It's not clear to me what the problem is that the article is outlining.
The Dollar General near me has the exact same brands as you would find in any larger retail establishment, they just have found a way to stock the 80% that folks typically need. They are filling a niche between the gas station convenience store and traditional grocery/big box retail. They don't have a produce section, just a bit of fruit. Is that the issue?
Are the small independent grocery stores in these communities stocking produce? Is Dollar General and the like creating some kind of price cartel that's putting them out of business? I know of two Dollar Generals near me, one in a small one-light town that previously only had a gas station convenience store and people had to drive 12 miles to get anything besides milk, condoms and beef jerky. The other on the outskirts of a small town that still has a thriving small grocery store in the middle of it.
After a couple of levels of indirection, I think the whole argument hinges on one anecdote. It might indicate a general pattern, but no actual authoritative sources back it up.
Original Article quotes
"growing evidence suggests these stores are not merely a byproduct of economic distress. They’re a cause of it. In small towns and urban neighborhoods alike, dollar stores are triggering the closure of grocery stores, eliminating jobs, and further eroding the prospects of the vulnerable communities they target"
"“We lasted three years and three days after Dollar General opened,” he said. “Sales dropped and just kept dropping. We averaged 225 customers a day before and immediately dropped to about 175. A year ago we were down to 125 a day. Basically we lost 35 to 40% of our sales. I lost a thousand dollars a day in sales in three years.”"
It's always odd to me to throw Dollar General into the same category as Dollar Tree.
Dollar Tree is an actual "dollar store" where literally every item costs $1. Dollar Tree's items are generally no-name discount brands that wouldn't be found in big grocery store chains, or familiar brands in unique very small packages.
Dollar General, at least in the two parts of the US I've seen them in (areas of California and the Midwest), is as you describe: something between a convenience store and a traditional grocery store sans produce. They have all the normal big brands: Oreos, Doritos, etc. in the normal package sizes at what seemed to me to be normal grocery store prices.
I don't think Dollar General is the bad guy so much as a symptom of a problem. As it is, they're often in low income areas and have a high markup. Grocery stores have low margins that prevent them from entering these markets (hence food deserts). Dollar General fills that niche - but as a result low income people who already spend a disproportionate amount of their income on groceries have to pay that higher markup as well. Meanwhile I can go to Trader Joe's or something and get much better stuff, cheaper too.
I remember living in a rural area where people couldn't afford a car, but could walk to a gas station and pay 3x the prices on everything compared to if they bought everything at grocery store - it just helps keep them poor. And often, I think people see "dollar" in the name, and think that automatically means cheap, but being poor doesn't mean being financially literate.
If people weren't segregated into rich areas | poor areas, or maybe grocery stores found some other way to be profitable in low income areas, or some other thing, this wouldn't be such a problem. But as it is right now, they are filling a need, granted with negative side effects.
Edit: I realize the article focuses more on Dollar Generals causing food desserts, rather than being a response to them. Guess I'm focusing on more what I've seen.
The problem as I understand it is that products aren’t priced in a grocery store to all have the same margin.
So the prepared foods and toiletries get marked up to make up for low margins on fresh fruit. Wealthier customers are fine with this as they want to not have to make two trips and they will pay for the fruit.
Dollar stores ditch the fresh stuff and just take a lower margin on the toiletries and prepared food to make up for it, resulting in lower prices. A bit of extra savings matters more to poor people, so they shift those purchases to the dollar store. The grocery store’s business model fails.
When dollar stores replace grocery stores in a community it reduces the quality of nutrition available. Potential vicious cycle there. Economic downturn --> worse nutrition -> decline in mental and physical health of community -> more downturn
The real issue is that all value created by the likes of Dollar General leaves the community. If the owner of the store is in the community, those dollars will more likely be spent withing the community. The increased tax value on the owner's home will be in the community. With Dollar General, all of that leaves.
Nobody in a Dolllar General is making much more than the proprietors of the old local store were making. Yet, their prices are cheaper. Why? Because Dollar General is taking a cut.
This may seem better to the local community at first (lower prices means more money in their pockets) yet this money is leaving the community forever. With the local grocery store, money flowed in circles, now Dollar General is extracting what value is in the community until the community dies.
I think the problem, as the article states, is the “bifurcation” of the economy. Politicians talk about this as the erosion of the middle or working class.
