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Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

(www.theguardian.com)
510 points bookofjoe | 3 comments | 07 Dec 25 14:37 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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paultopia ◴[07 Dec 25 15:42 UTC] No.46182507[source]▶
At a certain point we have to acknowledge that a huge share of our economy is just raw predation.
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potato3732842 ◴[07 Dec 25 20:21 UTC] No.46184782[source]▶
Yeah. Why do I have to pay a plumber to install gas appliances? It's just a protectionist racket.

Point is, it's easy to screech "predation" or whatever but the problem is that every one of these things has some justification that can be used in the abstract.

It does legitimately cost more to run a store like Dollar General than Walmart so the same can of beans has to cost more on their shelf for the same margin.

How much more, how much is justified? I don't know.

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1. paultopia ◴[07 Dec 25 21:42 UTC] No.46185464[source]▶
A justification for lying to poor people about the prices of things they're trying to buy? Do tell.
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2. potato3732842 ◴[07 Dec 25 22:16 UTC] No.46185788[source]▶
I know we're all idiots here because that's what easy tech money does to people but retail margins are razor thin. You can't just make thoughtless trite statements about what they "should" do because a few percent here and there is the difference between red and black and red means prices go up. I'm sure they're happy to not invest in accuracy when it makes them money but there's a pretty wide gulf between being sloppy because it suits you and actively making a business out of deceit.
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3. paultopia ◴[08 Dec 25 04:14 UTC] No.46188223[source]▶
As another commenter in this thread pointed out, pricing is the bare minimum for retail. We’re not talking about general sloppiness, we’re talking about misleading consumers on the basics of their transactions.

Yes, lots of businesses have thin margins. But the law (such as contract law and the laws against consumer fraud, which are implicated here) sets the things that a business can’t economize on in order to meet those margins. It’s the same as food safety: restaurants also run really thin margins, but they’re not allowed to store the meat on the counter because refrigeration is too expensive. If they do that, they get shut down by the health inspector.

Businesses “should” comply with consumer fraud laws for the same reason they “should” comply with health codes.