21–30 of 261 posts
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.
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.
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 lik…
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 lik…
Your example is already biased, because you use Walmart as the other option. Walmart already came through and blew away the local mom and pop market in these rural areas. Are they more convenient than driving an hour to a walmart? probably. I've seen small family run stores go out of business specifically because they can't compete with a dollar general that opened a mile away. "Deeply beneficial" seems like a strong…
https://www.econtalk.org/platt-on-working-at-wal-mart/
The truth about the mom and pops is that they had very limited selection, high prices, long delivery times, and often were owned by the local business man rather than a decentralized group of independent business owners. I recommend listening to the podcast before knee-jerk deciding that you know everything.
It looks like a couple of things going on: 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 an…
Unfortunately, just because somethings costs more doesn’t mean it will last more. Maybe in the past there were brands that prides themselves on durability, but now most of the stuff seems not to really consider durability and longevity, and the financially smart move might just be to buy the cheapest thing that works and plan on replacing it when it breaks.
Retail makes so little sense now for anything that isn’t very cheap. Otherwise you can just ship it from Amazon, Instacart, or a speciality store.
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.
Dollar General and Family Dollar both sell things over a dollar.
Good article and discussion about the economics of these "Leeches of the poor": 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.
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).
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…