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Inside the Pop-up Economy
几千块就能开家小店?英国出现“快闪店”电商平台
In the dirge of news about retail failure, where once impregnable institutions like House of Fraser and Marks and Spencer are now husks of their former selves, the high street would seem to be in mortal danger. Right? Wrong, says Ross Bailey, a 26-year-old retail entrepreneur: “The problem is that most high-street stores are crap.”
零售企业纷纷倒下。曾经坚不可摧的House of Fraser和马莎百货(Marks and Spencer)如今都只剩下一具躯壳。挽歌唱响，高街零售业似乎走到了生死关头。难道不对吗?当然不对!在26岁的零售企业家罗斯·贝利(Ross Bailey)看来，“问题出在大多数高街百货商店品质堪忧。”
Lest we forget, 90 per cent of sales are still made in bricks-and-mortar buildings. But shorter leases, changing consumer loyalties and online stores have changed the way we shop. And traditional stores are increasingly being replaced by more short-term “pop-up” solutions.
先提醒一句，目前社会消费品销售总额的90%仍是在实体店完成的。但随着商铺租约的缩短，消费者忠诚度不断变化，加上电商的发展，我们的购物方式也在改变。此外，传统商店正逐步让位于经营期限更短的“快闪”(Pop-up)模式。
“The death of the high street is grossly exaggerated,” Bailey continues. “It dies when it’s homogenous and uninteresting. When it’s done right, it’s a totally different story.”
“高街的衰亡被过分夸大了。”贝利接着说道，“如果高街零售商继续同质化经营和无趣，消亡是不可避免的。但如果经营得当，情况会完全不同。”
In 2012, Bailey founded Appear Here, an online marketplace for short-term retail designed to disrupt the commercial space. Brands go to the website to search for a space, book a time slot and earmark a budget and then Appear Here connects them with a landlord.
2012年，贝利创建了零售商铺短租平台Appear Here，旨在颠覆商业地产市场。品牌可以通过该平台搜索场地，列出时间段和预算，而Appear Here则会为他们介绍房东。
If the brand and the landlord are a match, the deal goes ahead. Some shops pop up for only a week, others rent for years – either way, it’s a “pay as you go” business, where even the most powerful brands can test a new market without long-term commitment.
如果品牌与房东的要求匹配，就达成交易。一些商铺仅摆设一周时间，有些则会租上数年——无论哪种，都采取“现收现付”模式。就连那些最有影响力的品牌都可以通过这种模式来试水新市场，而不必签下长期合约。
Today, Bailey oversees a network that includes 160,000 brands and 6,000 retail spaces, throughout London, Paris and New York, and represents every kind of business, from the tiniest market-stall artisans to the most powerful brands in the world, such as Apple, Nike and Louis Vuitton. And the shops just keep popping.
如今，贝利的服务范围包括16万个品牌和6000个零售场地，覆盖了伦敦、巴黎和纽约全城，遍布每一个行业——从最微小的市场摆摊手艺人，到苹果、耐克和路易威登等全球最有影响力的品牌。且快闪商店还在持续增多。
This week, Appear Here launches its next innovation, a six-part collection of modular furniture designed for short-term retail. The pieces can be rented by the week, come in three different finishes, and include everything the modern shopkeeper might need, from a hanging rail to a fitting room to a shelving unit and a cash desk.
日前，Appear Here推出了又一项创新：由6部分组成的模块家具。这套家具专门为短租零售而设计。家具可以按周租赁，有三种不同漆面，包括了现代商店可能用到的一切：从衣架、试衣间，到货架和收银台。
The collection was designed by Richard Found, whose day job is tending to the look of luxury commercial spaces. He describes the fixtures as “ego-less”, with a focus on “pure design”. All can be adapted to any environment and it’s sleek, simple – and idiot-proof.
这套家具由理查德·方德(Richard Found)设计，他的正业是为奢侈品牌设计门店。在他眼中，这些固定装置做到了“无我”，专注于“纯设计”。所有装置都能适应各种环境，造型流线，简洁，且易于安装。
The incentives for such a collaboration are many. First, it will scale the business, increasing Appear Here’s profile as a one-stop pop-up platform through which you can also staff and service your store. Second, it will offer even the humblest of retailers a little more luxury gloss.
