I.H.125.Warren Buffett.Retailing
零售业卖的都是别人的东西，巴菲特认为很难做出差异化，需要时刻保持聪明的行业，以下是巴菲特的原话：
零售业者必须时时保持聪明警惕，因为你的竞争对手随时准备复制你的做法，然后超越你，同时消费者总是被各种可能的方式吸引去尝试新的商家，在零售业一旦业绩滑坡，注定就会失败。
芒格的看法有些不一样，他认为Costco做了一些独特的差异化，比如，Costco的会员制。
I was in the department store business for a while — don’t ask me why — but I was in it and if my competitor air-conditioned, I had to air condition. If my competitor offered 18-month terms instead of 12-month terms, I had to offer [the same thing]. If he put in an escalator, I had to put in [an escalator]. All of those were defensive decisions. I had to make those [decisions] like that snaps fingers. He was throwing pitches at me and I had to swing — no matter whether the ball was good or not.
我曾经做过一阵子百货商店生意——别问我为什么——但我确实干过。如果竞争对手装了空调，我也得装。如果他把分期从 12 个月改成 18 个月，我也得跟。如果他装了自动扶梯，我也得装。这些全是防守性的决策。我必须这样**（打响指）**做决定。他不断向我投球，我不得不挥棒——不管那球好不好。
大量的竞争，美团、京东、阿里都是这种防守性的决策。
2、《1996-03-01 Warren Buffett's Letters to Berkshire Shareholders》
Retailing is a tough business. During my investment career, I have watched a large number of retailers enjoy terrific growth and superb returns on equity for a period, and then suddenly nosedive, often all the way into bankruptcy. This shooting-star phenomenon is far more common in retailing than it is in manufacturing or service businesses. In part, this is because a retailer must stay smart, day after day. Your competitor is always copying and then topping whatever you do. Shoppers are meanwhile beckoned in every conceivable way to try a stream of new merchants. In retailing, to coast is to fail.
零售业的经营相当不易，在我个人的投资生涯中，我看过许多零售业曾经拥有极高的成长率与股本回报率，然后突然间表现急速下滑，很多甚至被迫以倒闭关门收场，比起一般制造业或服务业，这种流星般的现象在零售业履见不鲜，部分的原因是，这些零售业者必须时时保持聪明警惕，因为你的竞争对手随时准备复制你的做法，然后超越你，同时消费者总是被各种可能的方式吸引去尝试新的商家，在零售业一旦业绩滑坡，注定就会失败。
零售业是个缺少本质的业务（卖的都是别人的产品），巴菲特的观察很仔细，他说：“因为你的竞争对手随时准备复制你的做法。。。”，因为产品都是别人的，自己所能提供的服务是有限的，困境是制造骗子的地方，《Supplying Saks Was a Soapmaker’s Dream Until He Got a $74 Check》这个例子比较典型，最终极的原因都是因为不够“本分”，这是一个不“本分”的商业模式。
In contrast to this have-to-be-smart-every-day business, there is what I call the have-to-be-smart-once business. For example, if you were smart enough to buy a network TV station very early in the game, you could put in a shiftless and backward nephew to run things, and the business would still do well for decades. You'd do far better, of course, if you put in Tom Murphy, but you could stay comfortably in the black without him. For a retailer, hiring that nephew would be an express ticket to bankruptcy.
与这种必须时时保持聪明的业务相反，有一种我称之为只要聪明一次的业务。举个例子来说，如果你足够聪明，在很早以前就买下一家地方电视台，你甚至可以把它交给懒惰又差劲的亲人来经营，而这项事业却仍然可以好好地经营个几十年，当然若是你懂得将汤姆·墨菲摆在正确的位置上，你会做得更惊人，但没有他你也可以舒服的赚钱。但是对零售业来说，用人不当将是快速破产的入场券。
The two retailing businesses we purchased this year are blessed with terrific managers who love to compete and have done so successfully for decades. Like the CEOs of our other operating units, they will operate autonomously: We want them to feel that the businesses they run are theirs. This means no second-guessing by Charlie and me. We avoid the attitude of the alumnus whose message to the football coach is "I'm 100% with you - win or tie." Our basic goal as an owner is to behave with our managers as we like our owners to behave with us.
不过今年我们买下的这两家零售业，却很幸运的拥有喜欢面对竞争挑战的经理人，同时过去几十年来也表现的相当优异，就像是我们旗下其它事业的经理人，他们将独立自主地经营，我们希望他们觉得就好象是在经营自己的事业一样，这意味着查理和我不会在旁边指手画脚。我们尽量避免像校友会常常对足球校队教练所说的那样：不论赢或是打平，我们都站在你这边。身为所有权人，我们的基本原则是，我们期望怎么对待自己，就怎么对待我们的经理人。
要看当时的机会成本，肯定不是太好的选择。
As we add more operations, I'm sometimes asked how many people I can handle reporting to me. My answer to that is simple: If I have one person reporting to me and he is a lemon, that's one too many, and if I have managers like those we now have, the number can be almost unlimited. We are lucky to have Bill and Sheldon associated with us, and we hope that we can acquire other businesses that bring with them managers of similar caliber.
