第六封信中英文对照:

To our shareholders:
致我们的股东：

In many ways, http://Amazon.com is not a normal store. We have deep selection that is unconstrained by shelf space. We turn our inventory 19 times in a year. We personalize the store for each and every customer. We trade real estate for technology (which gets cheaper and more capable every year). We display customer reviews critical of our products. You can make a purchase with a few seconds and one click. We put used products next to new ones so you can choose. We share our prime real estate—our product detail pages—with third parties, and, if they can offer better value, we let them.
从很多方面来看，Amazon不是一间一般的商店。我们的商品品项极多，不受货架空间限制。我们的库存每年可以周转19次。我们为每位客人打造客制化商店。我们出售房产，只为技术。我们显示用户对产品的评论。你可以只用几秒钟和一个按键，买到想要的东西。我们把二手商品放在新品旁边供你选择。我们与第三方合作伙伴分享我们最有价值的资产－产品详细信息页。如果他们运用产品明细页，能提供消费者的价值比我们更高，我们很乐意他们这么做。

One of our most exciting peculiarities is poorly understood. People see that we’re determined to offer both world-leading customer experience and the lowest possible prices, but to some this dual goal seems paradoxical if not downright quixotic. Traditional stores face a time-tested tradeoff between offering high-touch customer experience on the one hand and the lowest possible prices on the other. How can http://Amazon.com be trying to do both?
最令人感到兴奋的特点之一是，我们所知甚少。我们决心提供世界领先的客户体验和最低价格，人们看到了，但也对此有些疑惑。传统商店也面临如何平衡这两者的考验，一方面是要提高客户体验，另一方面是要尽可能降低价格。Amazon如何做到这看似矛盾的两件事？

The answer is that we transform much of customer experience—such as unmatched selection, extensive product information, personalized recommendations, and other new software features—into largely a fixed expense. With customer experience costs largely fixed (more like a publishing model than a retailing model), our costs as a percentage of sales can shrink rapidly as we grow our business. Moreover, customer experience costs that remain variable—such as the variable portion of fulfillment costs—improve in our model as we reduce defects. Eliminating defects improves costs and leads to better customer experience.
答案就是我们会把客户体验（多样化的选择、丰富的产品信息、个人化推荐和其他新的功能）转为固定费用。随着业务增长，我们的成本占销售额的比例会迅速降低。此外，当我们减少产品的缺陷时，我们控制成本的能力将会越来越好，并提供更好的客户体验。

We believe our ability to lower prices and simultaneously drive customer experience is a big deal, and this past year offers evidence that the strategy is working.
我们认为，降低价格并同时提升客户体验的能力非常重要，过去一年的表现证实了这一点。

First, we do continue to drive customer experience. The holiday season this year is one example. While delivering a record number of units to customers, we also delivered our best-ever experience. Cycle time, the amount of time taken by our fulfillment centers to process an order, improved 17% compared with last year. And our most sensitive measure of customer satisfaction, contacts per order, saw a 13% improvement.
首先，我们会持续提升客户体验。今年的假期就是其中一个例子。当我们为史上最多的的客户提供服务时，我们也提供史上最好的客户体验。客户中心处理一笔订单的时间，相较于去年快了17%。我们用于衡量客户满意度的手段中，最敏锐的衡量方式是每笔订单联系数（Contact Per Order），这个指标提升了13%。

Inside existing product categories, we’ve worked hard to increase selection. Electronics selection is up over 40% in the U.S. alone over the prior year, and we now offer 10 times the selection of a typical big box electronics store. Even in U.S. books, where we’ve been working for 8 years, we increased selection by 15%, mostly in harder-to-find and out-of-print titles. And, of course, we’ve added new categories. Our Apparel and Accessories store has more than 500 top clothing brands, and in its first 60 days, customers bought 153,000 shirts, 106,000 pairs of pants, and 31,000 pairs of underwear.
在现有的商品类别中，我们一直致力于增加商品的选项。仅在美国，电子产品的选项就增加了40%以上，我们现在可以提供选项是大型实体商店的10倍。即使是我们已经提供8年服务的图书商品，我们也把书籍选项增加了15%，其中大部分是较难查找和绝版的书籍。当然，我们也增加了新类别。我们的服装和配件商店目前有500多个顶级品牌，在最初的60天里，消费者购买了15.3万件T-Shirt、10.6万件裤子和3.1万条内衣。

In this year’s American Customer Satisfaction Index, the most authoritative study of customer satisfaction, http://Amazon.com scored an 88, the highest score ever recorded—not just online, not just in retailing—but the highest score ever recorded in any service industry. In ACSI’s words:
在最权威的客户满意度研究，今年的美国客户满意度指数中，Amazon获得了88分，这是有史以来最高的记录。这不只是在线销售，也不只是零售行业，而是所有服务行业有史以来的最高记录。 用美国客户满意度指数的话来说：

“http://Amazon.com continues to show remarkably high levels of customer satisfaction. With a score of 88 (up 5%), it is generating satisfaction at a level unheard of in the service industry…. Can customer satisfaction for Amazon climb more? The latest ACSI data suggest that it is indeed possible. Both service and the value proposition offered by Amazon have increased at a steep rate.”
「Amazon继续保持很高的客户满意度，凭借88分（上升5％）的分数，Amazon的满意度达到服务行业前所未有的水平……。Amazon的客户满意度能否进一步提高？最新的美国客户满意度数据表明确实有可能，因为Amazon的服务和价值都以惊人的速度增长。」