合作设计这样一套家具是出于多项考虑。首先，这样能促进规模化运营，提升Appear Here作为一站式快闪平台的形象——人们可以通过该平台为商店雇人和购买服务。其次，这能为哪怕是最不起眼的零售商增添一丝高级感。
Both are feeling bullish about the future of the high street. But they insist it must adapt. “Your store doesn’t need to be in one place anymore,” says Bailey. “Before, if you didn’t have your store, your business was over because where would the person find you? Now you’ve always got a presence that exists.”
对于高街零售业的未来，二人都持乐观态度。但他们坚称高街必须适应新形势。“你的商店没必要固守在一个地方。”贝利表示，“以前，倘若没有自己的店面，你的生意就完了，因为人们该去哪里找你?但现在你永远都有实体窗口。”
And he’s persuasive on the power of the pop-up as a marketing tool. “Digital direct-to-consumer brands are now paying so much for digital advertising.” With social-media reach and the right user-friendly experience, “one little shop can create something that builds a connection with millions of people that don’t even happen to walk past it. Experience is a currency that spreads.”
此外，他关于快闪店营销功能的看法也非常有说服力。“目前，直接面向消费者(DTC)的数字品牌在数字广告方面投入巨大。”有了社交媒体的宣传，再能提供友好的用户体验，“一家小店可以与数百万消费者建立联系，哪怕这些消费者并没有亲自路过。体验就是流通货币。”
Bailey’s hope is that the pop-up will help make the high street “a place of discovery” once more. “Anyone can have a shop,” he says.
贝利希望，快闪模式能帮助高街零售商店再一次成为“充满发现之地”。 “人人都能开店。”
Some of his favourite anecdotes concern the more unusual enterprises he’s helped bring to life – like the parents who, in lieu of an iPad, bought their son a £600 birthday pop-up from which to launch his T-shirt brand for two weeks.
他最喜欢讲的一些趣事，就是他帮助实现的那些不寻常的店铺——例如，一对父母花费600英镑，给他们的儿子买了一个为期两周的快闪店作为生日礼物，而不是iPad，用来发布他的T恤品牌。
Tech and Privacy: Facebook’s Third Act
技术和隐私：Facebook的第三幕
A New Business Model Could Make the Company Harder to Break up
The first big overhaul for Facebook came in 2012-14. Internet users were carrying out ever more tasks on smartphones rather than desktop or laptop computers. Mark Zuckerberg opted to follow them, concentrating on Facebook’s mobile app ahead of its website, and buying up two fast-growing communication apps, WhatsApp and Instagram. It worked. Facebook increased its market valuation from around $60bn at the end of 2012 to – for a brief period in 2018 – more than $600bn.
Facebook的第一次重大变革发生在2012至2014年间。那时互联网用户越来越多地在智能手机上执行任务，而不是在台式机或笔记本电脑上。马克·扎克伯格选择顺势而动，把注意力从网站转移到手机应用上，并收购了两个快速发展的通信应用WhatsApp和Instagram。这种做法成功了。Facebook的市值从2012年底的约600亿美元增加到2018年的6000多亿美元(尽管只维持了很短一段时间)。
On March 6th Mr Zuckerberg announced Facebook’s next pivot. As well as its existing moneymaking enterprise, selling targeted ads on its public social networks, it is building a “privacy-focused platform” around WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger. The apps will be integrated, he said, and messages sent through them encrypted end-to-end, so that even Facebook cannot read them. While it was not made explicit, it is clear what the business model will be. Mr Zuckerberg wants all manner of businesses to use its messaging networks to provide services and accept payments. Facebook will take a cut.
本月6日，扎克伯格宣布了Facebook的下一个发展重点。除了在其公共社交网络上销售定向广告这项现有的盈利业务之外，公司正在围绕WhatsApp、Instagram和Messenger建立一个“专注隐私安全的平台”。扎克伯格说，Facebook将整合这三个应用，并为三方之间发送的消息提供端到端加密，就连Facebook自己也无法读取。虽然没有明确说明，但这个大平台将采用的商业模式显而易见。扎克伯格希望各类企业都能利用Facebook的消息传递网络来提供服务并接受付款，Facebook则从中抽成。
A big shift was overdue at Facebook given the privacy and political scandals that have battered the firm. Even Mr Zuckerberg, who often appears incapable of seeing the gravity of Facebook’s situation, seemed to grasp the irony of it putting privacy first. “Frankly we don’t currently have a strong reputation for building privacy protective services,” he noted.
