深圳KK购物中心（图片来源：Chris）

虽然经济放缓，但中国在2019年仍将超过美国，成为全球最大的零售市场。这是它成为全球电子商务和移动支付领先者的直接结果。

根据eMarketer发布的报告，今年中国整体零售市场将增长7.5%，达到5.6万亿美元左右，比美国市场高约1000亿美元。美国市场的增幅为3.5%。随着收入增加、中产阶级不断扩大和经济在政府鼓励下向着消费驱动转型，中国35%的零售将通过网络进行，预计中国将占到全球网上销售的55.8%。

更进一步说，2018年中国电子商务巨头阿里巴巴在“双十一”的前五分钟里就卖出10亿美元商品，超过美国从感恩节直到“网络星期一”的在线支出。2018年“双十一”，中国购物者的支出超过了318亿美元，比上年增加大约27%，创下公司新的纪录。仅阿里巴巴一家公司就占据中国电商销售额的53.3%。

美国零售业

相比之下，美国零售市场相对过时，企业不得不把新技术整合到旧系统和已有的基础设施中。

例如，通过收购全食超市（Whole Foods Market），亚马逊在创新业务产品和服务的同时，也投资房地产业，甚至通过“Amazon Go”无收银员项目，招揽顾客去“拿上就走”的无人超市购物。不过在美国，食品超市通常不受电子商务的影响，亚马逊看似正在制定独有的策略，利用人工智能和机器学习能力，来降低工资成本，占领老式超市和零售市场更大的份额。

让美国消费者接受新的购物方式并不那么容易。例如，盖洛普不久前的民意调查发现，84%的美国人从未在网上购买过食品杂货，这说明美国绝大多数家庭仍然依赖传统的购物方式。按照McMillandolitte咨询公司高级合伙人尼尔·斯特恩的说法，缺少对电子商务技术的利用是美国零售业面临的一大挑战，因为它们的商业战略在互联网之前时代已经逐步形成了。

中国零售业

而中国靠着更有创新性的最新技术，特别是比美国大十倍的移动支付市场，确立了自己的零售优势。随着市场和城市人口双双扩大，中国零售商自然而然会采用电子商务和移动支付的方式。此外，中国的零售文化不像美国那样起源于超市，或者是以购物商城为导向的商业模式，因此新的商业战略和自适应的零售业态反而摆脱旧的体系，在全国各地兴起。本质上说，中国零售业是天马行空的、创新的、豪放的，与大数据、电子商务和移动应用时代相吻合。相比之下，由于实体店历史悠久，加上美国消费者相对不那么情愿向技术解决方案过渡，因此美国的零售业正处在一个不确定的转型期。

中国不断增长的人口也使它宝贵的数据采集库具有无比巨大的潜力。布鲁金斯学会预测，从2015年到2022年，全球将新增十亿中产阶级，其中88%来自亚洲，而中国将贡献约3.5亿人，同时中国会有大约125个百万人口的城市。美国只有九个中心城市的人口超过100万。请记住，14亿中国人当中有7.31亿人使用网络，这些用户和他们的消费档案无疑会增加中国在零售业的优势。

两国之间的人口差异，也反映了中国与世界其他国家之间存在的巨大“数字鸿沟”，而这是无法逾越的。据报道，2017年中国的手机和互联网用户大约是美国的三倍，移动支付用户是美国的50多倍，使用食品配送服务的用户是美国的十倍多。中国约55%的网民使用移动支付服务，相比之下美国只有19%。2016年中国与消费相关的移动支付额达到7900亿美元，为美国的11倍。

不过，中国移动支付及整个电商行业的做法和经验，与中国的整体技术和人工智能政策直接相关。中国政府获得丰富数据，再结合研究与创新，将继续推动中国零售市场保持领先。

无限潜力

目前美国的人均零售支出是中国的四倍，但由于中产阶级扩大，中国零售市场扩张的潜力十分可观。百度、阿里巴巴和腾讯这三大互联网巨头都意识到了这一点，它们把大约42%的风险投资投在了数字技术上，具体说就是大数据、人工智能和金融科技。

麦肯锡全球研究所2017年的一份报告指出，数字力量将通过三个主要变化把价值从不灵活的企业转移到更敏捷的价值链和企业，这三个主要变化就是去中介化、分散化和去实体化。第一个中介化，是通过数字平台的应用“砍掉”中间商，通过数字平台直接连接供应商和消费者。第二个分散化，是把像汽车这样的大型资产“打散”，通过个人服务来实现它们的功能价值，它的主要例子是共享移动市场。最后一个去实体化，是实物向虚拟产品转变。在中国这主要发生在音乐和电子书行业。

该报告还为中国企业提出建议：1）采取大胆策略，打破自身模式，扩大客户基础；2）利用中国的数字生态系统，鼓励与“数字三巨头”合作；3）利用逻辑分析，通过中国巨大的数据宝库实现价值的最大化；4）建立更灵活的组织架构，特别是使用更小的团队；5）对完整的改造方案进行数字化运营，以支持整体经济；6）参与中国政府的政策法规数字化转型。

抓住和利用这些机会，将增加中国在零售业的主要优势。将美国和中国的措施相比较，北京目前具有三个优势。首先，政府与私人创新型数字技术公司之间的协同合作。其次，“数字鸿沟”的存在，而且它在中国数字革命中的作用越来越大。最后，不依赖旧的商业模式，尤其在零售业。这使中国企业能够在技术进步的同时自然而然地开发业务，并不断改进和发展。

事实证明，要在数字化、电子商务和移动支付的零售时代与世界其他国家竞争，曾经让美国成为零售帝国的资本结构必须被拆分，特别是那些购物商城和超市。

KK Mall in Shenzhen (Picture Credit: Chris)

Despite an economic slowdown, China is set to surpass the United States as the world's largest retail market in 2019, a direct result of its position as a global e-commerce and mobile payments leader.