Wage stagnation is very real and inflation, which remained somewhat muted is now also very real. The average cost of a new vehicle in the US is now over $40,000. That is almost double what it was 20 years ago. The cost of groceries, anecdotally, is almost double what it was 10 years ago where I live. And yet, wages have increased only moderately.
There is nothing wrong with Dollar stores. They serve an important niche. Most everyone has probably shopped at one. The problem is that this is the primary market demand. Dollar stores are many things, but “nice” or “pleasant” are not words used to describe them. People aren’t usually shopping at dollar stores as a first choice. People are shopping at dollar stores as an only or last choice.
More dollar stores means that these chains are seeing increased demand for their retail niche, which could be interpreted as a leading edge economic indicator that families are getting poorer.
- it is newly built. Building a dollar store is a fairly cheap way to raise the value of undeveloped land so some land owners use them as an exit strategy for declining communities.
- likely in an odd location, compared to other stores. The developers asked an inexperienced city council to rezone non-commercial land to approve the new build.
Dollar stores wouldn't be as much of an issue if they leased existing commercial space but this rarely happens.
Sub-optimal land usage can lower the chances of a depressed community from ever rebounding.
They are often criminally understaffed, and get away with lower prices as a result. Added to that their shear size, they are able to purchase in bulk cheaper. Which shuts down locally run things, because they can't compete without breaking the law in turn with somehow more abhorrent labor practices.
There was recently a video about a lady who worked at Dollar Tree for just a short time before quitting. I posted a link below, but it's kinda long so I'll summarize. She basically wasn't allowed to take breaks, and had to find her manager to ask permission to get a drink of water. In Florida heat. It was pretty heartbreaking.
One weird thing I've noticed about Dollar General is that they seem to get special versions of many products. Like sizes of food items/containers that I've never seen anywhere else.
I wonder if there are other differences in what they're shipped. Like how "outlet stores" get shittier versions of brand-name clothes.
>They don't have a produce section, just a bit of fruit. Is that the issue?
42% of the united states is overweight. nearly 20% of children are obese. dollar stores could be seen to directly undermine US health policy by displacing larger grocery stores and encouraging unhealthy consumption of overprocessed foods high in sugar salt and fat. "filling a niche" is an idea the marketing department came up with to justify selling garbage.
the lack of access to food (food deserts) and a healthy balanced diet are direct contributors to obesity and its myriad of comorbidities. They disproportionately affect people of colour and low income communities, and have been correlated with income inequality and the wealth gap across racial boundaries as well.
unpopular opinion: the "wealthy" version of the dollar store is Trader Joes in that both cater to the american "idea" of cooking food moreso than actually preparing a meal. Both rely on processed and frozen offerings of sugar salt and fat that present a reconstituted/reheated 'cooking' experience as opposed to actual cookery involving fresh ingredients and thoughtful planning. many people have a favourite product at these places, but few people can conceive of a favourite recipe they assemble from ingredients sourced at either.
I haven't looked at this enough to have a strong opinion on dollar stores in general, but it strikes me that the 20% of grocery products they don't stock (ie. produce) are the things that most people consume too little of.
I have the same experience with dollar generals, they tend to go in places where the only "competition" was driving further. And their prices tend to me pretty good, it's almost like a mini Walmart.
Putting "dollar" in the name makes everyone think of the dollar trees (everything $1), so I guess the author wants this to be a bit of a commentary on how this is catering to the poor possibly? But the other chains are essentially just well stocked stores. Who doesn't want to shop somewhere that's both convenient and cheap?
> They don't have a produce section, just a bit of fruit. Is that the issue?
Yes, it is as produce is a group of products that a better margin than produce (and produce spoils easier). By comming into an market and serving produce any other store is put at an disadvantage if they sell produce. This leads to "food deserts", places where you can not find healthy, affordable food.
> Are the small independent grocery stores in these communities stocking produce?
> Is Dollar General and the like creating some kind of price cartel that's putting them out of business?
By serving only non produce goods a competing store which previously was able to carry produce and was able to bear this expense due non-produce sales will see reduced non-produce sales leading to worse financial performance and possibly clousure or a slow death while loosing customer to dollar general.
