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This is a series of articles published by Kai Fu Lee. I did the translation after graduation from university in summer to learn more about the technology trend and practise my translation skill.

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##Article

Translation of Kaifu Lee’s post on LinkedIn - The Power of Social Recommendation

李开复LinkedIn文章翻译之十八 – 社会化推荐的威力

A few days ago, I had a chance to try a particular brand of frozen dessert maker, which was only available in the United States. I sent out a “tweet” in China on Sina Weibo, sharing my experience.

几天以前，我有幸尝试了一种特殊牌子的冰激凌机，只在美国有得卖。我在中国的新浪微博上发了条“推”，分享我的经历。

To my surprise, this tweet was retweeted over 100,000 times, as Chinese young people and parents showed great interest in having such a machine. Even more surprising, within 3 hours, Taobao (China’s eBay) had hundreds of sellers, offering to buy such a machine in the US and shipping it to China for the buyer. Even though the shipping cost was more than the machine, thousands were sold within a day (one store reported 51 sales, and there were over 100 stores that carried it). There were also some unhappy buyers who didn’t read the instructions and got shaved ice instead, and tweeted nasty (but undeserved) gripes being misled by me.

让我觉得惊讶的是，这条推特（微博）被转发了超过十万次，因为中国的年轻人和父母们对拥有一台这样的机器非常感兴趣。更惊讶的是，三个小时不到，淘宝（中国的eBay）就有成百上千的卖家，提供在美国买这台机器并为买家送到中国的服务。即使运费比机器本身还贵，一天之内卖出了成千上万台（有家店卖了五十一台，有超过一百家店都在传播它）。还有些不开心的买家，他们没读使用指南，做出来的是一片片的冰，还因为受了我的误导发了些脾气不好的（但有点冤枉）抱怨微博。

Some observations from this:

• There is still significant information asymmetry among countries, suggesting cross-border e-commerce can be very appealing. There are many Chinese goods that Americans would find novel or unique or inexpensive, and vice versa. One company that does this is lightinthebox.com.
• To profit from this opportunity, one needs to address high shipping and logistics cost.
• Trust the power of social e-commerce, and “trusted recommendations”. Perhaps Facebook and Sina haven’t quite figured it out yet, but this is a goldmine waiting to be discovered.
• A sincere endorsement from a trusted person may be worth more than a paid endorsement from a celebrity.
• Everybody loves frozen desserts!
• Nobody reads instructions!

透过这些现象的一些观察：

• 国与国之间还存在很大的信息不对称，这意味着跨国的电子商务是很有吸引力的。很多中国的产品美国人会觉得或新奇，或独特，或便宜，反过来也是这样。一家做这个（业务）的公司是lightinthebox.com^[1]。
• 为从这个机会中获利，需要承担较高的运输和物流成本。
• 相信社交电商的威力，以及“可信的推荐”。也许Facebook和新浪还没发觉这点，但这是座等待发掘的金矿。
• 来自可信赖者的诚恳推荐可能比来自名人的付费推荐要有价值。
• 大家都爱冰激凌！
• 没人读说明书！

##Reference

1. lightinthebox.com，兰亭集势（Lightinthebox）是中国整合了供应链服务的在线B2C。该公司拥有一系列的供应商，并拥有自己的数据仓库和长期的物流合作伙伴，截止到2010年兰亭集势是中国跨境电子商务平台的领头羊。2008年12月下旬，曾任谷歌中国首席战略官的郭去疾证实从谷歌中国离职。2009年2月其接受新浪科技专访时透露，已与两位合伙人一起创办一家名为“lightinthebox”的外贸B2C公司，该公司主要面向全球市场销售有中国特色的消费产品。据介绍，lightinthebox可提供数万种商品供海外用户采购，主要集中在三个领域：以手机、数码产品为主的消费电子领域，服装定制领域，以及体育文化用品领域，未来将随着公司发展继续添加新品类别。据悉，该公司使命是为全世界用户递送有中国特色的商品，愿景则是利用十年时间打造一个具有美誉度的全球网络渠道商。