The sight of shoppers pushing supermarket trolleys¹ among a crowd of Shanghainese chowing down seafood² at a communal³ table is somewhat jarring. But this is a branch of Hema — one of 20 stores opened by Chinese ecommerce pioneer Alibaba in an effort to reimagine food shopping as more than a weekly chore carried out under the glare of fluorescent⁴ lights in a retailing⁶ shed.

一群上海人在公共餐台上吃着海鲜，旁边是推着超市手推车的购物者，这一幕似乎有点不协调。但这是盒马鲜生(Hema)的一家分店，是由中国电子商务先驱阿里巴巴(Alibaba)开设的20家店铺之一，目的是重构食品购买，使其不只是每周在零售棚的荧光灯下完成的杂事。

“Is it a store? Is it a restaurant?” asks Bruno Monteyne, a former executive at Tesco, the international grocery retailer⁷, who now follows the retail⁵ industry for Wall Street brokerage Bernstein. “I’m not sure, but it’s food experience at its best.”

国际食品零售商乐购(Tesco)前高管、如今在华尔街经纪商伯恩斯坦(Bernstein)追踪零售业的布鲁诺?蒙泰尼(Bruno Monteyne)问道：“它是商店吗？它是餐厅吗？我不确定，但它是一种极致的食品体验。”

Hema is a hybrid⁸ of ecommerce and physical shopping, calculated to appeal to a generation of Chinese consumers who live life through their smartphones. Visitors can pull live crabs⁹ out of a large tank before browsing¹⁰ the aisles¹¹ for packaged goods. They scan items as they go and pay for them via the Alipay app that has become a popular alternative to cash in China.

盒马鲜生是电子商务和实体购物的混合体，目的是吸引日常生活离不开智能手机的一代中国消费者。顾客们可以从一个大水缸取出活蟹，然后在过道中浏览包装商品。他们扫描商品，并通过支付宝(Alipay) App支付——支付宝在中国已成为高人气的现金替代品。

Many customers never set foot inside the store at all. They visit vicariously, using apps or the web platform to choose from the same wide range of branded products and fresh items, for delivery within a 3km radius¹². The store is fitted out with technology including a vertical¹³ conveyor, which helps staff serve the online orders without clogging¹⁴ up aisles or getting in the way of walk-in customers.

许多顾客从来不去店里。他们以间接方式访问，使用App或web平台从同样琳琅满目的品牌产品和新鲜食品中选择，这些商品在3公里范围内可快速送货上门。商店配备了包括垂直输送机在内的技术，可以帮助员工在不堵塞过道或者妨碍店内客户的情况下履行在线订单。

Analysts¹⁵ say the future of food shopping can be glimpsed in prosperous Chinese cities, where a surge in mass-market retail has coincided with the mobile internet’s coming of age.

分析师们表示，从繁华的中国城市可以窥见食品购物的未来——在那里，大众市场零售的大发展正好赶上移动互联网趋于成熟。

The world’s most populous¹⁶ nation already spends about 8.5 per cent of its annual grocery budget online, according to analysts at Bernstein, who reckon the proportion could reach 20 per cent by 2022. That compares with just 6.2 per cent in the UK — the most advanced western market, where chains such as Tesco have offered online shopping for two decades.

伯恩斯坦分析师表示，在这个世界上人口最多的国家，在线完成的食品支出已经占到年度食品总支出的大约8.5%，预计到2022年，该比例可能达到20%。相比之下，在最发达的西方市场英国（乐购等连锁店提供在线购物已有20年），这一比例只有6.2%。

Part of the reason that online innovation has been faster in China, says Mr Monteyne, is that the country has fewer “incumbent¹⁷, lethargic¹⁸ retailers¹⁹ doing everything they can to protect their legacy²⁰ assets and slowing down the transition”.

蒙泰尼表示，中国在线创新速度更快的部分原因在于，在这个国家，“死气沉沉的老牌零售商较少，而正是这类企业会竭力保护自己的传统资产，减缓转型”。

Many western supermarket executives have been slow to embrace ecommerce. Some complain about the thin margins²¹ of a model that burdens their staff with the work of picking products off the shelves and delivering them. Others argue that online shoppers are more analytical²² and harder to seduce²³ with eye-catching promotions²⁴.

许多西方超市的高管们迟迟不接受电子商务。一些人抱怨说，这种模式利润率太低，要让员工们从货架上拣货，然后还要送货。其他人认为，网上购物者更具分析能力，更难使用吸引眼球的促销方式来引诱他们购买。

The US has been particularly resistant²⁵ to change. Of the 2.1 per cent of American grocery spending that takes place online, a large chunk²⁶ involves specialist items such as vitamin pills, bought via general-purpose platforms such as Amazon or eBay rather than through specialist grocery websites.