> previously only had a gas station convenience store and people had to drive 12 miles
These stores sell cheap junk most people will not buy if they gave the option of buying better stuff, so they're often considered a sign of blight, much like payday lenders. Besides that, the article seems to contend that they are driving businesses like grocers out of business, I would guess by undercutting them on high-margin items.
I thought the whole point of complaining about dollar stores was to mask concern for your property values and callousness to the impoverished as compassion. It struck me as more dog-whistle than any coherent non-cynical logic. "We don't want to get rid of the poor, just cheap stores. To help them!"
Brings to mind Vimes' "'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness", from Terry Pratchett's Discworld:
"The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet."
TLDR: The products in Dollar Stores aren't 'cheap' in the sense that they cost less than other stores per unit - its just that they're (mostly) packaged into smaller units that people living paycheck to paycheck can afford.
Note the other stores mentioned: Walmart, Target and Costco--all discount stores. When you compare prices to convenience stores or drug stores the Dollar Stores are much cheaper.
And when you look at Walmart, Target and Costco remember time is money. And it takes significantly longer to shop at Walmart, Target and Costco (the long walks to and from your car, the long walk in the store itself, the waits at the cashiers).
The reason smaller stuff is slightly more expensive is shipping costs. Compare two identical products in any store, the larger one will be cheaper, the smaller one will be more expensive, and this scales with weight.
TLDR: people who have never worked in retail, don't understand retail.
Also, saying that these stores are more expensive is crazy if you actually lived at a time when these stores didn't exist. These stores grew because production moved offshore for many products, and retailers took all that profit to their bottom-line (and the five layers of distributors). A lot of these chains cut this out and returned that profit to the consumer. Ofc, the product composition of each store is different (the ones with more FMCG do more optimisation of store size, range of products)...but yes, it turns out people will complain about lower prices...loudly (I have seen this in almost every country where similar formats exist, the loudness of the people complaining about low prices outweighs everything else).
I love the "invasive species" analogy, but it's just colorful BS.
> This follows two decades in which Walmart’s super-charged growth left small-town retail in shambles. By building massive, oversized supercenters in larger towns, Walmart found it could attract customers from a wide radius. Smaller towns in the vicinity often suffered the brunt of its impact as their Main Street retailers weakened and, in many cases, closed.
> Today the dollar chains are capitalizing on these conditions, much like an invasive species advancing on a compromised ecosystem.
Shouldn't it be harder to open a dollar store now that there's both an independent grocer and a Walmart? Who knows? Without facts, it's just whatever narrative supports the author's worldview.
I do believe in food deserts. But the simpler explanation is that fresh produce is more expensive than processed food, and stores specializing in expensive things don't do well in poor areas.
Fresh food isn’t just more expensive, but it’s also harder to handle and stock. Processed food comes in neat packaging that can be unit priced, and kept frozen or shelf-stable for long period of time.
A brand new Dollar General opened up in my town a few weeks ago. They are much cheaper than the two other local outlets on anything that they cross over on (frozen foods basically). Prices in my local area are very high and it is not an economically prosperous area to begin with.
I have visited a few times and while there are a few things it would make more sense to purchase there than locally, every other checkout interaction was truly awful. It isn't a big deal really, and the younger staff there clearly don't have much retail/working experience. But I'd rather not have to waste several minutes on what should be an in-and-out trying to get the cashier to understand that I should be getting substantially more back in change than she is trying to give me.
Ultimately I don't actually do much grocery shopping locally either way, because the prices are so high that it makes more sense for me to go 40 miles to Costco/Wal-Mart or about the same distance in the other direction to the Commissary on an AFB once a month.
I'd be okay paying a little more to support the local businesses, but most things are selling for double or more locally, and that is a non-trivial markup for me. So I mostly stock up on perishables locally in between big grocery runs.
1. We have more people without much disposable income (which is composed of two populations: poor immigrants with few marketable skills, and two, poor Americans left behind due to shipping MFG overseas --going on for a while, jump-started by MFN status in the 90s).
2. People want cheap stuff. It's unfortunate. It means more disposable crap going into the landfill. Save up and buy something that will last. (unfortunately ads don't contribute to model behavior here)
3. Overseas there have always been these cheap goods stores (100-goods stores in East Asia (百貨公司)), we're just late to the party --however in Asia these popped up because people didn't initially have disposable income as their economies evolved after ours. They are on the upswing, we're on the down.
