手機支付走進中國菜市場 Chinese embrace smartphone swiping for hair cuts and eels

閱讀提示:中文在上，對照英文在下

我感覺自己就像是女王：住在上海，只要我願意，我身上可以不用帶任何像現金（或信用卡）這樣的平民化的東西。

I feel like the Queen: if I chose to do so, I could live in Shanghai without carrying anything so plebeian as cash (or even credit cards).

中國消費者可以用智能手機購買幾乎任何東西並付款，很多人也確實在這麼做。早餐、午餐和晚餐？揮一揮iPhone魔杖，就有人騎電動車送上門——在“餓了麼”等外賣APP點餐通常免配送費，還經常打折。再揮一下魔杖，出租車來了，以折扣價載你出行。再揮一下，就有醫生通過電話給你看病，每次通話僅需9.9元人民幣（合1.5美元）。

Chinese consumers can (and do) swipe smartphones for almost everything. Breakfast, lunch and dinner? With a wave of the iPhone wand, it arrives on a motorbike, delivered often for free and usually at a discounted price, from food delivery apps such as (meaning “are you hungry?”). Wave it again, and a taxi appears, ready to offer a discounted ride. Wave it once more, and there’s a doctor ready to diagnose any ailment by phone for only Rmb9.9 ($1.5) per call.

這被稱爲O2O，或者“線上到線下”，瑞信(Credit Suisse)預計，O2O從現在起到2017年將以63%的複合年率增長，將達到420億元人民幣規模。線上和線下的結合很快還將走進社區菜市場這種最傳統的購物場所——屆時上海人用手機掃一掃，就能夠爲從理髮到拔牙、再到購買晚餐魚頭等各種服務和商品付款。

It’s called O2O, or “online to offline” , and is forecast to grow at a compound annual rate of 63 per cent between now and 2017, to Rmb42bn, according to Credit Suisse. The marriage of online and offline will soon come even to that most traditional of venues, the neighbourhood wet market, where Shanghainese will be able to swipe a phone to buy anything from a haircut to a tooth extraction to a fish head for supper.

浙江省東部溫州市的一家菜市場已經開始允許消費者用手機掃碼購買所有商品，用支付寶(Alipay)支付。支付寶是電商集團阿里巴巴(Alibaba)旗下的移動支付服務平臺。上海也計劃推出這類菜市場，屆時我不用掏錢包，就能買上一桶鱔魚或一條（帶蹄髈）豬腿。

A wet market in Wenzhou, in eastern Zhejiang province, has already started letting consumers wave their mobile phones at all of its goodies, and pay with Alipay, the mobile payments service affiliated to ecommerce group Alibaba. Shanghai plans to follow suit, at which point I will be able to load up on a bucket of eels or a leg of pork (with hoof attached) without pulling out my purse.

就我個人而言，購買大部分商品時，我仍寧願拿着一疊沾滿細菌、上面印着毛澤東頭像的百元鈔票付款。但其他人不願意，至少中產階級和40歲以下年輕人不願意。上海人民廣場附近受政府補貼的便民早餐車前，西裝革履的男士們在早高峯期間排隊用智能手機爲他們的饅頭或者手抓餅掃碼付賬。手抓餅是一種美味的中國式油煎薄餅。我非常贊成這種方式：如果遞給我手抓餅的人沒有接觸過那些上面沾有所有人細菌的人民幣，我會更喜歡這種食物。

Personally, I still prefer grimy, germ-laden piles of Rmb100 notes with the face of Mao Zedong on them for most of my shopping. But hardly anyone else does (or at least hardly anyone middle class and under 40). At the government-subsidised Loving Help breakfast cart near Shanghai’s People’s Square, men in suits queue up during morning rush hour to swipe their smartphones for a steamed bun or a shouzhuabing, a delectably greasy Chinese-style crepe that literally translates as “hand-grab pancake”. I’m all for that: I prefer it if the hand grabber of that pancake to serve it to me has not just been handling a wad of the people’s currency (with all the people’s bacteria on it).

