線上零售業的利潤

S. Kapner, How the Web Drags on Some Retailers, Wall Street Journal, Dec. 1, 2014

The Internet appears to be the main winner at the start of the holiday shopping blitz, and the loser could be the retail industry’s profits.

An early reading of Cyber Monday shows that e-commerce sales increased 15.6% compared with a year ago, according to Channel Advisor, which tracked transaction data for more than 2,700 retailers selling online between midnight and noon Monday. ...

While conventional wisdom holds that online sales should be more profitable, because websites don’t need the pricey real estate and labor necessary to maintain a store network, many retailers actually earn less or even lose money online after factoring in the cost of shipping, handling and higher rates of returns.

For retailers that outsource their Web and fulfillment operations, costs can run as high as 25% of sales, industry analysts said.

Kohl’s Corp. says its profitability online is less than half what it reaps in its store. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. says it expects to lose money online at least through early 2016 as it invests to build its technology, infrastructure and fulfillment networks. Target Corp. says its margins will shrink as its online sales grow. Best Buy Co. said faster growth on its website will weigh on its profitability at the end of the year.

And Primark, the European discount retailer that plans to open eight U.S. stores, has shunned online retailing altogether because it deems it unprofitable....

One reason for lower online margins at Kohl’s is its low prices. Retailers that sell inexpensive goods are at a particular disadvantage on the Web, because it costs roughly the same to warehouse and distribute lower-priced items as it does higher-priced items of the same size.

The company’s e-commerce margins should get a lift as more Kohl’s customers shop online and spread the cost of building its website and distribution centers across a larger sales base, and services such as buy online for in-store pickup cut shipping expenses. But Kohl’s Chief Financial Officer Wesley McDonald said he doesn’t expect the profits made online to ever match those of the company’s stores....

There can be a lot of reasons for declining margins, including less foot traffic and heavier discounting at brick-and-mortar stores. But Mr. Lejuez argues that the challenges facing physical stores are at least partly the result of the rise of e-commerce, which has pressured prices by making it easier for customers to ferret out the best deals online.

Another factor weighing on e-commerce margins is that online sales have a higher degree of variable costs. A brick-and-mortar retailer incurs roughly the same costs whether 10 or 50 people purchase a pair of pants from a store. The lights are already on, the rent is paid and the employees are in place. That means when sales go up, profit goes up faster.

But online, there are costs associated with each additional order. Employees must locate those pants in a warehouse, pack and ship them, and then deal with return shipping and restocking when goods come back, often at two or three times the rate at which store-bought goods are returned.

Add free shipping to the equation, and those costs eat into margins well beyond the fixed expenses of running the distribution centers and the computer networks.