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"Retail copies of Mac OS X may not always work properly with new Macs"
- Thread starter komatsu
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This was more true with physical discs and restore media than App Store copies. The cause is after some time, Apple stops updating the media with the latest version of OS X. For example, a retail copy of Snow Leopard only came in two versions, 10.6.0 and 10.6.3. Because of this, it will not work on a computer than came with 10.6.4 or newer because it lacks the drivers and support for the newer computer's hardware. With the App Store versions, Apple updates the download to the latest versions. For Lion, you can download 10.7.5 from the App Store, but it still won't work on machines that came with 10.8 or newer because it lacks the drivers for it.
New macs often have individual modifications which allow their new hardware to work in an optimised fashion so older OSs often do not work.
Why would you want to buy the software when it is downloadable on your new machine?
If your Mac was sold to you with a new version of MacOS X, and then you go and buy an _older_ version of MacOS X in a store, then it will quite probably not work. But then why would you do that?
But if you have a Mac with an older version of MacOS X, and you buy a newer version of MacOS X, that will work (unless you have quite an old computer that is not supported anymore).
They don't sell OS X in stores any more, so that statement is outdated anyway.
If for some reason you don't have access to the Internet at home, you can bring your computer in to a retail store and connect to their Wi-Fi so you can download OS X that way, but you're still buying it from the app store either way.