《The Economist》《经济学人》中文版

A special report on business in America
关于美国商业的特别报道

Trading down  
购买廉价商品
May 28th 2009
From The Economist print edition

From decadence to discounts
从奢华堕落到节衣缩食



FIVE years ago Michael Silverstein and Neil Fiske wrote a book, “Trading Up: The New American Luxury”. They argued that Americans, even those of modest means, were abandoning merely adequate products for luxurious ones. Jake the construction worker, for example, splurged $3,000 on Callaway golf clubs, though he could have bought a set nearly as good for a third as much. (“They make me feel rich,” he said.) A shipping clerk on $25,000 a year bought silk pyjamas from Victoria’s Secret. A couple making $125,000 ordered a $4,000 brand-name cooking range, even though their kitchen came with a free generic one.

5年前，Michael Silverstein和Neil Fiske合著过一本书《购买高档商品：美国新奢华》。他们认为美国人，甚至是那些收入中等水平的人，都抛弃了一般的货物，追逐奢华的商品。例 如，Jake是一名建筑工人。他一掷千金，花销3000美元购买了Callaway高尔夫球棍。事实上，他只需花1/3的价钱就可以买到一副相同质量的球 棍。（他表示：“Callaway使我感到富裕”）一名年收入为25，000美元的轮船员工买了一件维多利亚秘密的丝绸睡衣。收入为125，000美元的 夫妇定下了一套4，000美元名牌烹饪餐具系列，尽管他们的厨房装备只是平常普通的规格。

If you read the book backwards, it describes what is going on today.
如果你阅读书的背面，就会知道如今的状况。
Americans are trading down. If they still have jobs (as 91% of the workforce do), they are worried about losing them. Their homes are no longer cash machines and their investments are in a ditch. Household net worth fell by a staggering $11.2 trillion last year. The rich are cancelling orders for yachts. Working Americans are forgoing even small luxuries. Lindt & Sprüngli, a maker of exquisite chocolate truffles, is closing 50 of its 80 stores in America. Hershey’s, a maker of less chocolatey chocolate, is doing rather well. Limited Brands, which owns Victoria’s Secret, is not.

现在，美国人购买廉价货物。如果他们仍旧在职（91%的人们仍保有工作），他们会担心失去工作。他们的房屋不再是自动取款机，投资项目前景黯淡。去年，家 庭的净价值暴跌11.2万亿美元。富有的人取消了游艇的订单。美国工薪阶层甚至放弃了小型奢侈品。精致圆心巧克力软糖的制造商Lindt & Sprungli关闭了美国80家商场中的50家。类巧克力的生产厂家Hershey却运营得不错。拥有维多利亚秘密的有限品牌却举步维艰。

Americans are rediscovering thrift. Retail sales fell by 11% from their peak in late 2007 to April 2009. Personal consumption has fallen 2.5% since last summer. The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), a consultancy, finds that nearly three-quarters of Americans plan to curb their spending over the next year.

美国人重新找回了节俭的习惯。在2007年底创下的零售额新高到2009年4月是已经下滑了11%。自去年夏天以来，个人消费下滑了2.5%。咨询公司波士顿咨询集团（BCG）发现，近3/4的美国人计划明年削减其开支。

Trading down is not difficult. Instead of, say, blowing $4.50 on a Strawberries and Crème Venti Frappuccino from Starbucks, Americans are popping into Dunkin’ Donuts for a basic cuppa Joe at a buck or so. Instead of shopping at Neiman Marcus (a posh department store known colloquially as “Needless Mark-up”), they are driving to the out-of-town Wal-Mart superstore or shopping online for bargains at Amazon (see chart 2). A recent Pew poll found that 21% of Americans planned to grow their own vegetables, 16% had held a garage sale or sold things online and 10% had either taken in a friend or relative or moved in with one. Pundits are coining phrases such as “austerity chic” and “luxury shame”.

