Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dollar stores make up nearly half of all new store openings in the U.S.

nextcity.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 261 posts

Re: Dollar stores make up nearly half of all new store openings in the U.S.

#181

Post by Jach »

analyte123 wrote: post #130
safog wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, e…

Amusing. My personal experience is that DG is awesome. Before DG in the town I'm familiar with if you wanted to buy basic office or school supplies, basic OTC medical supplies that were not a gas-station 2-pack of aspirin, essentially any cookware, or a better variety of packaged goods than the local mediocre grocery store (like detergent, snacks, juice, sauces) you had to drive over 20 miles. The produce that DG doe…

Does Amazon refuse to deliver to homes in the town you're familiar with? Doesn't help with produce since not everywhere has same-day Amazon Fresh I guess (and Amazon's isn't very good compared to store alternatives in the Bellevue, WA area), but it hasn't occurred to me to buy basic office/school supplies, OTC medical stuff, or many other things from a store instead of Amazon for a long time.

Re: Dollar stores make up nearly half of all new store openings in the U.S.

#182

Post by jcims »

Jach wrote: post #181
analyte123 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amusing. My personal experience is that DG is awesome. Before DG in the town I'm familiar with if you wanted to buy basic office or school supplies, basic OTC medical supplies that were not a gas-station 2-pack of aspirin, essentially any cookware, or a better variety of packaged goods than the local mediocre grocery store (like detergent, snacks, juice, sauces) you had to drive over 20 miles. The produce that DG doe…

Does Amazon refuse to deliver to homes in the town you're familiar with? Doesn't help with produce since not everywhere has same-day Amazon Fresh I guess (and Amazon's isn't very good compared to store alternatives in the Bellevue, WA area), but it hasn't occurred to me to buy basic office/school supplies, OTC medical stuff, or many other things from a store instead of Amazon for a long time.

Pretty sure the bile in these comments would be doubled if the story was about Amazon displacing local stores.

Re: Dollar stores make up nearly half of all new store openings in the U.S.

#183

Post by dcolkitt »

arrosenberg wrote: post #117
sokoloff wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dollar General comes in and offers local consumers a bargain that local consumers strongly prefer. Accordingly, local consumers vote with their feet. Unless the master plan is to run competitors out of town and then change to "Two Dollar General", it seems like Dollar General is good for consumers (at least if you judge by consumers' own revealed preferences).

It's not really great for them when they leave the store and go back to being citizens of their communities. The dollars they just spent aren't being reinvested by the local owner, they're going to a private equity firm based in New York. That's pretty clearly extractive, rather than being a mutually beneficial relationship.

And that private equity firm is largely made up of capital from pension funds, charitable endowments, and university endowments.

Dollars leaving the community is a good thing. Those dollars don’t just go into a black hole. They go to other towns. And some of those towns’ dollars come to our town.

That allows all of us to diversity our risk across geographic areas. I’d much rather own a small slice of grocery stores in 1000 towns across the country than a large share of the grocery store down the street.

Re: Dollar stores make up nearly half of all new store openings in the U.S.

#184

Post by RC_ITR »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #171
safog wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, e…

There is a presumption here that "local" grocery stores are an unalloyed good. In my experience, having grown up in these kinds of places, they were often more exploitive and extractive than the national chains. When Walmart rolls into town, many times it breaks a local monopoly that used this fact to its advantage with both customers and employees. A problem in the US is that there are many thousands of communities…

This is the same argument about local newspapers - sure it is probably good to have local reporters covering local events, but replacing $5/line classified ads with Facebook Marketplace probably had a more positive impact on people vs. biased and poorly-read write-ups of a city counsel meetings ever did.

Re: Dollar stores make up nearly half of all new store openings in the U.S.

#185

Post by bobthepanda »

thehappypm wrote: post #142
bobthepanda wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Granted, I'm shopping for myself, but buying goods for only a week or two out I don't feel like I spend $70. If you go to a bulk store like Costco it certainly adds up. I don't go to those places because I can never use the stuff up fast enough before it goes bad.

Costco is a great place to buy non-perishables, dry goods, and stuff you can freeze the excess of. I agree it's hard to eat the fresh stuff but then again I don't have a family.

If I had the room for it it might make more sense, but alas I live in an apartment and can't store 12 paper towel rolls.

Re: Dollar stores make up nearly half of all new store openings in the U.S.

#186

Post by tick_tock_tick »

zhdc1 wrote: post #93
seibelj wrote: post #7

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…

> 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. I'm disappointed that your comment was downvoted because you're absolutely correct.

Nah everything closes too early in SF good luck getting anything but McDonalds after 2am.

Re: Dollar stores make up nearly half of all new store openings in the U.S.

#187

Post by inetknght »

dcolkitt wrote: post #183
arrosenberg wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really great for them when they leave the store and go back to being citizens of their communities. The dollars they just spent aren't being reinvested by the local owner, they're going to a private equity firm based in New York. That's pretty clearly extractive, rather than being a mutually beneficial relationship.

And that private equity firm is largely made up of capital from pension funds, charitable endowments, and university endowments. Dollars leaving the community is a good thing. Those dollars don’t just go into a black hole. They go to other towns. And some of those towns’ dollars come to our town. That allows all of us to diversity our risk across geographic areas. I’d much rather own a small slice of grocery stores i…

> Dollars leaving the community is a good thing. Those dollars don’t just go into a black hole. They go to other towns. And some of those towns’ dollars come to our town.

Trickle-down economics failed the U.S. before and will fail us again. Trickle-down economics are a lie sold by the mega-rich.

Re: Dollar stores make up nearly half of all new store openings in the U.S.

#188

Post by imwillofficial »

tshaddox wrote: post #31
jcims wrote: post #16

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…

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…

Aren’t Dollar Tree and Dollar General owned by the same company?

Re: Dollar stores make up nearly half of all new store openings in the U.S.

#189

Post by rurp »

dcolkitt wrote: post #183
arrosenberg wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really great for them when they leave the store and go back to being citizens of their communities. The dollars they just spent aren't being reinvested by the local owner, they're going to a private equity firm based in New York. That's pretty clearly extractive, rather than being a mutually beneficial relationship.

And that private equity firm is largely made up of capital from pension funds, charitable endowments, and university endowments. Dollars leaving the community is a good thing. Those dollars don’t just go into a black hole. They go to other towns. And some of those towns’ dollars come to our town. That allows all of us to diversity our risk across geographic areas. I’d much rather own a small slice of grocery stores i…

I suspect the correlation between shopping at dollar stores and having significant investment fund exposure is a lot lower than you're implying.

Re: Dollar stores make up nearly half of all new store openings in the U.S.

#190

Post by rurp »

jcims wrote: post #16

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…

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.
Post reply on HN