随着我们旗下事业越来越多，有时我被问及，我到底可以应付多少个经理人同时向我报告，我的回答相当简单，要是我只管一个经理人，而他是一个讨厌鬼，那么管一个人都太多了。相反的，要是我所面对的是像我们现在所拥有的经理人的话，那么这个数目将没有上限，我们很幸运能与Bill跟Sheldon共事，我们也很希望在不久的未来，还能有更多相同水准的经理人加入我们公司。
Not much has gone right for Walgreens Boots Alliance WBA -1.40%decrease; red down pointing triangle in the past decade.
过去十年里，沃尔格林联合博姿公司（Walgreens Boots Alliance）几乎没有什么顺利的事情。
Customers bought more and more household items online at sites such as Amazon.com, instead of Walgreens’s more than 8,000 stores across the U.S. The pharmacy chain inked deals with other drug suppliers and doctors offices, but stood pat while rivals, including CVS and Express Scripts, merged with big health insurers, gaining control of the medical-reimbursement purse strings that were squeezing pharmacies.
顾客越来越多地在亚马逊等网站上在线购买家庭用品，而不是去沃尔格林在美国各地超过 8000 家的门店。这家连锁药店虽然与其他药品供应商和医生诊所签订了协议，但在竞争对手（包括 CVS 和 Express Scripts）纷纷与大型健康保险公司合并、掌控医疗报销资金并挤压药店利润空间时，却按兵不动。
Walgreens cash flow sagged, its debt piled up and shares sank. And on Thursday, Walgreens was sold to private-equity firm Sycamore for $10 billion, down a staggering 91% from its $106 billion peak in 2015.
沃尔格林的现金流下滑，债务累积，股价暴跌。周四，沃尔格林以 100 亿美元的价格被私募股权公司 Sycamore 收购，较 2015 年 1060 亿美元的峰值暴跌了惊人的 91%。
The storied pharmacy chain—which became a ubiquitous seller of everything from diabetes injections to nail files as retailers consolidated across the U.S.—fell after it neglected to keep up with customer preference to buy online and failed to navigate the fierce competition and intense cost pressures of healthcare.
这家历史悠久的连锁药店曾随着美国零售商的整合而遍布各地，销售从糖尿病注射剂到指甲锉等各种商品，但由于未能跟上顾客转向线上购物的趋势，也未能应对医疗保健领域的激烈竞争和巨大成本压力，最终走向衰落。
4、《2025-05-16 Warren Buffett vs American Capitalism》
Speaker 2:
But do you want a cool Charlie Costco story just because I'm looking at him here? But if you wanted to think of something extraordinary—because you could look at that membership fee and say if instead of,
说到这儿，我刚好看到查理·芒格的照片，要不要讲一个很酷的Costco故事？这事其实挺特别的——我们可以从它的会员费来讲起，
there's certain people that will not pay a membership fee. Right. Just they are against it in principle or they're disorganized.
因为确实有些人就是不愿意为会员付费，要么出于原则反对，要么就是性格上不爱搞这些。
So there are customers that do not go to a Costco that would go to a Costco if they didn’t have to pay a membership fee.
所以，有些本来可能是Costco顾客的人，最终没去，就因为这道门槛：会员费。
Speaker 1:
Yes.
对。
Speaker 2:
And if Costco raised their prices, the membership fee, I think, represents about 2% of revenue.
而如果Costco提高价格，会员费这部分其实只占它营收的大约2%。
Michael Batnick:
But it drives the rest.
但它驱动了整个商业模式的其他部分。
Speaker 2:
Well, it's their net margin is 2%. Their average markup is 10%. Now, I think I could be wrong. I think Walmart's average markup is about 28%. But here's the interesting thing that Charlie said to me once is, as he said,
Costco的净利润率是2%，平均加价幅度是10%。我记得可能有误，沃尔玛的平均加价幅度大约是28%。但查理曾经跟我说过一件很有趣的事，他说，
if you were to look at the difference in shrink, which is the fancy word for theft, shoplifting, stealing, between Costco and the average big box retailer, that would be 100% of their profit margin. So people steal less.
如果你看Costco和一般大卖场在“Shrink”——这是零售业内说法，指偷窃、顺手牵羊、员工盗窃等损耗——方面的差距，那就等于他们全部的利润。也就是说Costco被偷得更少。
And remember, theft is half employees and half shoplifters. And that's an incredible thing. And of course, part of that is the membership fee.
记住，偷窃损耗一半来自员工，一半来自顾客。而这点非常惊人。当然，这和会员制度有关系。
Michael Batnick:
It's very unlikely you're going to register as a Costco member and then try to loot the place.
毕竟你不太可能去注册一个Costco会员，然后再进去偷东西吧。
Speaker 2:
Well, in the same way that if you're a government employee, you are likely to be a safer driver. If you are a USAA, your army officer is less likely to commit fraud against an insurance company.
对，就像如果你是公务员，你可能会开车更谨慎；如果你是美军军官，用USAA的保险服务，你更不太可能骗保。
So you were intelligently choosing who you wanted as customers. But using a separate variable. And so it's an interesting part of Costco's model that I admire. But anyway, so I just felt that monopoly was a bit provocative because it,
所以Costco其实在用一种“隐含变量”来聪明地筛选顾客。这是我非常欣赏的商业模型的一部分。无论如何，我只是觉得“垄断”这个词有点挑衅性，
whereas moats I think isn't, and I don't think they're the same thing. I think they are different things because of, you know, a culture can create a moat.
而“护城河”这个词则没有这种感觉。我不认为这两个词是等同的，它们是不同的概念。因为比如说，文化也可以形成护城河。
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