Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Rose Blumkin (American Entrepreneur)

Rose Blumkin (1893–1996,) née Gorelick, was a Russian-born American entrepreneur. Emigrating to the Midwest without a penny to her name, she built the 250,000-square feet Nebraska Furniture Mart.

Born in Shchedrin, a village near Babruysk, Belarus, Blumkin was an illiterate daughter of a poor rabbi. Her mother ran a grocery store to support the struggling household, and Blumkin started working in the store at age 6, becoming a store clerk at age 13 and manager of six men at age 16.

In 1917, Blumkin bribed her way past a Russian border guard and then came to America via China and Japan on a peanut boat. After three years in Fort Dodge, Iowa, Blumkin and her husband moved to Omaha in 1919, where they opened a secondhand clothing store. Blumkin later helped her husband run a pawnshop and trade shotguns and miscellanea that came into pawnshops.

Blumkin founded the Nebraska Furniture Mart in 1937 with a $500 loan. Through astute buying, attention to detail, and selling quality products at 20 to 30 percent below other retailers’ prices, she built her store into America’s largest home furnishings mart with help from a son and grandchildren.

In 1983, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway bought Nebraska Furniture Mart for $60 million. Buffett agreed to the transaction with a simple handshake without auditing her books or inventory on the strength of his experience as a customer and his children’s confidence in her.

A family rift pushed Blumkin to “retire” at 95. Nevertheless, she set up a rival store called Mrs. B’s Clearance and Factory Outlet across the street after just three months. The family eventually repaired the rift. Buffett acquired the new venture too in 1992 and merged it into the Nebraska Furniture Mart.

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by Rose Blumkin

Sell cheap, tell the truth, don’t cheat nobody, and don’t take kickbacks.
Rose Blumkin
Topics: Shopping

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