《经济学人》双语：宜家能否再次颠覆家具业？

原文标题：
Flat-packing a punch
Can IKEA disrupt the furniture business again?
It wants to help you sell your Billy bookcase
组装家具出招
宜家能否再次颠覆家具业？
它想帮你卖掉比利书柜

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THERE ARE worse ways to spend a lazy Saturday than to take a trip to one of IKEA’s giant furniture stores.
如果要在慵懒的周六做点什么，去宜家的巨型家具店逛逛不失为一个好选择。

Young children can be swiftly deposited at Småland, the supervised play area, leaving you to navigate the maze of flat-pack furniture and bric-a-brac at your leisure; you might even stop at the restaurant for a plate of Swedish meatballs.
你可以迅速地把小孩子送到有人看护的儿童乐园斯马兰，然后自己悠闲地在迷宫般的组装家具和各种装饰品中闲逛；逛饿了还可以去餐厅吃上一盘瑞典肉丸。

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IKEA’s cheap products—and its knack for getting shoppers to walk away with bagfuls of adornments they never knew they needed—have made it into the world’s biggest furniture company, with €48bn ($53bn) in annual sales last year.
宜家凭借其物美价廉的产品——加上吸引顾客购买他们从未意识到需要的装饰品的技巧——成为了全球最大的家具公司，去年年销售额达到480亿欧元（530亿美元）。

The company, which is held privately through a bewildering network of foundations, controls around 9% of the fragmented global furniture market.
该公司通过一系列复杂的基金会网络实现私有化，占据着全球分散的家具市场约9%的份额。

In an effort to keep growing, it has been investing in its e-commerce offering and adding new store formats.
为了保持增长，宜家一直在加大对电子商务的投入，并尝试新的门店模式。

Its latest experiment, in second-hand furniture, could help it get both bigger and greener.
最新的二手家具实验可能有助于宜家实现更大规模和更环保的目标。

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In the past few years IKEA has been busily trying to make buying its wares more convenient, particularly for customers without a car.
过去几年里，宜家一直在努力让其商品购买变得更加便捷，尤其是为没有车的顾客。

As much as they might enjoy wandering around one of its giant stores, many shoppers do not have a day to spare to buy two folding chairs, says Jesper Brodin, the boss of INGKA, which owns most of IKEA’s shops (though not its intellectual property).
英格卡集团的老板杰斯珀·布罗丁说，尽管许多顾客喜欢在宜家的巨型商场里闲逛，但他们抽不出一整天的时间去买两把折叠椅。英格卡集团拥有宜家的大多数门店，但不包括其知识产权。

Online sales, which the company was initially slow to adopt, have been a priority since the covid-19 pandemic, when nearly all IKEA shops were closed. They now account for 23% of the total.
网上销售起初是公司迟迟未采纳的方式，但在新冠爆发后，宜家几乎关闭了所有的商店，因此网上销售成为宜家的优先事项。目前，网上销售占总销售额的23%。

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IKEA has also been moving its stores closer to customers.
宜家家居还将其门店搬到离顾客更近的地方。

It now has “planning centres” in central locations where customers can put together their ideal kitchen, bedroom or bathroom.
现在，宜家在中心地带设有 “规划中心”，顾客可以在那里组装他们理想的厨房、卧室或浴室。

Smaller stores in busy shopping districts have cropped up in numerous cities, too.
宜家还在许多城市的繁华商业区开设了小型商店。

In July IKEA invested in a tower being built on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue; a new shop will open on Oxford Street in central London in the spring.
今年7月，宜家在曼哈顿第五大道投资兴建了一座大厦；明年春季，伦敦市中心牛津街的新店即将开业。

The company has also been buying malls where it intends to make IKEA the anchor tenant.
此外，公司还一直在买购物中心，打算让宜家成为主要的租户。

In November INGKA bought Churchill Square, the main shopping centre in Brighton, in southern England. It will set up shop on a site once occupied by Debenhams, a failed department store.
11月，英格卡集团收购了英国南部布莱顿的主要购物中心丘吉尔广场，它将在德本汉姆百货公司（已倒闭）曾经的店址上开设门店。