购买廉价商品也不是那么困难。例如，美国人不会花费4.5美元购买星巴克的蓝莓和超大杯奶油法布奇诺，相反他们会掏出1美元抢购Dunkin’ Counts的咖啡。美国人现在不会在Neiman Marcus（一个雅致的百货商场，被人称为“不需要的额外支出”），他们会开车前往郊区的沃尔玛超市，或是在亚马逊网上淘得廉价货物。最近的皮有民调显 示，21%的美国人计划自己种植蔬菜，16%的人进行过车库售物，10%的人接纳了一个朋友或亲戚，或是搬去和别一起过日子。评论家们编造了如“朴素的别 致”，“奢华的羞耻”等短语。

Four-fifths of Americans told the BCG they would defer big purchases that can wait. The most obvious example is a car. After a home, this is the most expensive object a typical family buys. New cars are nice, but old ones can last a long time, as any third-world taxi-driver knows. So Americans are keeping their old wheels on the road. Repair shops are bustling. Desperate dealers are offering interest-free finance. Hyundai, a maker of unflashy cars, has lifted its share of the American market by saying: buy a car from us, and if you lose your job we’ll buy it back.

4/5的美国人告诉BCG，他们会推迟购买不是急需的大宗商品。最显而易见的例子就是汽车。除了房屋，这是一个普通家庭购买得最贵的物品。新车固然不错， 但旧车可以也维持很长的时间。任何一个第三国家的司机都知道这一点。因此，美国人会继续驾驶他们旧车。汽修厂红火了起来。走投无路的汽车分销商给顾客提供 无息资金贷款。普通汽车制造商现代公司提高了他们在美国的市场份额，因为他们表示，只要购买现代汽车，一旦你失去工作，我们就会提供给你。



The beneficiaries of the new parsimony are, unsurprisingly, firms that offer low prices. The only two stocks on the Dow Jones Industrial Average that rose in 2008 were Wal-Mart and McDonald’s. Wal-Mart, with its hyperefficient supply chain, is so good at squeezing costs that it has a measurable effect on the national inflation rate. McDonald’s is enticing cash-strapped diners with meals for as little as $1.

不出意外，此次新节俭潮流的受益者就是那些提供廉价商品的公司。在2008年，道琼斯工业指数唯一上涨的两家股票就是沃尔玛和麦当劳。沃尔玛拥有效率极高 的供应链，因此很好地压制了成本，甚至对全国的通货膨胀都有较大的影响。麦当劳以其1美元的食物吸引着资金拮据的消费者。

Americans who still eat out are doing so at cheaper restaurants. Russ Klein, a senior executive at Burger King, another fast-food chain, reckons that on balance the recession has helped his firm. High unemployment hurts breakfast sales, because jobless people have less cause to get out of bed. But overall, cash-strapped consumers are buying more burgers in paper bags and fewer steaks served on white linen.

仍在外面进餐的美国人到了便宜一些的餐馆。另一家快餐连锁汉堡王的高级经理人员Russ Klein认为，总体上来说，此次的衰退倒帮助了他的公司。 高失业率重创了快餐销售，因为人人都愿呆在床上睡觉。但是总体看来，资金拮据的消费者购买更多纸袋包装的汉堡，而不是用白色亚麻布送上的牛排。

Cheap and cheerful 廉价而欢欣雀跃
The competition among the fast-food chains is exuberantly vicious. Burger King produces edgy advertisements in the hope that people will pass them around online. Earlier this year it offered users of Facebook, a social-networking website, a free Whopper burger if they would dump ten of their online friends. Facebook soon shut down the promotion, but not before Burger King was able to claim that the public’s love of its flame-grilled product was “stronger than 233,906 friendships”.

