251–260 of 261 posts
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Aren’t Dollar Tree and Dollar General owned by the same company?
No. Separate public US companies. You can buy their stock $DG and $DLTR
https://www.mashed.com/199834/the-untold-truth-of-dollar-tre...
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Aren’t Dollar Tree and Dollar General owned by the same company?
As far as I can tell, they're not.
https://www.mashed.com/199834/the-untold-truth-of-dollar-tre...
Dollar General and Family Dollar are not "dollar stores". A "dollar store" is like Dollar Tree, where everything is a dollar. This article conflates the two.
I’m “summering” in a rural part of NY and Dollar General is a bigger messier version of a sundries shop. They don’t have the value-size packages of items but they do have various price points of trash bags for instance.
Probably due to competition from big box stores at the distributor level it’s expensive/competitive to get product across vast depopulated areas to stores so there are few of them. And the local economy can’t support enough stores to cover the land mass.
Dollar General tackles this and prices it in but also cuts the overhead of a full-service grocers like a deli counter, butchers and produce.
There are a few full-service grocers for the affluent business owners, tourists and people at their lakehouses. They’re usually near a few fine dining restaurants and a weekly farmer’s market.
Propane delivery companies probably look predatory if you look at the areas they serve. No telling how fast they will consolidate nationally like retail has.
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I suspect the correlation between shopping at dollar stores and having significant investment fund exposure is a lot lower than you're implying.
And I'm sure those same dollar store shoppers collectively held approximately 0% of the equity in the locally owned business that was displaced. But as price-sensitive consumers they do benefit from the substantially higher economies of scale, the productivity efficiencies of management best practices, and the lower cost of capital that comes with a professionally managed multinational corporation.
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And I'm sure those same dollar store shoppers collectively held approximately 0% of the equity in the locally owned business that was displaced. But as price-sensitive consumers they do benefit from the substantially higher economies of scale, the productivity efficiencies of management best practices, and the lower cost of capital that comes with a professionally managed multinational corporation.
Not really. The multinational corporation harvests the benefits, while the consumer gets to continue to not starve due to inflation.
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That is a rather extreme and inaccurate caricature of the food situation for poor people. You can choose to believe it but it doesn't make it true. Sure, there are some poor people that nothing but junk food but that doesn't reflect on the food that is typically available to them.
The concept of "food deserts" is a real and worrying phenomenon, especially when people have limited means to travel around a city.
I knew some kids growing up whose parents did not know how (and did not want to learn) to cook even the essentials. If it couldn't be microwaved, warmed up in an oven, eaten cold, or bought from McDonalds, they didn't eat it.
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Okay, the quote might not be literally true for boots (or many consumer goods) in 2021, but it's a good intuitive explanation of why it's quote-unquote "expensive to be poor," which is absolutely a meaningful and important idea to understand.
The person you're replying to though is saying the quote isn't worthwhile because the idea doesn't pan out. Is it actually expensive to be poor?
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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…
The grocery business is extremely low margin. The independent grocer is increasingly being squeezed. There really is no way for an independent operator in this space to compete head-to-head on price or selection. If the local market allows they can go niche, or high-end and increase prices further while offering better product/ better customer experience, but most markets won’t support such a store.
There is still a niche for independent grocers, and I live in the middle of a triangle of multiple large supermarkets.
However, these days the independent grocers really have to try hard. There's not that many of them, but the ones that are left are survivors.
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The grocery business is extremely low margin. The independent grocer is increasingly being squeezed. There really is no way for an independent operator in this space to compete head-to-head on price or selection. If the local market allows they can go niche, or high-end and increase prices further while offering better product/ better customer experience, but most markets won’t support such a store.
Very much disagree with this broad generalisation. There is still a niche for independent grocers, and I live in the middle of a triangle of multiple large supermarkets. However, these days the independent grocers really have to try hard. There's not that many of them, but the ones that are left are survivors.
Independent grocers certainly do exist here, but it is increasingly rare and, in my experience, it is almost always a long running business that, yes, is trying very hard and have either a market that is too small for a chain to move into or, as I said in my previous comment, a specific niche. Typically this niche is the very high end or a specific ethnic cuisine such as Korean, Mexican, or Italian where you can find ingredients and brands you just can’t find in a chain store. Though these stores are typically very small and are closer to general stores in some cases. A good deli or grill is another good differentiator for some grocers. I have yet to see a fully independent one store grocer compete head to head with a chain grocery store. I just don’t think the economies of scale are there to allow it. There are smaller regional chains that are able to compete with the national grocers, but they get bought up eventually by chains to eliminate competition in a region.