I am always looking for ways to live frugally, and I think dollar stores have their niche, and there is good reason for their success.
In my experience, they are one of the best options for buying budget non-food items at low volumes where quality is not the most important factor. Things like cleaning products, office supplies, arts and crafts supplies, batteries, deodorant, candles, even common tools and repair equipment.
The reason is that if I want to save on many of this items, I would need to buy in bulk at a large store like Costco, or order on Amazon - at a greater volume than I need, and at a steeper price. (e.g. batteries, pens, superglue, oven cleaner, drywall patcher,rope etc..)
Not everything you use needs to be of premium quality, and these are the kind of items that large department stores and large online retailers have trouble competing against when selling at low volumes.
Now when it comes to food, there are better cheap ways to help undeserved communities. Large department stores waste a lot of good produce because it is close to their expiration date. Where I live, a couple of grocery stores specialize on selling this type of produce at a discount.
That is an incredibly privileged response to something like this. No one who is living in poverty or near the edge of poverty can even consider the additional cost associated with shipping or delivery, let alone on a weekly basis for core staples.
Reasonably priced fresh food access within walking distance should be a basic right. However, the people who need this most are those who are underserved.
The natural conclusion of this is no retail at all, no malls and high streets reduced to cafes, hair salons and betting shops (where that’s legal). All retail goes through 2 or 3 big online suppliers with cavernous warehouses that deliver daily in vans or at a premium within the hours via bike or drone.
A dollar general opened in my food-desert hometown a couple years ago. First new thing to open in decades that hasn't shut down within a year. Welcome addition to the town.
What point is this article trying to make? Dollar Generals and Family Dollars are not "dollar stores".
The data doesn't align with their conclusions; the article even admits that "Five Below", which are basically toy stores where everything is exactly $5, aren't "technically dollar stores", so clearly they must know that Dollar Generals and Family Dollars aren't either, which makes the whole headline fall apart.
Is this nextcity.org a political advocacy organization or something?
Good. I've started purchasing Birthday cards here. I've noticed Birthday cards costing 4-6 dollars at grocery stores. They are 50 cents to a dollar at the Dollar Store. Between family birthdays and kid birthdays, I think I spend close to 100-150 dollars a year on birthday cards. That's expense is now down to 20 dollars from Dollar Store.
The gut-reaction is that this is some horrible thing rather than a scalable business model that provides low-cost goods to customers in rural areas that were previously underserved. My family in rural Oklahoma and Texas have to drive over an hour to Wal Mart, the dollar stores have a similar but curated subset of goods at a cheap price, and the distance is much closer.
HN monoculture loves to crap all over things like this. I see it as deeply beneficial to society. Not everyone lives in SF or NYC and can use their iPhone to order delivery 24/7.
Great, more cheap stuff from Asia. Let’s send all of our money to owners and managers of sweatshops and dirty factories. I’m a big fan of globalization in general, but this is such a ‘stop hitting yourself’ moment for me. There has to be a reasonable middle ground between naked free trade and ISI, right?
Stupid question from someone who doesn’t live in the US. Do they actually only sell sub-$1 products? It seems they have been operating for 30y. Inflation must severely restrict the range of products you can offer over such a long time.
I've tried to find out the source numbers but can't find them. One article says a third, another "nearly half of large chain retail stores". It's unclear what the denominator is but I highly doubt it's "all new stores" as the linked article claims.
[+] [-] jcims|4 years ago|reply
The Dollar General near me has the exact same brands as you would find in any larger retail establishment, they just have found a way to stock the 80% that folks typically need. They are filling a niche between the gas station convenience store and traditional grocery/big box retail. They don't have a produce section, just a bit of fruit. Is that the issue?
Are the small independent grocery stores in these communities stocking produce? Is Dollar General and the like creating some kind of price cartel that's putting them out of business? I know of two Dollar Generals near me, one in a small one-light town that previously only had a gas station convenience store and people had to drive 12 miles to get anything besides milk, condoms and beef jerky. The other on the outskirts of a small town that still has a thriving small grocery store in the middle of it.
[+] [-] safog|4 years ago|reply
Original Article quotes
"growing evidence suggests these stores are not merely a byproduct of economic distress. They’re a cause of it. In small towns and urban neighborhoods alike, dollar stores are triggering the closure of grocery stores, eliminating jobs, and further eroding the prospects of the vulnerable communities they target"
This links to a report here as a source: https://ilsr.org/dollar-stores-factsheet/
Which cites https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/aug/13/dollar-gene... as its only source.
