Even if they accurately charged shelf prices, these places are still a ripoff targeting the vulnerable. The list price is low but the per-unit price is astronomical compared to grocery store prices.
replies(10):
we don’t complain that the per unit cost at target is higher than at costco
I've been able to find good deals on some things at Dollar Tree. Usually the good deals were a smaller quantity of a normal-quality brand-name item. I mostly avoid the substandard quality items. But even sometimes substandard is OK if, say, you want to make your political demonstration sign on white foamcore (much cheaper than the art supply store, and you don't care if it's smaller, thinner, or outgassing) rather than on an Amazon shipping box.
There was a Family Dollar across from a large public housing project here, where I also went looking for deals, but the shelf prices looked like a convenience store. I didn't find out whether they were fraudulently charging even more at the register like this article describes. (I hope it closed because the residents knew there was an affordable Market Basket a 20-30 minute walk away, over the city line and train tracks, and they were able to get there and find the time for it.)
I'm lucky in that I have a real grocery store nearby to compare to. If you live in a food desert where these big chains have driven out all competition you wouldn't have a choice.
Sometimes the sign-makers are artistically inclined, and may have access to better materials.
The most memorable example was at the political demonstrations (and counter-demonstrations) leading up to the Massachusetts constitutional convention that legalized gay marriage. For the State House one I photographed (learning photojournalism on the side), the anti-gay-marriage people were mostly bused in, including a pair of angry-looking old nuns in black full habit, and handed out the same ugly stock sign. (There's an obvious joke that they couldn't find a graphic designer who was sympathetic to the anti-gay cause.) Separated from them, across a street was a huge counter-protest, with an ocean of all sorts of creative, colorful, and positive handmaid signs, held by generally good-natured and thoughtful looking people.
And we need more local co-op grocery stores like Berkeley Bowl, the Davis Co-op, and ATX Wheatsville.
Sometimes I pay higher unit prices at a dollar store intentionally because they offer smaller package sizes not offered elsewhere and I only need the smaller amount. I could get a much better unit price at another store but would waste the rest of the product.
The problem is, so is material cost and handling effort. Say, a 2 liter bottle of soda compared to 10x 200 mL. Same amount of soda, but more handling required for stocking, inventory management (aka, make sure there is no soda expiring on the shelf) and finally scanning it over the cash register, and more packaging material.
Larger units of anything will always be cheaper than small units.
I lived in a city that’s in North Metro Atlanta (Johns Creek) where the median household income was $160K. There was a Dollar General right by a Publix. People still went in the Dollar General for little things where the small packages that you could buy was feature and not a bug.
We still stop by the dollar store for snacks sometimes because it is convenient just to get things to pack for a flight. It’s especially popular for tourists in Orlando where I live
If I'm going for a multi-day stay somewhere and I don't want to deal with annoying mini bottles of hotel soap, I'll just pop into a Dollar Whatsit for a small bottle of something suitable at my destination.
Also dollar stores carry produce just grocery at least largest ones do like dollar general. They are designed to compete against grocery stores and wallmart’s neighborhood markets.
https://substack.perfectunion.us/p/dollar-stores-are-killing...
It’s so bizarre to me. At some point someone needs to do an in-depth expose on how this spice monopoly happened.
Carrying cost of produce does not add up. If produce is going bad at that spoilage rate the store management fucked up and didn’t order the correct amount of product for the location. You can’t wish your way into a product mix.
Nothing was stopping grocery stores from identifying this need. Pretending your customer base is more affluent than it is sounds like a quick way to go out of business to me.
They slowly morphed into bougie health nut/conspiracy hippie stores during my lifetime. Closest thing I've found to what I remember them being are food service stores which tend to require a business tax ID to buy from.
Let's play with Tide, and with Kroger and Dollar General just because those are the two retailers that are near to me. We'll do biggest and smallest, and start with the smallest.
---
The smallest bottle of original Tide that the Dollar General near me has is 34 ounces for $6.00: $0.1765 per ounce.
The Kroger near me has a similar, but lesser, bottle as their smallest offering: 32 ounce bottles for $5.99: $0.1872 per ounce.
Dollar General wins on smallest.