鉴于隐私和政治丑闻的沉重打击，Facebook早就该推动一场重大的转变了。即使是看似常常无法认识到Facebook严峻处境的扎克伯格，似乎也领会到公司将隐私放在第一位透出的讽刺意味。“坦率地说，目前我们在建立保护隐私的服务方面声望不高。”他指出。 Still, he intends to do it. Mr Zuckerberg claims that users will benefit from his plan to integrate its messaging apps into a single, encrypted network. The content of messages will be safe from prying eyes of authoritarian snoops and criminals, as well as from Facebook itself. It will make messaging more convenient, and make profitable new services possible. But caution is warranted for three reasons.
不过，他还是打算做出改变。扎克伯格称，把多个消息应用整合成单一加密网络的计划将让用户受益。威权政府的密探、犯罪分子以及Facebook本身都将无法窥探消息的内容。消息发送会变得更加方便，有利可图的新服务也将成为可能。但对此需持谨慎态度，理由有三。
The first is that Facebook has long been accused of misleading the public on privacy and security, so the potential benefits Mr Zuckerberg touts deserve to be treated sceptically. He is also probably underselling the benefits that running integrated messaging networks brings to his firm, even if they are encrypted so that Facebook cannot see the content. The metadata alone, ie, who is talking to whom, when and for how long, will still allow Facebook to target advertisements precisely, meaning its ad model will still function.
首先，鉴于Facebook长期被指斥在隐私和安全方面误导公众，对于扎克伯格大力宣扬的潜在益处我们理应抱持怀疑观望的态度。扎克伯格也有可能在淡化运营集成消息网络给他的公司带来的好处，即使Facebook无法看到加密的内容。单是谁和谁在何时交流了多久的元数据就能让Facebook精准地投放广告，这意味着其广告业务模式仍能正常运作。
End-to-end encryption will also make Facebook’s business cheaper to run. Because it will be mathematically impossible to moderate encrypted communications, the firm will have an excuse to take less responsibility for content running through its apps, limiting its moderation costs.
端到端加密还会降低Facebook的业务运营成本。确切来讲加密信息是无法审核的，公司也就会有借口对通过其应用发出的内容负更少的责任，从而控制其审核成本。
If it can make the changes, Facebook’s dominance over messaging would probably increase. The newfound user-benefits of a more integrated Facebook might make it harder for regulators to argue that Mr Zuckerberg’s firm should be broken up.
如果计划中的改变能够落实，Facebook在消息应用领域的主导地位可能会增强。一个更集成的Facebook新带来的用户利益可能会让监管机构更难主张将Facebook分拆。
Facebook’s plans in India provide some insight into the new model. It has built a payment system into WhatsApp, the country’s most-used messaging app. The system is waiting for regulatory approval. The market is huge. In the rest of the world, too, users are likely to be drawn in by the convenience of Facebook’s new networks. Mr Zuckerberg’s latest strategy is ingenious but may contain twists.
从Facebook在印度的计划可以一窥其新模式。它已在印度最流行的消息应用WhatsApp中创建了支付系统，正在等待监管部门批准。这个市场非常庞大。在世界其他地方，用户也可能被Facebook的新网络带来的便利所吸引。扎克伯格最新的策略很有创意，但也可能隐藏了花招。
Appealing Returns
丰厚诱人的回报
Contingent fees, in which clients pay lawyers only if a case is won, have long been a feature of America’s legal system. Many other countries used to bar them, wary of importing America’s ambulance-chasing culture. But a belated acceptance of their benefits means they are now widely allowed. “No-win, no-fee” arrangements help shift risks from parties to a suit to their lawyers, and make it less likely that a would-be plaintiff decides not to press a strong case for fear of a big financial loss.
只有在胜诉后才需要向律师付费的“风险代理收费制”一直是美国法律体系的一个特色。其他许多国家曾禁止这种操作，担心将美国的讼棍文化“引狼入室”。但这种收费制的好处终于得到迟来的认可，如今已被广泛采用。有了“不赢不收钱”的协定，风险就从诉讼各方转移到了他们的律师身上，也就不大会发生原本颇有些胜算，却因为害怕白白烧钱而放弃打官司的情况。
They accepted money from third parties to fund cases in exchange for some of the winnings. Litigation finance has since taken off. Fortune 500 companies and New York’s elite law firms increasingly tap outside capital when pursuing multi-million-dollar suits.