This year, the overall Chinese retail market will grow 7.5% to about $5.6 trillion, roughly $100 billion more than the US market which is increasing at 3.5%, according to a report published by eMarketer. Coinciding with rising incomes, an expanding middle class, and a government-encouraged shift towards a consumer driven-economy, 35% of the country's retail sales will occur online, and China is set to comprise 55.8% of the world's online sales.

To put this into perspective, in 2018, the Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba, sold $1 billion in the first five minutes of Singles' Day, which was more than US online spending from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday. Chinese shoppers exceeded $31.8 billion on Single's Day in 2018, about 27% more than the year before, which set a new company record. Alibaba alone accounts for 53.3% of all e-commerce sales in China.

US Retail

In contrast, the US retail market is relatively outdated, and companies are forced to integrate new technology into legacy systems and existing infrastructure.

Amazon, for example, through its acquisition of Whole Foods Market, is concurrently investing in real estate while innovating its business offerings and services, even flirting with “just walk out” grocery shopping with its cashier-less Amazon Go project. However, in the US, the grocery industry has been mostly immune to the forces of e-commerce, and Amazon seems to be strategizing unique ways to harness the powers of artificial intelligence and machine learning to lower wage costs and capture larger shares of the old grocery and retail markets.

It is not particularly easy to bring US consumers onboard to new ways of shopping. For example, a recent Gallup poll found that 84% of Americans have never purchased groceries online, indicating that a vast majority of US households rely on traditional shopping. According to Neil Stern, a senior partner at the consulting firm McMillanDoolitte, lack of implementation and adoption of e-commerce technology is a significant challenge facing US retail because their business strategies evolved in the pre-Internet era.

Chinese Retail

China, however, identifies its retail edge through newer and more innovative technologies, specifically the mobile payment market, which is ten times larger than in the US. Chinese retailers somewhat naturally adopt e-commerce and mobile payment options as both the markets and their urban populations expand. Also, Chinese retail culture did not originate from supermarket or mall-oriented business models as it did in the US. Instead, new business strategies and adaptive retail formats are emerging throughout the country free from traditional systems. In essence, Chinese retail is unrestrained, innovative, expansive, and tailored to the era of big data, e-commerce, and mobile applications. In contrast, US retail is in a period of uncertain transition, due to its long-term history of brick and mortar stores and a relative reluctance of US consumers to transition to tech-driven solutions.

China's growing population also contains the massive potential for a treasure trove of data. The Brookings Institute predicted that between 2015 and 2022, 88% of the next billion people to enter the global middle class would be from Asia. China will contribute a total of approximately 350 million individuals to this figure and contains about 125 million-person cities, while the US only houses nine urban centers with populations exceeding 1 million. Keep in mind, 731 million of China's 1.4 billion citizens have access to and use of the Internet. These customers and their consumer profiles will undoubtedly add to China's superiority in retail.

The population difference between the two countries also illustrates a significant 'data gap' between China and the rest of the world, which is likely to be impossible to overcome. In 2017, it was reported that China contains roughly three times more mobile and Internet users than the US, utilizes mobile payment applications 50 times more, and uses food delivery services by more than tenfold. About 55% of Internet users in China use mobile payment services, compared to just 19% of users in the US, and in 2016, consumption-related mobile payments amounted to $790 billion in China, 11 times more than in the United States.

However, the Chinese approach and experience with implementing mobile payment services, and e-commerce in general, is directly related to its overall approach to technology and artificial intelligence. The data troves available to Beijing, in combination with research and innovation, will continue to push China forward as a leading retail market.

Limitless Potential

Currently, per capita retail spending in the US is four times greater than in China, but the potential for retail market expansion in China due to middle-class enlargement is massive. The big three Internet giants, Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent are aware of this, and invest approximately 42% of overall venture capital in digital technologies, specifically, big data, AI, and financial technology.

A 2017 McKinsey Global Institute report indicated that digital forces would shift value from less agile businesses to more nimble value chains and businesses through three primary changes: disintermediation, disaggregation, and dematerialization. First, disintermediation is the application of digital platforms to 'cut out' business 'middlemen' by linking suppliers and consumers directly through digital platforms. Second, disaggregation is the 'breaking up' of large assets like automobiles and offering their functional value through individual services. The shared mobility market is a primary example. Lastly, dematerialization is the transitioning of physical things into virtual products. In China, this is predominately occurring in the music and e-book industries.

The report also made suggestions for Chinese business to (1) adopt bold strategies to disrupt their own models and grow their customer base, (2) leverage China's digital ecosystem and encourage partnerships with the 'Big Three', (3) maximize value from China's vast data troves via analytics, (4) build more agile organizational structures, specifically with smaller teams, (5) digitalize operations on a complete transformation program to support the overall economy, and (6) engage with the Chinese government's digital transformation of policies and regulations.

These opportunities, if pursued and executed, will add to China's significant edge in retail. In comparing the US and Chinese approaches, three advantages stand out in Beijing. First, the cooperative collaboration between the government and private innovative digital technology companies. Second, the existence of the 'data gap' and its growing role in China's digital revolution. Finally, the lack of dependence on previous business models, specifically in retail, which allows Chinese companies to naturally develop business and evolve it while the technology develops.

The capitalist structures which once made the US a retail powerhouse, specifically shopping malls and supermarkets, are now testaments to what must be deconstructed in order to compete with the rest of the world in the retail era of digitalization, e-commerce, and mobile payments.