The actual quote:
"“We lasted three years and three days after Dollar General opened,” he said. “Sales dropped and just kept dropping. We averaged 225 customers a day before and immediately dropped to about 175. A year ago we were down to 125 a day. Basically we lost 35 to 40% of our sales. I lost a thousand dollars a day in sales in three years.”"
[+] [-] tshaddox|4 years ago|reply
Dollar Tree is an actual "dollar store" where literally every item costs $1. Dollar Tree's items are generally no-name discount brands that wouldn't be found in big grocery store chains, or familiar brands in unique very small packages.
Dollar General, at least in the two parts of the US I've seen them in (areas of California and the Midwest), is as you describe: something between a convenience store and a traditional grocery store sans produce. They have all the normal big brands: Oreos, Doritos, etc. in the normal package sizes at what seemed to me to be normal grocery store prices.
[+] [-] shagmin|4 years ago|reply
I remember living in a rural area where people couldn't afford a car, but could walk to a gas station and pay 3x the prices on everything compared to if they bought everything at grocery store - it just helps keep them poor. And often, I think people see "dollar" in the name, and think that automatically means cheap, but being poor doesn't mean being financially literate.
If people weren't segregated into rich areas | poor areas, or maybe grocery stores found some other way to be profitable in low income areas, or some other thing, this wouldn't be such a problem. But as it is right now, they are filling a need, granted with negative side effects.
Edit: I realize the article focuses more on Dollar Generals causing food desserts, rather than being a response to them. Guess I'm focusing on more what I've seen.
[+] [-] MattGaiser|4 years ago|reply
So the prepared foods and toiletries get marked up to make up for low margins on fresh fruit. Wealthier customers are fine with this as they want to not have to make two trips and they will pay for the fruit.
Dollar stores ditch the fresh stuff and just take a lower margin on the toiletries and prepared food to make up for it, resulting in lower prices. A bit of extra savings matters more to poor people, so they shift those purchases to the dollar store. The grocery store’s business model fails.
[+] [-] gameswithgo|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blendergeek|4 years ago|reply
Nobody in a Dolllar General is making much more than the proprietors of the old local store were making. Yet, their prices are cheaper. Why? Because Dollar General is taking a cut.
This may seem better to the local community at first (lower prices means more money in their pockets) yet this money is leaving the community forever. With the local grocery store, money flowed in circles, now Dollar General is extracting what value is in the community until the community dies.
[+] [-] etempleton|4 years ago|reply
Wage stagnation is very real and inflation, which remained somewhat muted is now also very real. The average cost of a new vehicle in the US is now over $40,000. That is almost double what it was 20 years ago. The cost of groceries, anecdotally, is almost double what it was 10 years ago where I live. And yet, wages have increased only moderately.
There is nothing wrong with Dollar stores. They serve an important niche. Most everyone has probably shopped at one. The problem is that this is the primary market demand. Dollar stores are many things, but “nice” or “pleasant” are not words used to describe them. People aren’t usually shopping at dollar stores as a first choice. People are shopping at dollar stores as an only or last choice.
More dollar stores means that these chains are seeing increased demand for their retail niche, which could be interpreted as a leading edge economic indicator that families are getting poorer.
[+] [-] difu_disciple|4 years ago|reply
- it is newly built. Building a dollar store is a fairly cheap way to raise the value of undeveloped land so some land owners use them as an exit strategy for declining communities.
- likely in an odd location, compared to other stores. The developers asked an inexperienced city council to rezone non-commercial land to approve the new build.
Dollar stores wouldn't be as much of an issue if they leased existing commercial space but this rarely happens.
Sub-optimal land usage can lower the chances of a depressed community from ever rebounding.
[+] [-] axaxs|4 years ago|reply
There was recently a video about a lady who worked at Dollar Tree for just a short time before quitting. I posted a link below, but it's kinda long so I'll summarize. She basically wasn't allowed to take breaks, and had to find her manager to ask permission to get a drink of water. In Florida heat. It was pretty heartbreaking.
https://youtu.be/Jkfjlo3VFcs
[+] [-] handrous|4 years ago|reply
I wonder if there are other differences in what they're shipped. Like how "outlet stores" get shittier versions of brand-name clothes.
