To our shareowners:
致我们的股东:
As regular readers of this letter will know, our energy at Amazon comes from the desire to impress customers rather than the zeal to best competitors. We don't take a view on which of these approaches is more likely to maximize business success. There are pros and cons to both and many examples of highly successful competitor-focused companies. We do work topay attention to competitors and be inspired by them, but it is a fact that the customer-centric way is at this point a defining element of our culture.
常读这封信的读者应该知道，我们亚马逊的能量来自于打动客户的渴望，而不是对最厉害的竞争对手的热情。我们对这两种方法哪种更有可能取得最大的商业成功没有什么看法。这两种方法都既有优点又有缺点，以竞争对手为中心并取得成功的例子也有很多。我们也关注竞争对手并从中获得灵感，但事实是，以客户为中心的方式是我们文化的决定性因素。
One advantage – perhaps a somewhat subtle one –of a customer-driven focus is that it aids a certain type of proactivity. When we're at our best, we don't wait for external pressures. We are internally driven to improve our services, adding benefits and features, before we have to. We lower prices and increase value for customers before we have to. We invent before we have to. These investments are motivated by customer focus rather than by reaction to competition. We think this approach earns more trust with customers and drives rapid improvements in customer experience – importantly –even in those areas where we are already the leader.
以顾客为中心的一个优势——也许有点微妙——是它有助于发挥主动性。当我们处于最佳状态时，我们不会等待外部压力来临。我们的内部驱动力让我们改进服务、增加益处和功能，我们不会等到不得不做才去做这些事。我们主动地降低价格，增加客户价值而不是等到不得不去这样做。我们主动发明而不是等到不得不去发明。这些投资的动机是以客户为中心，而不是对竞争的反应。我们认为这种方法赢得了客户更多的信任，推动了客户体验的快速改善——重要的是——即使在我们已经处于领先地位的领域也是如此。
"Thank you. Every time I see that whitepaper on the front page of Amazon, I know that I'm about to get more for my money than I thought I would. I signed up for Prime for the shipping, yet now I get movies, and TV and books. You keep adding more, but not charging more. So thanks again for the additions. " We now have more than 15 million items in Prime, up 15x since we launched in 2005. Prime Instant Video selection tripled in just over a year to more than 38,000 movies and TV episodes. The Kindle Owners' Lending Library has also more than tripled to over 300,000 books, including an investment of millions of dollars to make the entire Harry Potterseries available as part of that selection. We didn't "have to" make these improvements in Prime. We did so proactively. A related investment – amajor, multi-year one – is Fulfillment by Amazon. FBA gives third-party sellers the option of warehousing their inventory alongside ours in our fulfillment center network. It has been a game changer for our seller customers because their items become eligible for Prime benefits, which drives their sales, whileat the same time benefitting consumers with additional Prime selection.
“谢谢你们。每次我在亚马逊首页看到那份白皮书，我就知道我买到的会比我想象的多。我参加了Prime计划，但现在我有了电影和电视，还有书。你不断增加服务，但不多收费。再次感谢你们增加服务。“我们现在在Prime有超过1500万件商品，自2005年推出以来增长了15倍。一年多一点的时间里，Prime Instant Video的内容翻了三番，超过38000部电影和电视剧。Kindle所有者借阅图书馆的图书数量也增加了两倍多，达到30多万册，其中包括投资数百万美元，使整个《哈利·波特》系列成为精选图书的一部分。我们没有“必须”在Prime中进行这些改进。我们主动这样做了。一项相关的投资——一项主要的多年投资——是亚马逊的“履行”服务（FBA）。FBA为第三方卖家提供了在我们的履约中心网络中与我们的库存一起入库的选项。对于我们的卖家客户来说，这是一个游戏规则的改变者，因为他们的商品有资格享受Prime的好处，这推动了他们的销售，同时也为消费者提供了额外的优惠选择。
We build automated systems that look for occasions when we've provided a customer experience that isn't up to our standards, and those systems then proactively refund customers. One industry observer recently received an automated email from us that said, "We noticed that you experienced poor video playback while watching the following rental on Amazon Video On Demand: Casablanca. We're sorry for the inconvenience and have issued you a refund for the following amount: $2.99. We hope to see you again soon. "Surprised by the proactive refund, he ended up writing about the experience: "Amazon 'noticed that I experienced poor videoplay back…' And they decided to give me a refund because of that? Wow…Talk about putting customers first. "
我们构建自动化系统去寻找我们提供的客户体验不符合我们标准的情况，然后这些系统主动向客户退款。一位行业观察家最近收到了一封来自我们的自动邮件，邮件中写道:“我们注意到您在亚马逊视频点播卡萨布兰卡时，视频播放效果很差。我们对给您带来的不便表示歉意，并已向您退款如下金额：$2.99。我们希望很快再见到你。”他对亚马逊主动退款感到惊讶，最后写下了自己的经历:“亚马逊注意到我的视频播放效果很差……因此他们决定给我退款？哇…讨论一下把顾客放在第一位。”
When you pre-order something from Amazon, weguarantee you the lowest price offered by us between your order time and theend of the day of the release date. "I just received notice of a $5 refundto my credit card for pre-order price protection. . . What a great way to do business! Thank you very much for your fair and honest dealings. "Mostcustomers are too busy themselves to monitor the price of an item after theypre-order it, and our policy could be to require the customer to contact us andask for the refund. Doing it proactively is more expensive for us, but it alsosurprises, delights, and earns trust.
