Amazon.com Inc plans to close its domestic marketplace business in China by mid-July, people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday, focusing efforts on its more lucrative businesses selling overseas goods and cloud services in the world's most populous country.
知情人士17日对路透社称，亚马逊公司计划在今年7月中旬前关闭其在中国的本土电商业务，将业务重点转移至更有盈利空间的海外购和云服务上。
电商平台一般有自营（proprietary trading）和第三方卖家（the third-party sellers）两种基础销售方式。自营就是平台自己经营销售商品，第三方卖家则可以利用平台的服务自己开店。
而我们经常听到的直销（direct selling）指厂家直接销售商品和服务，直销者绕过传统批发商或零售渠道，直接向消费者推销产品的方式。
亚马逊在一份声明中表示：
We are notifying sellers we will no longer operate a marketplace on Amazon.cn, and we will no longer be providing seller services on Amazon.cn effective July 18.
我们正在通知商户，从7月18日起，不再运营亚马逊中国电商业务，并停止在亚马逊中国网址提供卖家服务。We are working closely with our sellers to ensure a smooth transition and will continue to deliver the best customer experience possible. Sellers interested in continuing to sell on Amazon outside of China are able to do so through Amazon Global Selling.
我们正在与卖家紧密协作，确保顺利过渡，同时也将继续尽力提供最好的客户体验。有兴趣通过亚马逊在中国以外地区出售商品的卖家可以加入亚马逊全球开店业务。Users logging onto Amazon's Chinese site after July 18 will see products sold from its global store.
7月18日后，用户登录亚马逊中国网站会看到海外购商家的产品。
亚马逊中国的官网显示，目前亚马逊在中国布局的核心战略业务包括以亚马逊海外购（Global Store）和亚马逊全球开店（Global Selling）为中心的跨境电子商务（cross-border e-commerce），涵盖纸书、Kindle电子书阅读器和电子书的亚马逊阅读（Amazon Reading），亚马逊物流运营（Amazon Logistics）和亚马逊云计算服务（Amazon Web Services，AWS）。
据了解，未来三个月，亚马逊还将关闭中国本土的配送中心。
Amazon expects to close fulfillment centers and wind down its support for domestic-selling merchants in China in the next 90 days, one of the people said.
一位知情人士说，亚马逊预计将在未来90天内关闭物流中心，并逐步减少对中国内销商户的支持。
竞争力不敌本土电商，丧失优势
Amazon, the world's largest online retailer, bought local Chinese online shopping website Joyo.com in 2004 for $75 million and rebranded it as Amazon China in 2011.
全球最大的在线零售商亚马逊于2004年斥资7500万美元收购了中国本土在线购物网站卓越网，并于2011年将其更名为亚马逊中国。
The company's China marketplace struggled to gain a foothold in the country's fiercely competitive e-commerce market.
该公司的中国商城难以在竞争激烈的中国电子商务市场站稳脚跟。
凯度消费者指数大中华区总经理虞坚表示：“在我们所监测到的数据中，亚马逊在快消品的中国市场占比连1%都不到。现在品牌的营销资源只会投放在头部的两三家，亚马逊中国没有特别的优势。”
Consumer insights firm iResearch Global said that Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's Tmall marketplace and JD.com held 81.9 percent of the Chinese market last year.
消费者研究公司艾瑞咨询表示，阿里巴巴集团旗下的天猫和京东去年占据了中国市场81.9%的份额。
Amazon launched Amazon Prime in China, the first unlimited free cross-border shipping membership program globally in October 2016, in an attempt to lure the rising number of quality-conscious Chinese buyers to buy foreign products.
2016年，亚马逊在中国推出首个全球Prime会员服务，可享受全球商品无限次免运费，希望以此吸引越来越多看重品质的中国买家购买外国商品。
但在中国，很多电商都提供零门槛的免运费服务，Prime会员也就失去了吸引力。
亚马逊回应：继续在中国投资和发展
Over the past few years, we have been evolving our China online retail business to increasingly emphasize cross-border sales, and in return we've seen very strong response from Chinese customers.
过去几年，我们一直在把中国的在线零售业务重心逐步转向跨境业务，同时，我们也看到了中国客户的积极反馈。
It will retain its other operations in China, such as cloud computing services. It will also continue to sell its Kindle e-readers and content in the country.
亚马逊将继续保留在中国的云计算服务等其他业务，同时也将继续销售Kindle和电子书。
Amazon's commitment to China remains strong. We have built a solid foundation here in a number of successful businesses and we will continue to invest and grow in China.
亚马逊在中国的发展意愿依旧强烈。我们通过多个成功的业务已在中国建立了坚实的基础，会继续在中国投资和发展。
- 跨境电商 cross-border e-commerce
- 消费升级 consumption upgrade
- 购物清单 shopping list
- 实体零售商 brick-and-mortar retailer
- 新零售 new retail
- 剁手党 shopaholics
- 购物狂欢 shopping spree
- 大减价 slash prices
- 代购 private overseas shopping representative/procurement service
- 海淘 buy products from overseas websites
- 直邮 direct delivery
- 免运费 free shipping/delivery
