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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: 0.204s | source
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cs702 ◴[07 Dec 25 23:15 UTC] No.46186364[source]▶
> Red Baron frozen pizzas, listed on the shelf at $5, rang up at $7.65. Bounty paper towels, shelf price $10.99, rang up at $15.50. Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, Stouffer’s frozen meatloaf, Sprite and Pepsi, ibuprofen, Klondike Minis – shoppers were overpaying for all of them. Pedigree puppy food, listed at $12.25, rang up at $14.75.

Surely, now that this made the news, there will be an investigation into the fraudulent behavior of Dollar General and Family Dollar.

Left unsaid is that both Dollar General and Family Dollar would become unprofitable if they stop tricking customers. (Both companies typically earn only 3-4% on sales.)

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tzs ◴[08 Dec 25 00:57 UTC] No.46187119[source]▶
>> Red Baron frozen pizzas, listed on the shelf at $5, rang up at $7.65.

The crazy thing is that even if it did ring up at the correct price it isn't a good deal. It's around $4.80-4.90 at Walmart and Target and others.

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limagnolia ◴[08 Dec 25 01:47 UTC] No.46187392[source]▶
Paying 10 to 20 cents more for an item can still be a better deal than traveling further away to a larger store. The mis-pricing is completely unacceptable, though.
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ryan_lane ◴[08 Dec 25 02:22 UTC] No.46187603[source]▶
But because these stores exist, they lead to grocery stores no longer existing, because they eat the majority of the profit from grocery stores. This forces people to shop at the dollar stores because it's the only thing nearby. The dollar store model increases prices, reduces consumer choice, and makes us less healthy.
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energy123 ◴[08 Dec 25 10:16 UTC] No.46190602[source]▶
Do they make higher margins?
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1. ryan_lane ◴[09 Dec 25 00:21 UTC] No.46199679[source]▶
On particular items, yes. As a whole, no. They have a lot of loss leaders, then rely on being generally overpriced to make that up. Grocery stores also rely on this, but at a larger scale, and when their higher margins dry up, they go out of business.

Dollar stores target grocery stores margin products, to drive them out of business.