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Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

(www.theguardian.com)
510 points bookofjoe | 1 comments | 07 Dec 25 14:37 UTC | HN request time: 0.194s | source
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regera ◴[07 Dec 25 21:07 UTC] No.46185157[source]▶
Dollar stores are private equity with a checkout lane.

In 2025, Dollar Tree sold Family Dollar to a group of private-equity firms: Brigade Capital Management, Macellum Capital Management and Arkhouse Management Co.

https://corporate.dollartree.com/news-media/press-releases/d...

It’s a business model cosplaying as poverty relief while quietly siphoning money from the people least able to lose it. They already run on a thin-staff, high-volume model. That 23% increase is not a glitch. They know their customers can’t drive across town to complain. They know the regulators won’t scale fines to revenue.

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JKCalhoun ◴[08 Dec 25 02:56 UTC] No.46187818[source]▶
Here's how shitty of a business person I am: I had no idea that the poor were a "market" you could prey upon.

Somehow I thought that if I presented a business plan that began, "Our target audience are those living paycheck to paycheck…" that I would be quickly shown the door.

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1. thephyber ◴[08 Dec 25 03:46 UTC] No.46188059[source]▶
Dollar Tree and Dollar General are sometimes located in the poor part of a city, but most of their locations are in areas which are too poor to sustain good margin businesses. Rural towns with a single road and only 1-2 gas stations, etc. their core business is to offer smaller and smaller portions to maintain profits while rival stores go under. They are so prolific, they can get giant companies (think drinks, household items, and pharma) to create smaller and smaller portioned SKUs over time.

The businesses were originally just exploiting a gap in the market, but then PE realized that they could just buy out these local monopolies.