快餐连锁店的竞争是极度具有恶意性质。汉堡王打出了一个令人不安的广告，希望人们能在网上传播开来。今年早些时候，它给Facebook（一个社交网络网 站）的使用者提供免费的一个华堡，前提是他们抛弃10个网上的朋友。Facebook立即关掉了该推销活动，但汉堡王表示公众对它烧烤的产品更为亲睐，他 们一共抛弃了233，906个朋友。

Another way Americans are saving money is by staying at home, so firms that offer a distraction from the horrors of family life are doing well. Netflix, which lets couch potatoes order films from a huge library for as little as $4.99 a month, said in April that it had shipped its 2 billionth DVD. Amazon, an online bookseller that has expanded into music, video games, hiking equipment and even sex toys, boosted profits by 24% in the first quarter.

美国人节俭的另一种方式就是呆在家里。这样一来，那些转移人们注意力的公司运行得尤其出色。Netsflix这家公司提供一项服务，可以让电视迷们以 4.99美元的低廉价格从图书馆中借阅电影光盘。在4月份，它送出了第20亿张DVD光盘。网上书城亚马逊在第一季度的利润也上升了24%。它的业务已经 延伸到了音乐，视频游戏，徒步远足器材和性玩具。

Of course, if you are going to spend a lot of time at home, you need to be able to defend it. Gun sales are unusually brisk: FBI background checks in the three months from November 2008 were up by 31% on the previous year. Some Americans are stocking up in anticipation of tighter gun laws under Mr Obama. Others fear that the newly jobless will turn criminal. Neither fear is likely to prove founded, but gun stores are still running out of ammunition.

当然，如果你会话很多时间呆在家里，那么你需要保护你自己。枪支销售也不同寻常的走俏：从2008年11月起的3个月中，FBI背景搜查的次数比去年同期 上升了31%。预计到奥巴马总统会出台严格的枪支法令，一些美国人开始囤积枪支。其他一些人则担心新近失业者会走上犯罪的道路。两种担忧可能杞人忧天的举 动，但枪支商店仍旧供不应求。

The big squeeze 大削减
As consumers cut back, so do companies. Everyone is hoarding cash, trimming costs and painfully burning off fat. Inventories fell by 7% from August 2008 to March this year. Some industries will have to shrink dramatically to survive. Car-parts suppliers, for example, are in dire straits, despite a promise of $5 billion in emergency loans from the government. TI Automotive, which makes fuel tanks, has laid off a quarter of its white-collar staff in North America in the past year. Managers’ salaries have been slashed. Blue-collar workers’ hourly pay has been frozen and their hours cut by half. The firm is delaying paying its own suppliers unless they can deliver exactly what it wants, when it wants it.

随着消费者开支的削减，公司也勒紧了裤腰带。每家公司都在储备资金，压缩成本，痛苦地削减库存。从2008年8月到今年3月期间，库存量下降了7%。一些 行业则需要大幅削减，才能勉强渡过难关。例如，汽车部件供应商就陷入了困境，尽管政府承诺注入50亿美元的紧急贷款。生产油料罐的TI汽车公司已经在去年 裁掉了北美1/3的白领员工。经理的工资遭到削减；蓝领工人的小时薪水遭到冻结，工作时间也缩短了一半。公司正延迟向供应商支付款项，除非他们能够在需要 之时准确地提供公司期望的货物。

Yet all this belt-tightening will not be enough. Car-parts suppliers must consolidate, says William Kozyra, TI’s president. There are typically six to eight of them for each part. To achieve the necessary economies of scale, that must shrink to two or three, he reckons. Unfortunately, suppliers would need to borrow money to finance mergers or acquisitions, and no one will lend right now to an industry whose future is in such doubt.

但是这些勒紧腰带的措施仍旧不足以帮助公司化险为夷。TI的主席William Kozyra表示，汽车部件供应商需要整合。目前市场上有6到8家生产商从事同一部件生产。他认为为了达到了必要的规模经济，它们必须整合到2到3个厂 家。不幸的是，供应商需要借贷才能进行合并或收购计划，而目前没人愿意给一个前途未卜的行业提供贷款。

Other industries are doing better. Few firms have the crushing legacy costs of GM or Chrysler, and few carry such unbearable debts. Most of America’s non-financial firms did not go mad in the credit boom. In fact, since the dotcom and telecoms busts earlier this decade, many have put their balance-sheets in order. While households and financial firms went on a borrowing binge, non-financial firms stayed fairly sober. Household debt leapt from 71% of GDP at the beginning of 2001 to 97% in late 2008. Financial-sector debt vaulted from 85% to 121%. But non-financial firms’ debt rose only from 66% to 78%.

