Gentz, a 34-year-old German who is a co-founder of Zalando—a European clone of Zappos, the online US shoes and fashion retailer

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问题     Gentz, a 34-year-old German who is a co-founder of Zalando—a European clone of Zappos, the online US shoes and fashion retailer owned by Amazon. He wanted to expand his company into the world’ s largest digital market. But after the meetings with Chinese, Gentz decided China’ s approach to online fashion was far ahead of anything available elsewhere. He marveled at how Chinese consumers freely chatted with—and bought from—brands and stylists on WeChat, a local Internet messenger, while online retailers, independent delivery companies and fashion houses routinely joined forces. "We wanted to take that experience back to Europe," Gentz said.
    Zalando’ s approach of borrowing from its Chinese counterparts represents a new strategy of looking East, not West, for inspiration. In overhauling its successful European online fashion store into a digital platform, Zalando differs from others trying to match Amazon and its logistics and technological prowess. The German company previously focused on handling all sales and inventory by itself. But in addition to selling directly to consumers, it now wants to remake itself into a digital shopping mall, allowing fashion houses and retailers to make sales as well, often with limited input from Zalando. These efforts are made in roughly a year.
    Zalando’s inspiration from China, though, comes with challenges. Despite domestic dominance, Chinese players like Alibaba have yet to successfully replicate their business model overseas. Alibaba just has hired local country managers and brought its payment service to Europe, mostly to serve Chinese visitors. Online shopping habits in Europe also are somewhat different from those in China. And Amazon and European competitors, including ASOS and Yoox Net-a-Porter, may yet outmuscle Zalando with their traditional takes on e-commerce.
    To compete with Amazon and others, Zalando has spent heavily on a network of logistics hubs that dot the European landscape. For Nicolas Borg, a Zalando strategy executive who previously worked at eBay, the next stage will most likely be chatbots, or humanlike interactions powered by artificial intelligence, to offer fashion advice to consumers on the likes of Facebook Messenger. "In the future, what will matter is not where the purchase happens, but how you can influence it, " Borg said. "That is our biggest challenge, " he added. "How do we change the online experience?"
The word "outmuscle" is closest in meaning to________.

选项 A、compete
B、conquer
C、connect
D、assist

答案B

解析 含义题。根据题干关键词定位到文章第三段最后一句…may yet outmuscle Zalando with their traditional takes on e-commerce (……也许会凭借在电商领域的传统收入打败Zalando)。A项意为“竞争”,B项意为“打败,攻克”,C项意为“与……联系”,D项意为“帮助,援助”。故本题选B。
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