沫時期的初創公司當中，最丟臉的或許莫過於Webvan。這家在線食品雜貨零售商在短短三年之內就揮霍了8億美元，最後卻在2001年破產倒閉。對於像阿普瓦•梅塔這樣的創業者而言，Webvan仍然具有警示作用。梅塔現年26歲，在多倫多長大。他創立已經七個月的Instacart公司現在正設法在Webvan當年搞臭了的的美國食品雜貨在線零售市場上獲得成功，而這個市場目前的年銷售規模已經高達5,680億美元。這樣一來，他就必須與亞馬遜（Amazon， 更不用提一大批其他競爭對手）展開針尖對麥芒的交鋒。他曾經在亞馬遜擔任軟件設計工程師，負責開發複雜的運算程序，找出送貨上門的最有效路線。"They were delivering your groceries along with Xboxes," recalls Mehta, who collaborated with AmazonFresh employees. Delivering groceries alongside traditionally higher-margin items like electronics was done to help temper the low margins and pricey overhead typically associated with procuring, storing, and shipping produce. "That may seem like an interesting idea, but how many times do you need to buy an Xbox?"
梅塔回憶說:“（亞馬遜）他們把大家訂購的食品雜貨和Xbox遊戲機一起送貨上門。”他當時曾與亞馬遜生鮮食品業務（AmazonFresh）的員工合作。之所以將食品雜貨和諸如電子產品等傳統上利潤率較高的商品一起送貨上門，是爲了幫助緩解食品雜貨利潤率低，以及通常與採購、儲存和運輸農產品相關的費用昂貴這些問題。“這可能看起來像是一個有意思的想法，但一個人會買幾次Xbox呢？”With $2.5 million from startup incubator Y Combinator, Khosla Ventures, and others, Mehta's startup approaches online groceries differently from AmazonFresh, which expanded beyond Seattle to Los Angeles earlier this month and could reach the San Francisco Bay Area later this year. AmazonFresh's expansion will reportedly rely on the construction of new warehouses near cities. Instacart uses an already existing infrastructure, one that includes well-known supermarkets and the hustle of some 200 contracted personal shoppers across the San Francisco Bay Area, where Instacart is available.
梅塔的初創公司Instacart目前已經獲得了來自創業孵化器Y Combinator、科斯拉風投公司（Khosla Ventures）及其他投資者提供的總計250萬美元的風投資金。它的在線食品雜貨零售服務平臺採用的經營方式與AmazonFresh不同。本月早些時候，AmazonFresh已從西雅圖擴展到洛杉磯，今年晚些時候可能會進一步擴展到舊金山灣區。據報道，AmazonFresh的擴展將依賴於在城區附近建造新倉庫的方式。 Instacart則利用整個舊金山灣區（Instacart目前在僅這個地區運營）已有的基礎設施，其中包括諸多知名超市，以及約200名已籤合同的個人購物配送員。
Here's how it works: Customers shop online or via mobile app, choosing from the inventories of chains like Safeway (SWY), Whole Foods (WFM), Trader Joe's, and Costco (COST), down to small, independent markets. Each order may have items from several stores. Orders with 15 items or less are eligible for one-hour delivery. Otherwise, two-hour, same-day, or a delivery at a later date and time are also options. Instacart charges a small premium based on the purchase size.
Instacart的運作方式如下：客戶在網上或者通過移動應用程序購物，從上至諸如西夫韋（Safeway）、全食（Whole Foods）、Trader Joe's及好市多（Costco）等連鎖零售商，下至規模較小的獨立超市的存貨目錄中選購商品。每個訂單可能有來自幾家商店的商品。商品數量不超過15件的訂單可以選擇一小時送貨上門。否則，可以選擇兩小時、同天，或在稍後的日期和時間送貨上門。Instacar根據購物數額收取一小筆費用。Once a customer places an order, a smartphone app notifies a personal shopper. It lets them know which store to go to, and which aisle and shelf the item is located in. To maximize efficiency, each shopper works on filling several orders at once, the equivalent of 60 or 70 items. (If a customer orders from three different stores, three personal shoppers are assigned and rendezvous afterwards to merge their purchases into one delivery.) The same app also helps shoppers deliver, suggesting routes that factor in traffic, weather, sports games, and city construction. The result: Customers get their purchases in as little as an hour.
