????今年9月，當阿里巴巴（Alibaba）在聲勢浩大的首次公開募股中籌得250億美元時，美國的電子商務(wù)公司都很想知道，這家中國電商巨頭準備何時拿這筆錢與它們展開競爭。

????沒有人真正知道答案。阿里巴巴目前更注重在美國投資，而不是在美國運營。畢竟，中國市場本身就十分巨大。在上周中國的“雙十一”購物狂歡日當天，阿里巴巴的銷售額高達93億美元。

????不過仔細觀察，我們還是能夠找到一些探究阿里巴巴戰(zhàn)略的方法。比如，阿里巴巴的招股說明書中唯一提到的美國投資，是收購了ShopRunner 公司39%的股權(quán)。該公司的服務(wù)與亞馬遜金牌會員服務(wù)（AmazonPrime）非常類似，其創(chuàng)始人曾經(jīng)創(chuàng)建過亞馬遜的競爭對手GSI Commerce公司，后者如今已被易趣(eBay)收購。去年，阿里巴巴在ShopRunner上投資了約2億美元。該公司還投資了私家車搭乘服務(wù)應(yīng)用Lyft和游戲制造商Kabam，不過招股說明書只提到了ShopRunner。

????為了進一步了解ShopRunner，我最近參觀了它在加利福尼亞州圣馬特奧的辦公室，并對該公司首席執(zhí)行官斯科特?湯普森進行了采訪。你也許記得他曾經(jīng)擔任過雅虎（Yahoo）首席執(zhí)行官，后來因為履歷有水分而被迫在2012年離職。加入雅虎之前，他曾擔任易趣支付平臺貝寶公司（PayPal）總裁。

????事實證明，ShopRunner擁有一個有趣的小眾市場。亞馬遜金牌服務(wù)的顧客能夠以每年99美元的價格，讓買到的任何東西（后來還包括流媒體視頻）送貨上門。而ShopRunner顧客可選擇的品牌經(jīng)過了進一步篩選，也更系統(tǒng)一些。他們可以花79美元獲得免費的兩日內(nèi)送貨上門服務(wù)。此舉不僅是為了吸引顧客，還試圖吸引那些不愿意和亞馬遜其他商品捆綁在一起的商家。

????科技高管湯普森正學(xué)著像一個店主那樣說話?！傲闶凵虝枺骸以谫徫镏行睦飼c誰為鄰？’在零售業(yè)中，大量品牌毗鄰而居。亞馬遜的庫存量很大，所以如果你非常在意自己的品牌，你就會發(fā)現(xiàn)自己被太多東西包圍了。我們的看法是：如果你要買必需品，那就去找亞馬遜金牌服務(wù)；如果你要真正喜歡的，對你有特殊感情的東西，那就來找我們?！?/p>

????When Alibaba raised $25 billion in its blockbuster I.P.O. in September, U.S.-based e-commerce companies were curious to know when the Chinese giant planned to begin spending that money to compete against them.

????The answer is that no one really knows: Alibaba has been focused more on investing in the U.S. than in operating there. The China market, after all, is huge. Witness the $7-billion “Singles Day” shopping orgy the country celebrated on Tuesday.

????Look more closely, though, and there are ways to discern Alibaba’s strategy. For instance, the only U.S. investment it discussed in its I.P.O. filing was the 39% stake it took in ShopRunner, an Amazon Prime-like service founded by the same team that started an Amazon competitor called GSI Commerce, now part of eBay . Alibaba invested about $200 million in ShopRunner last year. It also has invested in taxi-killer Lyft and game maker Kabam, but only ShopRunner earned the prospectus mention.

????To learn more about ShopRunner I recently visited its offices in San Mateo, Calif. and the company’s CEO, Scott Thompson. You might remember him as the one-time CEO of Yahoo who left after reports that his resume wasn’t altogether accurate. He left Yahoo in 2012 and before that had been a top PayPal executive at eBay.

????ShopRunner, it turns out, has an interesting niche. Whereas Amazon Prime customers can get anything under the sun—and then some, including streaming videos—delivered to them for $99 a year, ShopRunner customers get a more select, slightly more curated collection of brands. They pay $79 for free, two-day delivery. It’s a deal designed to attract consumers but also merchants, who see the value of not being glopped together with everyone else over at Amazon.

????Thompson, the technology executive, is learning to talk like a merchant. “Retailers ask, ‘Who is my neighbor in the mall?’ There’s a lot of brand adjacency in retailing. Amazon has a lot of SKUs. So if you’re someone who is very thoughtful about your brand, you’re in the middle of a lot of stuff. Our attitude is, if it’s something you need, go with Amazon Prime. If it’s something you want and have an emotional connection to, that’s us.”