Second, while focused on customer experience, we’ve also been lowering price substantially. We’ve been doing so broadly across product categories, from books to electronics, and we’ve eliminated shipping fees with our 365 day-per-year Free Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. We’ve been taking similar actions in every country in which we do business.
其次，在关注客户体验的同时，我们也持续降低价格。从书籍到电子产品，只要订单超过25美元，我们就以Free Super Saver服务免除运费。我们在开展业务的每个国家都采取类似的行动。

Our pricing objective is not to discount a small number of products for a limited period of time, but to offer low prices everyday and apply them broadly across our entire product range. To illustrate this point, we recently did a price comparison versus a major well-known chain of book superstores. We did not hand pick a choice group of books against which we wanted to compare. Instead, we used their published list of their 100 bestsellers for 2002. It was a good representation of the kinds of books people buy most, consisting of 45 hardcover titles and 55 paperbacks across many different categories, including Literature, Romance, Mystery and Thrillers, Nonfiction, Children’s, Self-Help, and so on.
我们的订价目标，不是在短期之内为少量产品打折，而是每天降低价格，并将降价政策推广在所有产品上。为了解释这样的目标，我们最近做了价格研究，对比了主要的知名连锁书店。我们不是选择自己想要比较的书籍，而是采用2002年的畅销排行榜前100名的书。这些书代表了客户买最多的书籍，其中包含了45本精装书和55本平装书。这些书籍分布在许多不同的类别中，包括文学，浪漫，悬疑惊悚，非虚构小说、儿童、自助工具书等等。

We priced all 100 titles by visiting their superstores in both Seattle and New York City. It took us six hours in four of their different superstores to find all 100 books on their list. When we added up everything we spent, we discovered that:
我们在西雅图和纽约的四间超级书店里，花了六小时才找到这100本畅销书。当我们把所有花费加起来计算后，我们发现：

• At their stores, these 100 bestselling books cost $1,561. At Amazon.com, the same books cost $1,195 for a total savings of $366, or 23%.
• 在他们的商店中，这100本畅销书的售价为1561美元，而在只需要1195美元。在Amazon购买的话，一共可节省366美元，即23％。

• For 72 of the 100 books, our price was cheaper. On 25 of the books, our price was the same. On 3 of the 100, their prices were better (we
subsequently reduced our prices on these three books).
• 100本书中，我们有72本书的价格比较便宜，有25本一样价钱，有3本书比较贵（我们因此调整了这三本书的价格）。

• In these physical-world superstores, only 15 of their 100 titles were discounted— they were selling the other 85 at full list price. At Amazon.com, 76 of the 100 were discounted and 24 were sold at list price.
• 在这些实体超级书店里，有15本书是有打折的－其他85本书都是原价销售。在Amazon的在线书店，有76本书是有打折的，其他24本以原价贩卖。

To be sure, you may find reasons to shop in the physical world—for instance, if you need something immediately—but, if you do so, you’ll be paying a premium. If you want to save money and time, you’ll do better by shopping at Amazon.com.
可以肯定的是，你可能会找到在实体商店购物的理由（例如立即需要某种东西），但是如果这样做的话，你将需要支付较高的费用。 如果你想节省金钱和时间，可以到Amazon上购物。

Third, our determination to deliver low price and customer experience is generating financial results. Net sales this year increased 26% to a record $3.9 billion, and unit sales grew at an even faster 34%. Free cash flow—our most important financial measure— reached $135 million, a $305 million improvement over the prior year.
第三，我们提供低价格和高体验的决心，正在财务表现上产生成果。今年的净销售额增长26%，达到创纪录的39亿美元，而单位销售额增长更快，达到34%。我们最重要的指标－自由现金流，达到1.35亿美元，比上一年增加3.05亿美元。

In short, what’s good for customers is good for shareholders.
简而言之，对客户好就是对股东好。

Once again this year, I attach a copy of our original 1997 letter and encourage current and prospective shareowners to take a look at it. Given how much we’ve grown and how much the Internet has evolved, it’s notable that the fundamentals of how we do business remain the same.
今年也一样，我会附上1997年第一封致股东信，鼓励现有股东和潜在股东对此进行研究。鉴于Amazon和整个互联网的成长变化，你可以看到我们的业务基础始终不变。

As always, we at http://Amazon.com are grateful to our customers for their business and trust, to each other for our hard work, and to our shareholders for their support and encouragement.
一如既往，我们很感谢客户的业务和信任，感谢彼此的辛勤工作，也很感谢股东的支持和鼓励。

Jeffrey P. Bezos
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Amazon.com, Inc.
杰夫·贝索斯
Amazon创始人暨CEO

我的观点

2002年的亚马逊，也是在高速增长，确实很是羡慕。 一旦，增长的飞轮开始之后，确实就不会短时间停下来。

在这封信中，贝索斯说，亚马逊要提供世界领先的客户体验和最低的价格。

最好的客户体验和最低的价格，这似乎有点矛盾。亚马逊的做法就是把客户体验转为固定的费用。通过增长，降低固定成本在销售额的占比。
说到底就是要增长。

贝索斯是以每笔订单联系数来评价客户满意度，后面应该也是以这个指标来定义。其实我不太赞同这个指标，在电商中，客户体验是一个很难评价的标准，单一指标是很难评价的。

最低的价格，贝索斯通过与线下的商品比较，说明卖的书便宜很多，这其实也有点不好评价。 线上卖书，本来就比线下少了成本，即使便宜了23%，也无法体验线下才能体验到的东西。单纯从比价格来讲，就很不公平。