从电力市场的 Prosumer，看零售的供需匹配

At the end of last year I joined the CommonWealth Economic Forum in Taiwan at Jessie Ng's invitation, and came away with more than I expected. Taipower chairman Tseng Wen-sheng argued that the power debate can't stop at whether there is enough electricity and whether it is too expensive. The future market should be dynamic, with efficiency, innovation and a mature trading mechanism, where supply and demand can swap roles and demand itself becomes a tradable resource. The founder of an energy company then described the prosumer: households generating solar power, storing it in batteries and selling the surplus to the market. It made me ask whether retail could work the same way. Retail has long treated the customer as god, so retailers keep cutting prices or adding value. In traditional e-commerce, a cup costing 10 ends up at 20 after ads, logistics and labour. Fourth-generation platforms like Pinduoduo and SHEIN use data to see that a cup can sell 1,000 a month, push a seller to 8, and sell at 10; the platform becomes the matchmaker between supply and demand. My takeaways: data-driven matching, customers who can also be producers, and flexible integration of the supply chain. Retailers must look beyond channels and capacity to how data and technology match supply with demand.