[+] [-] nimbius|4 years ago|reply
42% of the united states is overweight. nearly 20% of children are obese. dollar stores could be seen to directly undermine US health policy by displacing larger grocery stores and encouraging unhealthy consumption of overprocessed foods high in sugar salt and fat. "filling a niche" is an idea the marketing department came up with to justify selling garbage.
the lack of access to food (food deserts) and a healthy balanced diet are direct contributors to obesity and its myriad of comorbidities. They disproportionately affect people of colour and low income communities, and have been correlated with income inequality and the wealth gap across racial boundaries as well.
unpopular opinion: the "wealthy" version of the dollar store is Trader Joes in that both cater to the american "idea" of cooking food moreso than actually preparing a meal. Both rely on processed and frozen offerings of sugar salt and fat that present a reconstituted/reheated 'cooking' experience as opposed to actual cookery involving fresh ingredients and thoughtful planning. many people have a favourite product at these places, but few people can conceive of a favourite recipe they assemble from ingredients sourced at either.
[+] [-] rurp|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ApolloFortyNine|4 years ago|reply
Putting "dollar" in the name makes everyone think of the dollar trees (everything $1), so I guess the author wants this to be a bit of a commentary on how this is catering to the poor possibly? But the other chains are essentially just well stocked stores. Who doesn't want to shop somewhere that's both convenient and cheap?
[+] [-] freemint|4 years ago|reply
Yes, it is as produce is a group of products that a better margin than produce (and produce spoils easier). By comming into an market and serving produce any other store is put at an disadvantage if they sell produce. This leads to "food deserts", places where you can not find healthy, affordable food.
> Are the small independent grocery stores in these communities stocking produce?
If there are any, they are worried. If you have 7 minutes this video by VICE from 2018 explains some of the concerns. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6IqsG-Iiik There are also community actions against dollar stores such as here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vLWTkBQWP0 This CBS reports about grocers being closed due dollar stores moving into towns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtAvJBAJfnE drawing parallels to Walmart killing mainstreets
> Is Dollar General and the like creating some kind of price cartel that's putting them out of business?
By serving only non produce goods a competing store which previously was able to carry produce and was able to bear this expense due non-produce sales will see reduced non-produce sales leading to worse financial performance and possibly clousure or a slow death while loosing customer to dollar general.
> previously only had a gas station convenience store and people had to drive 12 miles
This is an improvement for those people, good.
[+] [-] emodendroket|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Nasrudith|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ahallock|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mithr|4 years ago|reply
"The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet."
[+] [-] travisgriggs|4 years ago|reply
And a good explanation to boot.
[+] [-] thehappypm|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lossolo|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] helsinkiandrew|4 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27650477
TLDR: The products in Dollar Stores aren't 'cheap' in the sense that they cost less than other stores per unit - its just that they're (mostly) packaged into smaller units that people living paycheck to paycheck can afford.
[+] [-] pasttense01|4 years ago|reply
And when you look at Walmart, Target and Costco remember time is money. And it takes significantly longer to shop at Walmart, Target and Costco (the long walks to and from your car, the long walk in the store itself, the waits at the cashiers).
[+] [-] paulpauper|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] the-dude|4 years ago|reply
For example, Unilever selling the same washing powder in India, just in miniscule packages.
[+] [-] hogFeast|4 years ago|reply
TLDR: people who have never worked in retail, don't understand retail.
Also, saying that these stores are more expensive is crazy if you actually lived at a time when these stores didn't exist. These stores grew because production moved offshore for many products, and retailers took all that profit to their bottom-line (and the five layers of distributors). A lot of these chains cut this out and returned that profit to the consumer. Ofc, the product composition of each store is different (the ones with more FMCG do more optimisation of store size, range of products)...but yes, it turns out people will complain about lower prices...loudly (I have seen this in almost every country where similar formats exist, the loudness of the people complaining about low prices outweighs everything else).
[+] [-] pao|4 years ago|reply
> This follows two decades in which Walmart’s super-charged growth left small-town retail in shambles. By building massive, oversized supercenters in larger towns, Walmart found it could attract customers from a wide radius. Smaller towns in the vicinity often suffered the brunt of its impact as their Main Street retailers weakened and, in many cases, closed. > Today the dollar chains are capitalizing on these conditions, much like an invasive species advancing on a compromised ecosystem.