其他的有些行业也运营得不错。没有公司会负担像通用和克莱斯勒那样让人窒息的遗产，也没有公司会负担如此沉重的债务。在信用繁荣之时，大多数美国非金融公 司并没有失去头脑，胡乱作为。事实上，自从网络和通讯泡沫在早些时候磨灭之时，许多公司都重新调整了它们的资产负债表。当家庭和金融公司大肆借贷之时，非 金融公司却保持着清醒冷静的头脑。2001年初，家庭债务占GDP的71%，到2008年底时已经达到了97%。金融行业的债务从占GDP的85%飙升到 121%。但是非金融公司的债务仅从66%上升到了78%。

Despite massive injections of taxpayers’ cash to restore lenders’ balance-sheets, it will be a while before the credit crunch ends. Between 2000 and 2007 the average American increased his personal consumption by 44%. This accounted for 77% of America’s economic growth during that period. Much of it was financed by debt. In five years, American households extracted $2.3 trillion of equity from their homes. They blew 20% of this on consumption, 19% on sprucing up their homes and 44% on assets such as stocks.

尽管期望通过大规模地注入纳税人资金来调整借贷商的资产负债表，但在信贷紧缩消失之前，它们还会是一团糟。从2000年到2007年，美国普通大众的个人 消费上升了44%。这占了那时期美国经济增长的77%。大部分增长都是由债务拉动的。在5年当中，美国家庭从住房中抽出了23亿美元的股权。其中，20% 的资金都用于消费，19%用于装修房子，而44%的资金用于购买股票等资产。

Cleaning up in tough times 时事艰难，调整清理
The hangover from this party will be long and painful. Households’ total outstanding borrowing fell in the fourth quarter of 2008, for the first time since the second world war. The personal-saving rate rose to 4.2% in the first quarter of 2009, from a nadir of minus 0.7% in 2005. “It is easy to see how consumer deleveraging could result in hundreds of billions of dollars-worth of forgone consumption in coming years,” say Martin Baily, Susan Lund and Charles Atkins of the McKinsey Global Institute.

此次危机的后果是痛苦的，并还将持续一段时间。自二战以来，美国家庭未偿付债务总量在2008年第四季度第一次下滑。2009年第一季度，个人储蓄率从 2005年的低谷0.7%上升到了4.2%。 麦肯锡全球研究所的Martin Baily，Susan Lund和Charles Atkins表示：“在未来几年，我们可以清楚地看到消费者的去杠杆化行为会削减上万亿美元的消费。”



For most non-financial firms, however, there are a couple of bright spots in the gloom. Their balance-sheets are mostly healthier than the banks’. And for the strongest firms the downturn offers opportunities to snap up prime assets cheaply.

对大多数非金额公司而言，它们却在一片阴暗之中看到一些亮点。它们多数的资产负债表比银行都健康。对于那些实力雄厚的公司，经济的低迷给它们提供了廉价抢夺主要资产的机遇。

Consider Marriott. Although the hotel business tends to rise and fall in lockstep with the wider economy, not every hotelier is equally exposed. The Marriott name (or one of its sister brands) graces more than 3,000 hotels worldwide, but the company owns only half a dozen. The rest are franchised out or managed by Marriott for a fee. Since Marriott owns so few properties, it profits less during a boom. But it suffers less during a slump. It still collects franchise and management fees. Only its performance-related payments shrink.