一旦客戶下了訂單之後，一款智能手機應用程序就會通知個人購物配送員。程序會告訴他們去哪家商店，所購商品位於哪個貨架通道中的哪個貨架上。爲了最大限度地提高效率，每個購物配送員同時按幾份訂單採購商品，相當於一次購買六七十件商品。（如果一位客戶從三家商品訂購商品的話，那麼Instacart會派出三名個人購物配送員分別前往這三家商店，讓他們在購物後會合，把各自購買的商品合在一起送貨上門。）同樣這款應用程序還可以幫助購物配送員送貨上門，在對交通狀況、天氣、體育比賽和城市建設等諸多因素加以綜合考慮之後推薦配送路線。結果是：客戶可以在短短一小時之內便收到他們訂購的商品。Of all the businesses he's helped fund, Instacart remains one of the most used by Y Combinator co-founder Graham and his wife Jessica. "Instacart is one of those rare products that's surprisingly great," he says. "You don't realize how good such a thing could be till you try it." Perhaps. But Instacart has a long way to go before it achieves the reach of FreshDirect, the 11-year-old online service serving Manhattan, Philadelphia, and New Jersey. But the startup's low-cost model may lend itself better to rapid expansion. Available in the Bay Area now, Mehta wants to be in 10 major metropolitan areas by the end of next year.
Y Combinator聯合創始人格雷厄姆資助過的所有初創公司當中，Instacart仍然是他和妻子傑西卡最經常使用的服務平臺之一。 他說：“Instacart是那些卓越到驚人地步的罕見產品之一。沒試過之前，你不知道這個服務平臺會有多好。”或許吧。但Instacar在達到在線食品雜貨零售商FreshDirect的規模之前，還有很長的路要走。目前成立已11年的FreshDirect的服務範圍包括紐約曼哈頓、費城和新澤西。但是初創公司Instacart的低成本模式可能更加有助於迅速擴張。Instacart目前只在舊金山灣區提供服務，梅塔希望到明年底擴大到美國10個主要的大都市。One issue he may have to eventually deal with is the stores, with which Instacart has few official ties. (Mehta suggests several partnerships are in the works.) Instacart's ability to let users browse competitors' inventories to mix-and-match items likely won't make some chains happy. And the new "Instacart Plus" feature launched earlier this month pushes comparison shopping even further, tracking every store in its database and serving up the cheapest price for available items like that jar of peanut butter. "We may end up cannibalizing sales from stores like Safeway, but in the end, this is the best decision for the customers," says Mehta. That's a retail philosophy even his former CEO, Jeff Bezos, might agree with.
他最終可能必須面對的一個問題，Instacart與客戶選購商品的商店之間沒有多少正式的關係。（梅塔表示，他的公司正在計劃與幾家商店建立合作關係。）Instacart能夠讓用戶瀏覽競爭對手的存貨目錄，混合搭配不同商店的產品，這種做法很可能會讓部分連鎖零售商感到不滿。而本月早些時候最新推出的“Instacart Plus”本地價格最低化功能促使比價得到了進一步的推進。它旨在跟蹤這家公司數據庫中的每家商店，爲客戶提供瓶裝花生醬這類可供商品的最便宜價格。梅塔說：“我們最終可能會對西夫韋等商店的銷售造成衝擊，但最終，這對於客戶而言無疑是最好的決定。”即使是他的老東家——亞馬遜的首席執行官傑夫•貝佐斯可能也會認同這個零售理念。
