今年早些时候，亚马逊超越美国商超巨头沃尔玛，成为全球年度销售额最高的企业。1995 年，杰夫・贝索斯在一间出租车库创立亚马逊，最初只是一家线上书店，如今它为何在西方市场几乎没有实力强劲的竞争对手？

尽管沃尔玛等大型零售商都在快速拓展线上业务，但目前亚马逊依旧遥遥领先所有对手。在美国线上零售市场中，亚马逊占据 40.5% 的市场份额，而排名第二的竞争对手沃尔玛仅占 9.2%。

诸多因素共同作用，使得亚马逊极难被同行抗衡。首先是先发优势，让它比多数竞争对手更快抢占市场份额。同样重要的是，公司股东能够容忍企业常年处于亏损状态，后期又将早期获得的利润大规模重新投入业务，推动企业不断发展壮大。

如今亚马逊能够依靠旗下盈利最高的业务，也就是其核心盈利支柱亚马逊云科技，来维持利润偏低的零售业务运营。将自身定位为科技企业也为其发展助力不少，借助算法与数据有效提升整体运营效率。

专家指出了两大关键举措：2000 年向第三方卖家开放平台，由此形成强大的网络效应。入驻商家越多，商品种类就越丰富，既留住消费者、避免用户流向其他平台，又能吸引更多商家入驻。其次是推出亚马逊会员服务，用户缴纳年度会员费，便可享受免费极速配送服务以及配套的流媒体影音权益，大幅提升了用户对平台的依赖度。

一位专家表示，这是一个多项业务相互助力、协同发展的商业生态体系。

除此之外，亚马逊缺少竞争对手还有另一层原因。其部分经营行为被指控涉嫌违反竞争法规，既限制了现有竞争对手发展壮大，也阻碍了新兴电商平台崛起。

不过，亚马逊未来面临的潜在威胁并非来自传统零售行业。如今电商购物功能开始直接融入聊天机器人这类生成式人工智能平台，用户无需离开界面就能下单，这一发展将可能威胁亚马逊的统治地位。

Why Does Amazon Have No Western Rivals?

Earlier this year, Amazon overtook US superstore giant Walmart to become the world’s largest company by annual sales. But why does Amazon, launched by Jeff Bezos in 1995 as an online bookstore out of a rented garage, have so few serious rivals in the West?

While major retailers like Walmart have rapidly expanding online arms, Amazon currently towers over all its rivals. In the US, Amazon accounts for 40.5% of all online retail sales,while its nearest rival Walmart has just 9.2%.

A combination of factors has made Amazon exceptionally difficult to rival. One is a “first-mover” advantage，capturing market share faster than many rivals. Just as important was the willingness of its shareholders to allow the company to lose money for years, and later to aggressively reinvest early profits back into the business to fuel growth.

Today Amazon can use funds from its most lucrative businesses — notably Amazon Web Services (AWS), its main profit engine — to sustain its lower-margin retail operation. Positioning itself as a technology company also helped, with algorithms and data driving efficiency.

Experts point to two pivotal moves: opening the platform to third-party sellers in 2000, which created a powerful “network effect” — more sellers meant more products, which kept customers from going elsewhere and attracted even more sellers — and launching Amazon Prime, which made the platform “very sticky” through free and fast delivery in return and bundled streaming content for an annual subscription fee.

“It’s an ecosystem of multiple businesses that are reinforcing each other,” notes an expert.

But there could additionally be another reason Amazon lacks rivals – behaviour that some allege violates competition law, preventing existing competitors from growing and new ones from emerging.

Yet Amazon’s next threat may not come from another conventional retailer. E-commerce is starting to be embedded directly in generative AI interfaces like ChatGPT, letting users buy products without leaving the sites — a development that could threaten Amazon’s dominance.