美国尤其不愿变革。美国人的在线食品杂货支出比例只有2.1%，而且有很大一部分涉及维生素药丸等特殊商品，而且往往是通过亚马逊(Amazon)或eBay等通用平台（而非专业的食品超市网站）购买。

Still, if retail executives were once reluctant to meddle²⁷ with a business model that yielded healthy profits, they are beginning to see caution as riskier²⁸ than change.

话虽如此，如果说零售业高管曾经不愿搅乱一个产生健康利润的商业模式，那么他们正开始认识到，谨慎比应变的风险更大。

When Amazon bought Whole Foods, an upmarket grocery chain, in June, the ecommerce group’s market value increased by more than the $13.7bn it had offered to pay, in what was by far the company’s largest acquisition to date.

今年6月亚马逊收购高档连锁食品超市全食(Whole Foods)后，这家电商集团的市值增加额超过了它开出的137亿美元收购报价。这是该公司迄今为止遥遥领先的最大收购。

Meanwhile, shares in rivals such as Kroger, Target and Sprouts²⁹ Farmers Market suffered sharp percentage declines. The financial fallout reached as far as Europe, where Tesco, J Sainsbury and Carrefour also suffered.

与此同时，克罗格(Kroger)、Target和Sprouts Farmers Market等竞争对手的股价大幅下跌。金融冲击甚至波及欧洲，那里的乐购、森宝利(J Sainsbury)和家乐福(Carrefour)股价也纷纷下跌。

While Amazon has long dabbled³⁰ in grocery sales — launching Amazon Fresh in Seattle in 2007 and expanding to other large American cities over the past decade — the Whole Foods deal appeared to signal a change of pace, and prompted grocery chains to look for quick ways to adapt.

虽然亚马逊早就试水食品销售——2007年在西雅图推出亚马逊生鲜(Amazon Fresh)，并在过去10年里扩张进入美国其他大城市——但全食交易似乎预示着步伐出现变化，促使各食品连锁超市设法快速适应。

In the US, many retailers are turning to Instacart, the venture-capital backed start-up that puts supermarkets’ product ranges online and dispatches personal shoppers to deliver the goods to customers’ doors.

在美国，许多零售商转向Instacart，这家风险资本支持的初创公司将超市的产品系列放在网上，并由拣货员将商品送到客户家门口。

Others, such as Walmart, prefer to make their own way online. America’s largest retailer now allows customers to order groceries online and pick them up quickly in store. Ahold Delhaize, the owner of Food Lion and Stop & Shop, offers its Peapod home shopping app in 24 US cities, and lets customers order food by dictating³¹ commands via Amazon’s voice assistant, Alexa.

沃尔玛(Walmart)等其他零售商更喜欢自己发展在线销售业务。美国最大零售商现在允许客户在线订购食品杂货，然后在店内快速提货。Food Lion和Stop & Shop的所有者Ahold Delhaize在美国24座城市提供Peapod居家购物App，并让客户通过亚马逊的语音助手Alexa发出购买食品的指令。

Despite the shifts in behaviour that are likely to take shape as consumers move to food shopping online, few retail experts expect an assault from Amazon to sound the death knell³² of major supermarket groups, as it did for independent bookstores.

尽管随着消费者转向网上购买食品，购物行为可能逐渐转变，但很少有零售专家预计亚马逊将会敲响大型超市集团的丧钟，就像当年它压垮独立书店那样。

Mr Monteyne says that established supermarkets have formidable advantages in buying fresh food at scale and shuttling it around the country cheaply and quickly enough to turn a profit, despite low margins and short shelf lives.

蒙泰尼表示，尽管利润率低和保质期短，但老牌超市有着令人生畏的优势，它们善于大规模购买新鲜食品，然后在全国范围低成本而快速地配送这些食品，确保盈利。

Tesco’s chief executive Dave Lewis agrees. Amazon, he says, has recognised “that food through a central distribution model doesn’t seem to be working, having tried it for more than a decade in [their] hometown, Seattle”.

乐购首席执行官戴夫?刘易斯(Dave Lewis)对此表示同意。他说，亚马逊认识到“食品似乎不适合中央配送模式，它们在老家西雅图已经尝试了10多年”。

The way he sees it, the newcomers in internet groceries are the ones playing catch-up. “They are trying to buy things that we, as Tesco, already have,” he says.

在他看来，互联网食品零售业的新入行者正在追赶。他表示：“他们正试图购买我们乐购已经拥有的东西。”