当您从亚马逊预购商品时，我们保证在您的订购时间和发布日期之间提供最低价格。“我刚刚收到通知，我的信用卡将获得5美元退款，因为下单前价格保护…… 这样做生意真是太好了！非常感谢你们公平和诚实的交易。”大多数顾客自己都太忙了，以至于在他们预定商品后无法监控其价格，我们可以把政策设置成要求顾客联系我们并要求退款。主动去做对我们来说更昂贵，但它也让我们惊喜、愉悦并赢得信任。
We also have authors as customers. Amazon Publishing has just announced it will start paying authors their royalties monthly, sixty days in arrears. The industry standard is twice a year, and that has been the standard for a long time. Yet when we interview authors as customers, infrequent payment is a major dissatisfier. I magine how you'd like it if you were paid twice a year. There isn't competitive pressure to pay authors more than once every six months, but we're proactively doing so. By the way – though the research was taxing, I struggled through and am happy to report that I recently saw many Kindles in use at a Florida beach. There are five generations of Kindle, and I believe I saw every generation in use except for the first. Our business approach is to sell premium hardware at roughly breakeven prices. We want to make money when people use our devices – not when people buy our devices. We think this aligns us better with customers. For example, we don't need our customers to be on the upgrade treadmill. We can be very happy to see people still using four-year-old Kindles!
我们也把作家作为顾客。亚马逊出版公司刚刚宣布，将开始每月向作者支付版税，60天账期。行业标准是一年两次，这样已经很长时间了。然而，当我们把作者看做是顾客时，不经常付款被发现是一个主要的不满意的地方。想象一下，如果你一年拿两次工资，你会是什么心情。不存在每六个月向作者支付一次以上报酬的竞争压力，但我们正积极主动地这样做。顺便说一句——尽管这项研究很费力，但我还是努力完成了，并且很高兴地报告说，我最近在佛罗里达的一个海滩上看到了许多人在用kindle。Kindle有五代，我相信除了第一代之外，每一代都在被使用。我们的经营方式是以大致盈亏平衡的价格出售硬件。我们想在人们使用我们的设备时产生收入，而不是在人们购买我们的设备时。我们认为这能让我们更好地与客户保持一致。例如，我们不会逼迫客户进行硬件升级，我们可以非常高兴地看到人们仍然在使用四年前的Kindle！
I can keep going – Kindle Fire's FreeTime,our customer service Andon Cord, Amazon MP3's AutoRip– but will finish up with a very clear example of internally driven motivation: Amazon Web Services. In 2012, AWS announced 159 new features and services. We've reduced AWS prices 27 times since launching 7 years ago, added enterprise service support enhancements, and created innovative tools to help customers be more efficient. AWS Trusted Advisor monitors customer configurations, compares them to known best practices, and then notifies customers where opportunities exist to improve performance, enhance security, or save money. Yes, we are actively telling customers they're paying us more than they need to. In the last 90 days, customers have saved millions of dollars through Trusted Advisor, and the service is only getting started. All of this progress comes in the context of AWS being the widely recognized leader in its area – a situation where you might worry that external motivation could fail. On the other hand, internal motivation – the drive to get the customer to say "Wow" –keeps the pace of innovation fast.
