Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

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.

Have you ever been to a dollar store? Its much cheaper for the same items than a regular grocery store. Also not everyone needs a Costco sized tub of mayo. You test it yourself go by a standard sized candy bar at safeway/alberstons and then at a dollar store. Bottle of coke. Birthday card. Better yet compare the cost spices. Try to buy bay leaves at regular grocery store for under $5.

Candy bars and soda sure whatever. Look at essentials. The dollar store near me charges $1.99 for 8oz of Tide, the Albertsons a single block further charges $9.99 for 84oz, the dollar store is over double the cost. It's the same story with soap, cleaning products, etc. A tiny container for cheap feels like a deal if you can't do the math, but it's not. Feel free to "test it yourself."

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.

And what's the problem with that? You get a discount for buying larger amounts of basically everything.

Dollar stores are crowding out grocery stores in areas that only have the clientele to support one grocery store. They sell only higher margin, long shelf-life shit food, whereas real grocery stores have to carry produce which cuts into margins considerably cause it goes bad. So it's easier for them to stay open. And they create food deserts there. They are a fucking scourge for small towns.

Sounds like the grocery stores were not serving their customer base well if they couldn’t compete with “overpriced” dollar stores.

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.

Then feel free to explain the studies and articles online describing how dollar stores are fucking rural grocery stores.

Explain why rural customers prefer the dollar store to the grocery store? Are they just stupid and don't know what's best for themselves?

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.

They do not offer better "value on the dollar" they offer units that individually cost less but over a year of buying what you need to survive you pay more. That's how items are generally priced; smaller packages, higher unit price (as in, price per ounce).

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.

> They do not offer better "value on the dollar" they offer units that individually cost less but over a year of buying what you need to survive you pay more. That's how items are generally priced; smaller packages, higher unit price (as in, price per ounce).

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?