Shouldn't it be harder to open a dollar store now that there's both an independent grocer and a Walmart? Who knows? Without facts, it's just whatever narrative supports the author's worldview.
I do believe in food deserts. But the simpler explanation is that fresh produce is more expensive than processed food, and stores specializing in expensive things don't do well in poor areas.
[+] [-] ranrotx|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hellotomyrars|4 years ago|reply
I have visited a few times and while there are a few things it would make more sense to purchase there than locally, every other checkout interaction was truly awful. It isn't a big deal really, and the younger staff there clearly don't have much retail/working experience. But I'd rather not have to waste several minutes on what should be an in-and-out trying to get the cashier to understand that I should be getting substantially more back in change than she is trying to give me.
Ultimately I don't actually do much grocery shopping locally either way, because the prices are so high that it makes more sense for me to go 40 miles to Costco/Wal-Mart or about the same distance in the other direction to the Commissary on an AFB once a month.
I'd be okay paying a little more to support the local businesses, but most things are selling for double or more locally, and that is a non-trivial markup for me. So I mostly stock up on perishables locally in between big grocery runs.
[+] [-] mc32|4 years ago|reply
1. We have more people without much disposable income (which is composed of two populations: poor immigrants with few marketable skills, and two, poor Americans left behind due to shipping MFG overseas --going on for a while, jump-started by MFN status in the 90s).
2. People want cheap stuff. It's unfortunate. It means more disposable crap going into the landfill. Save up and buy something that will last. (unfortunately ads don't contribute to model behavior here)
3. Overseas there have always been these cheap goods stores (100-goods stores in East Asia (百貨公司)), we're just late to the party --however in Asia these popped up because people didn't initially have disposable income as their economies evolved after ours. They are on the upswing, we're on the down.
[+] [-] ravila4|4 years ago|reply
In my experience, they are one of the best options for buying budget non-food items at low volumes where quality is not the most important factor. Things like cleaning products, office supplies, arts and crafts supplies, batteries, deodorant, candles, even common tools and repair equipment.
The reason is that if I want to save on many of this items, I would need to buy in bulk at a large store like Costco, or order on Amazon - at a greater volume than I need, and at a steeper price. (e.g. batteries, pens, superglue, oven cleaner, drywall patcher,rope etc..)
Not everything you use needs to be of premium quality, and these are the kind of items that large department stores and large online retailers have trouble competing against when selling at low volumes.
Now when it comes to food, there are better cheap ways to help undeserved communities. Large department stores waste a lot of good produce because it is close to their expiration date. Where I live, a couple of grocery stores specialize on selling this type of produce at a discount.
[+] [-] MattGaiser|4 years ago|reply
Otherwise you can just ship it from Amazon, Instacart, or a speciality store.
[+] [-] ybean|4 years ago|reply
Reasonably priced fresh food access within walking distance should be a basic right. However, the people who need this most are those who are underserved.
[+] [-] tines|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mnd999|4 years ago|reply
This sounds more dystopian than utopian to me.
[+] [-] Joeri|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mmiyer|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] antcas|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gunapologist99|4 years ago|reply
The data doesn't align with their conclusions; the article even admits that "Five Below", which are basically toy stores where everything is exactly $5, aren't "technically dollar stores", so clearly they must know that Dollar Generals and Family Dollars aren't either, which makes the whole headline fall apart.
Is this nextcity.org a political advocacy organization or something?
[+] [-] dcveloper|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seibelj|4 years ago|reply
HN monoculture loves to crap all over things like this. I see it as deeply beneficial to society. Not everyone lives in SF or NYC and can use their iPhone to order delivery 24/7.
[+] [-] mikhael28|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cm2187|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] techbio|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] celias|4 years ago|reply
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/26/717665452/epis...
https://www.npr.org/2019/05/09/721685190/planet-money-dollar...
[+] [-] zwieback|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] mrfusion|4 years ago|reply
Also how weird that a one dollar store can exist in any kind of inflationary economy. Prices have doubled from 20-30 years ago, right?
[+] [-] hangonhn|4 years ago|reply
Wall Street Journal has a really good video explaining the strategy and economics of Dollar General.