在附近一幢寫字樓外面，一位“餓了麼”的派送員蹲在一個藍色隔熱保溫袋旁，他要配送顧客們預定的30多份早餐，這些人想必爲了維持不斷放緩的經濟而非常努力地工作，以致於沒有時間走上兩分鐘去附近快餐店吃早餐。我只花了4元人民幣（配送免費）就買到了煙肉蛋漢堡加咖啡。好吧，咖啡是涼的，他們還忘記送奶油和糖了，但衝着這份價格和便利，我還是很高興用一下微波爐的。

Outside a nearby office building, an delivery man squats next to a blue insulated cooler bag, from which he dispenses 30-odd breakfasts — ordered in advance by people presumably working so hard to keep the slowing economy afloat that they do not have time to walk two minutes to the nearest fast-food emporium. I got my Egg-McMuffin-and-coffee meal for only Rmb4 (free delivery). OK, the coffee was cold and they forgot the cream and sugar, but for this price and convenience I am happy to use the microwave.

如果說午餐有什麼不同的話，那就是更方便一些：在同一幢大樓裏有一個被稱爲“Fun Box”的自動售賣機，消費者可以在售賣機自取通過APP預訂並付費的午餐。晚餐呢？即便是當地油膩的小店也接受手機掃碼支付。在我們點上一碗餛飩和一盤裏脊肉串的時候（用支付寶付賬），一位現年29歲的上海國企會計師周麗娟（音譯）表示，她現在幾乎都不帶現金了。“有時候我錢包裏1000元人民幣能放好幾個月。”

Lunch is, if anything, even easier: in the bowels of the same building is a vending machine called the Fun Box dispensing app-ordered meals paid for by smartphone. Dinner? Even the local greasy chopstick accepts payment by swipe-phone. As we sit over a bowl of wontons and a plate of fried pork strips (paid by Alipay), Zhou Lijuan, 29, an accountant at a Shanghai state-owned enterprise, says she hardly ever carries cash any more. “Sometimes Rmb1,000 in cash can stay in my purse for months.”

但是等一下：這些人聽說過中國經濟正在放緩嗎？他們爲什麼仍在大把花錢？周麗娟有一個還在學走路的孩子，她說，經濟放緩——這個消息震動世界各地的市場——對“她的消費行爲沒有大影響”。她去年“光棍節”期間花了1萬元人民幣——光棍節是阿里巴巴發明的全球最大的購物日（最初針對未婚人士）。這比她一個月的收入還高，但她準備在今年11月11日的光棍節再次大舉購物，儘管經濟放緩。“我會買很多東西，我不會太理性。如果我看到真的便宜的東西，我會哇哇叫着買下來。”實際上，尼爾森(Nielsen)的調查顯示，逾半的受訪者表示，這個光棍節他們計劃比去年花更多的錢。

But wait a minute: have these people heard that the economy is tanking? Why are they still spending? Ms Zhou, mother of a toddler, says news of the slowdown — which has shaken markets worldwide — has made “no major impact on my consuming behaviour”. She spent Rmb10,000 last year on Singles Day , the Alibaba-invented biggest shopping day in the world (originally targeted at unmarried people). That is more than a month’s income but she’s ready for another big Singles Day on November 11, despite the slowdown. “I’ll purchase a lot, and I won’t be very rational about it. If I see a real bargain, I’ll say ‘waaahhh’ and buy it.” In fact, according to a Nielsen survey, more than half of those surveyed said they plan to spend more this year than last.

全球市場無疑會認真審視中國今年光棍節期間出現的每一個趨勢，看看中國經濟到底行還是不行。不管怎樣，上海的上班族們仍會通過O2O訂餐。但“餓了麼”表示打算減小折扣力度，所以趕緊“趁熱”在手機上購買巨無霸漢堡吧。看來天底下真的沒有免費午餐，即便是在擁有全球最大購物節的國家。

The world’s markets will doubtless scrutinise every Single’s Day trend this year for signs that the Chinese economy is (or is not) doomed. Either way, Shanghai’s workers will keep ordering O2O meals. But says it is reducing its discounts, so get your smartphone-swiped Big Macs while they are hot. It seems there is no free lunch, even in the land of the world’s biggest shopping festival.