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Both developments are new for IKEA, but hardly for the industry.
这两项举措对宜家来说都是新尝试，但在行业内却并非罕见。

More novel is its recent announcement of a platform for people to sell their secondhand IKEA furniture online, beginning with trials in Oslo and Madrid that will run until December, ahead of a worldwide rollout next year.
更新颖的是，宜家最近宣布建立一个平台，供人们在网上出售自己的二手宜家家具，首先在奥斯陆和马德里试点运营，试点将持续到12月，明年将在全球推广。

IKEA customers can already sell their furniture back to the firm at its shops, a service more than 200,000 customers made use of last year, twice as many as in 2022.
宜家的顾客已经可以将家具卖回宜家的商店，去年有20多万名顾客使用了这项服务，是2022年的两倍。

The company’s secondhand platform will allow people to palm their old furniture off to new buyers directly.
宜家的二手平台将允许人们直接将旧家具卖给新的买家。

IKEA will provide recommended prices, generic photos and product details (including, importantly, assembly instructions); sellers can then add their own pictures and choose their price. The buyer collects the furniture.
宜家将提供推荐价格、通用照片和产品详细信息（包括重要的组装说明书）；卖家可以在此基础上添加自己的照片并设定价格。家具将由买家自行取走。

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IKEA products already account for around a third of secondhand-furniture sales by volume, according to Mr Brodin.
布罗丁透露，按成交量计算，宜家产品已经占据了二手家具市场约1/3的份额。

Although the platform will be free to use, at least at first, it will provide IKEA a way to encourage sellers back to its stores.
虽然宜家的二手平台将供用户免费使用，至少在初期会免费，但它也有利于吸引卖家回流到宜家实体店。

If they opt for an IKEA voucher as payment, they receive a 15% bonus on the sale price.
如果卖家选择宜家代金券作为支付方式，他们将获得售价15%的额外奖金。

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It has legs
它有腿

Besides boosting sales, the platform should help IKEA towards another of its ambitions: to be greener.
除了提高销售额，二手平台还将帮助宜家实现另一个目标：更加环保。

Mr Brodin reckons sustainability and profitability can go together.
布罗丁认为，可持续性和盈利性可以并存。

Since 2016 the company has expanded its sales by a third but reduced carbon emissions from its operations by half, and from its supply chain by a fifth.
自2016年以来，宜家的销售额增长了1/3，但运营过程产生的碳排放量减少了一半，供应链产生的碳排放量减少了1/5。

Four-fifths of the energy consumed by its stores and factories is now from renewable sources.
目前，宜家门店和工厂所消耗的能源中，有4/5来自可再生能源。

In Germany, its largest market outside its home country of Sweden, it operates 23 solar plants and five wind farms (it sells its excess power to the grid).
德国是宜家在瑞典以外的最大市场，宜家在德国运营着23个太阳能发电厂和5个风力发电场（它还有多余的电力出售给电网）。

By making it easier for people to sell their old furniture, fewer Billy bookcases will end up in the bin—and more flat-pack furniture will end up in living rooms.
通过让人们更容易地出售旧家具，被扔进垃圾箱的比利书柜将会减少，而更多的组装家具将出现在客厅里。

（恭喜读完，本篇英语词汇681左右）
原文出自：2024年9月7日《TE》Business版块

精读笔记来源于：自由英语之路
本文翻译整理: Irene
本文编辑校对: Irene
仅供个人英语学习交流使用。

【重点句子】（3个）
In an effort to keep growing, it has been investing in its e-commerce offering and adding new store formats.
为了保持增长，宜家一直在加大对电子商务的投入，并尝试新的门店模式。

The company’s secondhand platform will allow people to palm their old furniture off to new buyers directly.
宜家的二手平台将允许人们直接将旧家具卖给新的买家。

Mr Brodin reckons sustainability and profitability can go together.
布罗丁认为，可持续性和盈利性可以并存。