他们接受第三方的资金来支付诉讼开支，作为交换，向对方支付部分诉讼赔偿所得。自那之后，诉讼融资业务蓬勃发展起来。《财富》世界500强公司和纽约的精英律师事务所在打数百万美元的官司时，越来越多地利用外部资本。
Funds that invest in litigation are on the rise. In the past 18 months some 30 have launched; over $2bn has been raised. Last year Burford Capital, an industry heavyweight, put $1.3bn into cases – more than triple the amount it deployed in 2016. Lee Drucker of Lake Whillans, a firm that funds lawsuits, says he gets calls weekly from institutional investors seeking an asset uncorrelated with the rest of the market – payouts from lawsuits bear no relation to interest-rate rises or stock market swings.
投资于诉讼案件的基金逐步增多。过去18个月里成立了约30支这样的基金，融资超过20亿美元。去年，业界“大腕”伯福德资本(Burford Capital)为资助诉讼案件投入了13亿美元，是2016年投入金额的三倍多。诉讼资助公司Lake Whillans的李·德鲁克(Lee Drucker)说他每周都会接到机构投资者的电话，他们想寻觅一种与市场其余部分不相关的资产——诉讼赔偿金与利率上涨或股市起伏没有任何关联。
Such outside funding does not just enable plaintiffs to pursue potentially lucrative cases. It also allows law firms to hedge risk. Some clients, worried about the misaligned incentives caused by law firms’ sky-high hourly rates, insist on partial or full contingency-payment schemes. Outside funding lets firms recoup some revenue even if they do not win a case. “Firms that lose are still going to take a bath,” says Nicholas Kajon of Stevens & Lee. “But the write-off won’t be quite as bad.”
这样的外部资金不仅能让原告方发起有可能会带来大笔赔偿金的诉讼，还能让律师事务所对冲风险。一些委托人担心律师事务所按小时收取的天价费用会造成不当激励，因而坚持部分或全部采用风险代理付费方案。有了外部资金，律师事务所就算没能赢得诉讼也能挽回部分收入。“输了官司，律所还是会亏一大笔钱，”Stevens & Lee律师事务所的尼古拉斯·卡永(Nicholas Kajon)说，“但会少亏一些。”
Returns are usually a multiple of the investment or a percentage of the settlement, or some combination of the two. Funders of a winning suit can expect to double, triple or quadruple their money. Cases that are up for appeal, where the timespan is short – usually 18-24 months – and the chance of a loss slimmer, offer lower returns. New cases that are expected to take years offer higher potential payouts.
诉讼投资的收益通常为投资额的一个倍数或赔偿金的一定比例，或者两者兼有。胜诉案件的资助者所获收益可能会是其出资金额的二到四倍。准备上诉的案子审理时间短——通常在18到24个月之间，败诉的可能性相对较低，投资回报也较低。那些预计将耗时多年的新案子可能会带来更高的回报。
A maturing market means more sophisticated offerings. To spread risk, funders are bundling cases into portfolios and taking a share of the proceeds. Last year Burford ploughed $726m into portfolio deals, compared with $72m into stand-alone suits.
市场日渐成熟，出现了更复杂的投资方式。为了分散风险，诉讼融资机构将案件打包成投资组合，从中抽取一部分收益。伯福德去年投入了7.26亿美元用于组合投资各类案件，而在单个案件上的投入为7200万美元。
As funders compete for high-quality investments, opportunities in new markets arise. Bentham IMF, a litigation funder based in New York, has joined Kobre & Kim, a law firm, to set up a $30m fund for Israeli startups to pursue claims against multinationals – for example, over trade-secret violations. A burgeoning secondary market is likely to develop further, allowing investors to cash out before long-running suits are closed. Burford recently sold its stake in an arbitration case concerning two Argentine airlines for a return of 736%. Such mouth-watering profits should keep luring capital into the courtroom.
随着诉讼融资公司争相抢夺高质量的投资项目，在新市场中也出现了机会。总部设在纽约的诉讼融资公司Bentham IMF与高博金律师事务所(Kobre & Kim)共同设立了一个规模达3000万美元的基金专门支持以色列的创业公司向跨国公司索赔——例如在侵害商业机密方面。一个新兴的二级市场看来会进一步发展，让投资者得以先一步套现离场，而不用等待一宗旷日持久的诉讼案尘埃落定。伯福德近期出售了自己在一个涉及两家阿根廷航空公司的仲裁案中的股份，回报率达736%。如此令人垂涎的利润水平应该会吸引资本源源不断地流向法庭。