美国国家公共电台 NPR--Online retailers are feeling the pain as pandemic-driven e-commerce slows

Online retailers² are feeling the pain as pandemic-driven e-commerce slows

Transcript³

Now that the pandemic-driven e-commerce boom has slowed, small and medium businesses who sell products on Amazon are feeling the squeeze.

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

We were all buying all kinds of stuff online during the worst of the pandemic. That has slowed down now. Online retailers are feeling the pain, particularly small businesses that sell products on Amazon. Alana Semuels and Adrienne Ma from our daily economics podcast The Indicator⁴ explain why some of these third-party sellers are feeling squeezed.

ALANA SEMUELS, BYLINE⁵: At first, the pandemic was great for e-commerce. Sales jumped 36% in 2020 and then the next year, another 18%. Some people thought e-commerce was going to completely replace brick-and-mortar.

MIKE MOLSON HART: We're - e-commerce revolution. We're never going to open stores again. Everything is just going to switch 100% to e-commerce.

SEMUELS: That was Mike Molson Hart. He became a third-party seller in 2014. And he has a toy company called VIAHART

HART: But then more people flood in. And so by the beginning of 2021, there were more sellers. And then by the beginning of 2022, there are even more sellers.

SEMUELS: In 2020 alone, more than 200,000 new third-party sellers started retailing⁶ on Amazon, which is a ton more than the previous year. So to fill all the orders they think shoppers are going to make, Amazon sellers are ordering more and more and more stuff from overseas.

ADRIAN MA, BYLINE: Shipping⁷ and railroad and trucking companies, they can't move the stuff fast enough. And meanwhile, prices are going up. Transit⁸ times are slowing down. And by the end of last year, consumers were facing pretty high inflation. So what do they do? They cut back on spending on discretionary stuff, stuff they don't really have to have.

SEMUELS: And some of them also start returning to those brick-and-mortar stores.

MA: This change in consumer behavior was probably not great for Mike and a lot of other Amazon third-party sellers.

SEMUELS: Fast-forward to early '22, you have all this inventory⁹ that finally gets here. And are people stop buying it?

HART: No.

(LAUGHTER)

MA: So it turns out smallish companies like Mike's and, actually, giant ones - like Walmart and Target and even Amazon - way overestimated¹⁰ how much people were going to transition to online shopping. Remember, e-commerce is really only about 15% of retail¹ sales today.

SEMUELS: But Mike relies on Amazon for 90-something-percent of his sales. And other sellers say the same thing. They might want to sell somewhere else, but they have to go to Amazon because it's where the shoppers are.

MA: So if Amazon has a monopoly, it can pass on the costs to sellers. And they can't really do anything about it. And so that is what Amazon did this year. In the company's most recent earnings¹¹ call, it said that it is trying to offset¹² inflation by passing on more costs to third-party sellers.

HART: So in January, our costs went up, on average, 40, 45%.

SEMUELS: And those fees aren't just from Amazon. Things like pallets, those flat, wooden structures that you use to transport goods, are also getting really expensive.

You have to buy those? You can't just, like, reuse them?

HART: Amazon doesn't give us back our pallets, so we're constantly giving Amazon these. pallets.

SEMUELS: They don't give them back (laughter)?

HART: Jeff Bezos, give us back our pallets.

SEMUELS: If Mike wants to get rid of all of his inventory, he has to lower prices. The problem is...

HART: It's difficult to lower your prices when your costs are going up. You can lose money.

SEMUELS: We did reach out to Amazon about this. And Amazon said, most of the added fees are just part of its yearly adjustments. And it says it's still a pretty sweet deal for third-party sellers.

MA: Yeah. But is it really a sweet deal for shoppers? If there are fewer sellers and less competition in this Amazon marketplace, what customers could end up seeing is higher prices, fewer options and more out of stocks.

SEMUELS: Alana Semuels.

MA: Adrian Ma, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOKHOV'S "AUSPICIOUS PATH")

1 retail   

v./n.零售；adv.以零售价格

参考例句：

• In this shop they retail tobacco and sweets.这家铺子零售香烟和糖果。
• These shoes retail at 10 yuan a pair.这些鞋子零卖10元一双。

2 retailers   

零售商，零售店( retailer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• High street retailers reported a marked increase in sales before Christmas. 商业街的零售商报告说圣诞节前销售量显著提高。
• Retailers have a statutory duty to provide goods suitable for their purpose. 零售商有为他们提供符合要求的货品的法定义务。

3 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

4 indicator   

n.指标；指示物，指示者；指示器

参考例句：

• Gold prices are often seen as an indicator of inflation.黃金价格常常被看作是通货膨胀的指标。
• His left-hand indicator is flashing.他左手边的转向灯正在闪亮。

5 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

6 retailing   

n.零售业v.零售(retail的现在分词)

参考例句：

• career opportunities in retailing 零售业的职业机会
• He is fond of retailing the news. 他喜欢传播消息。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 shipping   

n.船运（发货，运输，乘船）

参考例句：

• We struck a bargain with an American shipping firm.我们和一家美国船运公司谈成了一笔生意。
• There's a shipping charge of ￡5 added to the price.价格之外另加五英镑运输费。

8 transit   

n.经过，运输；vt.穿越，旋转；vi.越过

参考例句：

• His luggage was lost in transit.他的行李在运送中丢失。
• The canal can transit a total of 50 ships daily.这条运河每天能通过50条船。

9 inventory   

n.详细目录，存货清单

参考例句：

• Some stores inventory their stock once a week.有些商店每周清点存货一次。
• We will need to call on our supplier to get more inventory.我们必须请供应商送来更多存货。

10 overestimated   

对（数量）估计过高，对…作过高的评价( overestimate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• They overestimated his ability when they promoted him. 他们提拔他的时候高估了他的能力。
• The Ministry of Finance consistently overestimated its budget deficits. 财政部一贯高估预算赤字。

11 earnings   

n.工资收人；利润，利益，所得

参考例句：

• That old man lives on the earnings of his daughter.那个老人靠他女儿的收入维持生活。
• Last year there was a 20% decrease in his earnings.去年他的收入减少了20%。

12 offset   

n.分支，补偿；v.抵消，补偿

参考例句：

• Their wage increases would be offset by higher prices.他们增加的工资会被物价上涨所抵消。
• He put up his prices to offset the increased cost of materials.他提高了售价以补偿材料成本的增加。