那万豪酒店来举例。尽管酒店的经营和大范围经济的起伏保持一致，但不是每一个酒店经营者都暴露在经济危机中。万豪酒店的品牌（或是它姊妹酒店的品牌）在全 球拥有3000多家酒店，但该公司仅经营着大约几十个酒店。其他的酒店都以特许经销的形式转让出去，或是由万豪收取管理费进行运营。正是由于万豪仅仅拥有 几家物业，在繁荣时期利润率不会太高，但在衰退之时，也不会遭到重创。它仍旧收取特许经营费和管理费。只有与它业绩相关的利润下滑了。

So while owners are struggling, Marriott is scouting for bargains. Mr Sorenson, the company’s president, predicts that distressed hotels could soon be on sale for half-price. He will buy some, perhaps, and sell them when times improve. Like the Rothschilds of old, Marriott likes to buy to the sound of cannons and sell to the sound of violins.

因此，当物业主在挣扎之时，万豪却四处寻找低价购入业务的机会。公司的主席Sorenson预计，经营不佳的酒店很快就会以半价出售。也许，他将会购买一些，待时机好转之时在倒卖出去。就像Rothschilds of old，万豪喜欢在危机之时买进，在平静之时卖出。

Making money by saving money 省钱就是挣钱
Firms that help other firms save money are also in a strong position. For example, Accruent, a Californian information-technology firm, helps big organisations make more efficient use of their land and buildings. Its clients include Target (a retailer), Lockheed Martin (an aerospace firm) and Yale University. Organisations such as these may have hundreds of properties, tens of thousands of pages of leases and a labyrinth of obligations to landlords, janitors and the taxman.

那些帮助其他公司省钱的公司也运行良好。例如，加州一家信息技术公司Accruent帮助大型机构更有效率低利用它们的土地和建筑。它的顾客包括了 Target（一家零售商），洛克希德.马丁（一家飞机制造公司）和耶鲁大学。诸如这样的机构也许拥有上百个物业，上万页的租令书以及对房东，看守人和收 税人错综复杂的义务。

In good times property management is seen as a fixed cost, says Mark Friedman, Accruent’s chief executive. But now firms are looking for ways to trim their bills. Accruent helps them build more rationally, find cheaper leases and fend off landlords who try to overcharge for extras. The recession creates new problems: leases don’t expire just because you lay people off. Accruent helps firms shuffle employees around to create an empty building that can then be sold or sublet.

Accruent的总裁Mark Friedman表示，在繁荣时期物业管理被看作是一个固定的成本。但现在公司都在寻找途径削减成本。Accruent帮助它们更理性地建造，寻找更便宜 的房租，防止房东过多收取费用。此次的衰退也带来了新问题：就算你裁员，租令期限也不会到期。Accruent帮助公司调整员工的搭配，腾出一个空的房 屋。这样就可以出售或是转租。

So its services are in demand. But the sheer unpredictability of the economy still makes Mr Friedman nervous. Quite often, he opens the Wall Street Journal and finds that something bad has happened to a firm he thought he was about to do business with. “It feels like we’re driving at 100mph in a fog,” he says.

因此，Accruent的服务得到了欢迎。但经济的不预测性仍旧使Friedman焦虑不已。通常情况下，他打开《华尔街日报》，发现他未来的商业伙伴正面临着一些不良的状况。

On the plus side, many of the efficiencies discovered through necessity during the downturn will outlast it. For example, firms are cutting business travel by videoconferencing. Mr Sorenson of Marriott plays down the threat, arguing that there is no substitute for meeting people face-to-face. Others are not so sure. Videoconferencing technology keeps improving. Some meetings are necessary, but others are a waste of time. Mr Kozyra of TI Automotive predicts that, when the good times return, “we’ll go halfway back” to travelling, and maybe send two executives to meet customers instead of six.

从积极的方面来看，在经济低迷期间，一些事情必须从事。在此时人们发现的许多高效率的做法将继续延续下去。例如，公司减少了商业旅行，取而代之的是视频会 议。但万豪的Sorenson却不以为然，他认为人们面对面的会谈不会被其它形式的会谈所取代。TI汽车的Lozyra预计，当情况好转时，“我们将会启 动一半的商业旅行”， 与顾客会面时，也许只会派遣2位总裁而不是6位。