我可以继续举出例子——Kindle Fire的FreeTime[1]、我们的客户服务Andon Cord[2]和亚马逊MP3的AutoRip[3]，一个非常明显的内部驱动的例子是：亚马逊网络服务。2012年，AWS宣布了159项新功能和服务。自7年前推出以来，我们已经将AWS价格降低了27倍，添加了企业服务支持增强功能，并创建了创新工具来帮助客户提高效率。AWS可信顾问监控客户配置，将其与已知的最佳实践进行比较，然后在有机会提高性能、增强安全性或节约资金时通知客户。是的，我们正在积极地告诉客户，他们给我们的报酬比他们需要的要多。在过去的90天里，客户通过可信顾问节省了数百万美元，而这项服务才刚刚开始。所有这些进展都是在AWS成为该领域公认的领导者的背景下取得的——在这种情况下，你可能会担心外部动机会失败。另一方面，内部动机——让顾客为之惊叹的动力让创新的步伐更快。
Our heavy investments in Prime, AWS, Kindle, digital media, and customer experience in general strike some as too generous, shareholder indifferent, or even at odds with being a for-profit company. "Amazon,as far as I can tell, is a charitable organization being run by elements of the investment community for the benefit of consumers," writes one outside observer. But I don't think so. To me, trying to dole out improvements in a just-in-time fashion would be too clever by half. It would be risky in a worldas fast-moving as the one we all live in.
我们在Prime、AWS、Kindle、数字媒体和客户体验方面的大量投资总的来说让一些人觉得我们过于慷慨，对股东漠不关心，甚至与盈利公司格格不入。“据我所知，亚马逊是一个慈善组织，由投资团体为了消费者的利益而运作，”一位外部观察家写道。但我不这么认为。对我来说，试图到不得不改进的时候才改进的方法过于精明，在我们生活的这个快速发展的世界里，这是很危险的。
More fundamentally, I think long-term thinking squares the circle. Proactively delighting customers earns trust, which earns more business from those customers, even in new business arenas. Take along-term view, and the interests of customers and shareholders align.
更根本的是，我认为长期思考才能起作用。主动取悦客户会赢得信任，从而从这些客户那里赢得更多业务，即使是在新的业务领域。从长远来看，客户和股东的利益是一致的。
As I write this, our recent stock performance has been positive, but we constantly remind ourselves of an important point – as I frequently quote famed investor Benjamin Graham in our employee all-hands meetings – "In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run, it is a weighing machine. "We don't celebrate a 10% increase in the stock price like we celebrate excellent customer experience. We aren't 10% smarter when that happens and conversely aren't 10% dumber when the stock goes the other way. We want to be weighed, and we're always working to build a heavier company.
在我写这篇文章的时候，我们最近的股票表现很积极，但我们不断提醒自己重要的一点——正如我在员工全体会议上经常引用著名投资者本杰明·格拉哈姆的话“从短期来看，市场是一台投票机，但从长期来看，它是一台称重机。”我们不会像庆祝卓越的客户体验一样庆祝股价上涨10%。股价10%的涨跌不会让我们更聪明10%也不会让我们更愚蠢10%。我们想要被称重而不是被投票，我们总是在努力建立一个更有重量的公司。
As proud as I am of our progress and our inventions, I know that we will make mistakes along the way – some will be self-inflicted, some will be served up by smart and hard-working competitors. Our passion for pioneering will drive us to explore narrow passages, and, unavoidably, many will turn out to be blind alleys.
尽管我对我们的进步和发明感到自豪，但我知道在前进的道路上我们会犯错误，有些是自己造成的，有些是聪明勤奋的竞争对手间接造成的。我们对开拓的热情会驱使我们探索狭窄的道路，不可避免地，许多探索的路会变成死胡同。
But – with a bit of good fortune – there will also be a few that open up into broad avenues.
但是——如果运气好的话——也有一些会通向广阔的大道。
I am incredibly lucky to be a part of this largeteam of outstanding missionaries who value our customers as much as I do andwho demonstrate that every day with their hard work. As always, I attach a copyof our original 1997 letter. Our approach remains the same, and it's still Day1.
我非常幸运能成为这个杰出传教士团队的一员，他们和我一样重视我们的顾客，每天都用他们的辛勤工作来证明这一点。一如既往，我附上一份我们1997年信件的原件。我们的方法保持不变，今天仍然是互联网的第一天。
JeffreyP. Bezos
杰弗里·贝佐斯
Founderand Chief Executive Officer
Amazon.com, Inc.
亚马逊创始人兼首席执行官
April2013
2013年4月
[1]译者注：通过此项功能，家长通过在平板上设置Freetime模式，能够管理自家小孩玩平板，比如设定玩平板的时长、限制小孩上一些网站、监督孩子都在平板上干什么。孩子如果要退出Freetime模式则需家长输入密码。
[2]译者注：即一旦有超过两名客户投诉同一产品的同一问题，无论此产品的销售多么火爆，可以在短期内给公司带来多高的进账，客服专员都可直接将此产品下架，直到缺陷解决才会重新上架。
[3]译者注：通过该服务消费者在亚马逊购买 CD 后都可以免费获得相应的 MP3 版。而获赠的数字音乐可以在Kindle Fire HD、Kindle Fire、Android 以及 iOS 设备上播放