---
The biggest bottle of Tide at Dollar General is 115 ounces; regularly, $16.95 ($0.147 per ounce). On sale for $15.95 ($0.139 per ounce). With a $4-off digital coupon, $11.95 ($0.104 per ounce).
At Kroger: 132 ounces for $19.99 ($0.151 per ounce). (With a $5-off-of-$25 digital coupon if I feel like giving Proctor & Gamble even more of my money in one transaction.)
Dollar General also wins at biggest. They win at regular price, and today they also win at sale price.
shrug
---
Convenience also has a cost. For instance: I ran out of cat food on Christmas Day. Everything nearby was closed except for a Circle K, so I walked over there to see what they had. And they had cat food (of course they did). I bought the smallest container of Purina dry cat food I've ever seen for ~$9.
That was a lot of money for such a small amount of cat food, but I was happy to pay it. They had the right product in the right place at the right time. (And most importantly, the cat was happy.)
Perhaps the rural grocers are not carrying the appropriate product mix for their current (new?) customer base, and are overvaluing customer service?
I don't like it - but I also spend time in rural communities and see why these places beat the local grocers. They offer better value for the dollar. Often they are indeed cheaper on a unit cost basis, much less overall per transaction.
It's sort of like folks screeching about "food deserts" in urban communities I've lived in, thus enacting laws forcing fresh produce be carried by the local convenience stores. That produce simply rotted on the shelves since - surprise! - the local business owners knew their customer base better than a bunch of do-gooder ivory tower academics did.
You can make some strong cases for Walmart putting Main Street rural America out of business using predatory pricing schemes and the like. It's a lot more difficult for dollar stores.
You shouldn't say "screeching" if you want to be taken seriously, it makes you sound shallow and dismissive, incapable of understanding how your narrow outlook is not applicable in some situations.
Please, take even the most basic efforts to understand what people are talking about here instead of forcing me to shove information down your throat like you haven't learned how to use an internet search yet. You don't need my help, and nothing I can say will be more convincing than your own personal research.
https://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=Dollar+Stores&find_loc...
Median home price - $700K
There are a lot of times you want smaller packages.
Does the consumer not have all of the information available to them to make the comparison of the per unit cost between a dollar general and a local grocery?
> When dollar store chains open, it almost always cuts into the sales of local businesses. At first glance, it might seem like this is simply the nature of competition. But dollar stores use their hefty market muscle to make it virtually impossible for other businesses to successfully compete. With plenty of cash from shareholders and institutional investors, chain dollar stores have the resources to lose money indefinitely in a community until their competitors have folded.
> For many businesses, losing even a small percentage of sales can put the business at risk of failure. There are many types of businesses whose products overlap with chain dollar stores and that are therefore vulnerable, including hardware, small appliances, toys, reading materials, greeting cards, and health and beauty supplies. With dollar stores averaging around 10,000 square feet in size and sales of around $260/square foot, a typical Dollar General captures over $2 million in sales every year — and those sales are likely coming out of the cash registers of businesses already there.1
> This is an enormous problem for grocery stores in particular, which have razor-thin profit margins. Cutting into a grocery store’s sales even a small bit can endanger its survival. Food is what customers buy most often in dollar stores,2 making dollar stores a clear threat to grocery store survival or creation. And grocery stores’ profit margins are higher on items other than fresh produce — things like processed, prepackaged food and snacks — which is the bulk of the food that dollar stores sell. Peeling off just enough sales of packaged food can send a grocery store into the red.
> There are many examples of grocery stores that closed when a dollar store opened nearby...
Grocery stores are a rip off too. The per unit price of items at them are astronomical compared to Sam's Club prices.
Sam's Club is a rip off too. The per unit price of items at them are astronomical compared to the wholesale price.
I can do without the "health/wellness" aisle of mystery fluid bottles almost entirely. Whole Paycheck Foods and a lot of independent grocers also have this fad and it's depressing that borderline Miracle Mineral Solution nonsense is allowed through under-regulated "supplement" exceptions. More power to those who benefit from ever-so-slightly-helpful / placebo vitamins-supplements but it seems like mostly from snake oil of a century ago.
Anyhow, there are/were more decent grocers. Like Lundari's 30 years ago in the SF Bay Area. The status quo isn't the only available option.