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Dollar Tree says US$1.25 price point to become new standard

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Re: Dollar Tree says US$1.25 price point to become new standard

#251

Post by kube-system »

gkoberger wrote: post #126

I don't think that people in this thread appreciate how prevalent grocery shopping in dollar stores is. In the US, half of shoppers buy groceries from a dollar store. They do it because it's literally all they can afford anything else. There are more dollar stores than Walmart, Starbucks and McDonald’s combined. "Kyle Dishman can’t afford to shop at the local grocery store anymore. Instead he goes to Dollar General,…

There are other reasons that people buy from dollar stores. I occasionally buy a few things at Dollar Tree when I want a smaller portion sizes for some basic goods. I also just like going when I'm in the mood to impulse buy stuff for hobbies etc.

Dollar General, on the other hand, has notoriously positioned itself in underserved areas. While it's true that many of these areas are underserved because they are low-income areas, that's not necessarily the case. In semi-rural areas, Dollar General is often the closest general goods store, and people of all income levels will go there.

Re: Dollar Tree says US$1.25 price point to become new standard

#252

Post by ABCLAW »

dragonwriter wrote: post #144
gkoberger wrote: post #126

I don't think that people in this thread appreciate how prevalent grocery shopping in dollar stores is. In the US, half of shoppers buy groceries from a dollar store. They do it because it's literally all they can afford anything else. There are more dollar stores than Walmart, Starbucks and McDonald’s combined. "Kyle Dishman can’t afford to shop at the local grocery store anymore. Instead he goes to Dollar General,…

> They do it because it’s literally all they can afford anything else. Dollar stores very often aren’t cheaper than other sources for similar products especially for grocery items (which they tend to have very limited selections of.) People that shop for groceries at dollar stores do it because: 1. They shop for other things at dollar stores (either for price, or for reason #2, or because its the only place close by…

>Dollar stores very often aren’t cheaper than other sources for similar products especially for grocery items (which they tend to have very limited selections of.)

This isn't true for many of the core staple items sold by traditional retail and dollar channels. There are many identical or equivalent products that are sold at significantly lower price points.

I know this because I've literally read product cannibalization reports the retailers produce to quantify the margin loss associated with sales via the dollar channel.

Re: Dollar Tree says US$1.25 price point to become new standard

#253

Post by ingenieros »

gkoberger wrote: post #126

I don't think that people in this thread appreciate how prevalent grocery shopping in dollar stores is. In the US, half of shoppers buy groceries from a dollar store. They do it because it's literally all they can afford anything else. There are more dollar stores than Walmart, Starbucks and McDonald’s combined. "Kyle Dishman can’t afford to shop at the local grocery store anymore. Instead he goes to Dollar General,…

hear hear

Re: Dollar Tree says US$1.25 price point to become new standard

#254

Post by nostrademons »

melony wrote: post #192
jbay808 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one thing. Also, China is no longer buying US treasuries, which for a long time contributed to reducing US inflation via underpriced imports.

So what are they doing with the extra US dollars now?

Belt and Road Initiative:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative

Basically, they're using it to buy American heavy equipment and build infrastructure in developing nations, principally in Africa and Central Asia. They lease the infrastructure back to the host country for cash (i.e. favorable terms of trade), and if the host country defaults, there's a clause that China can take over the infrastructure. They may have similar clauses in case of military action, though in that case, it kinda doesn't matter what the law or contract says.

It's China's version of the petrodollar-for-military-bases system. When you run a trade surplus, use that to build up infrastructure that you can take advantage of in geopolitical conflicts. Colonialism never really went away, it just got more refined.

Re: Dollar Tree says US$1.25 price point to become new standard

#255

Post by brewdad »

throwaway946513 wrote: post #227
xapata wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> afford Afford is an elusive concept. Dollar stores are often more expensive per-unit, but cheaper per-package. If the shoppers had better access to financing, some might choose to take a longer trip to, say, Costco, and buy things at a cheaper per-unit price in a more expensive package.

Pretty sure the idea of financing groceries, or common daily/weekly expendables isn't a very good one.

Why do you think payday loan shops exist?

Re: Dollar Tree says US$1.25 price point to become new standard

#256

Post by pessimizer »

nopassrecover wrote: post #213
asdff wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've asked my landlord if they would let me buy back the quarters from them since it's such a pain getting them in a coin shortage. They didn't respond. Rent is already in the thousands, really my landlord should just stomach the $8 they get off me from the laundry room a month and just make it free. I'd honestly pay my landlord even higher rent if I didn't have to deal with getting rolls of quarters.

Tangential but I find it interesting that as a general rule US apartment tenants don’t have a washer/dryer eg as a front-loader combo. I gather from research online it comes back to the practice of generally renting furnished apartments, a preference for wood building construction, a practice of having non-water-proofed wet areas, historical custom (perhaps coinciding with apartments being constructed post-war when t…

I'm not sure I've ever even met someone who rented a furnished apartment.

I just think it's because it's weird to have a washing machine in your kitchen for Americans, and nobody has managed to find the right marketing tone to make this feel normal. Also, for landlords to tolerate this, put hook-ups in, or simply offer it as a feature, you'd have to start with upper-middle class people wanting one and have it trickle down. But Americans get bigger places as a sign of wealth, so they really just want normal sized machines in-unit.

Re: Dollar Tree says US$1.25 price point to become new standard

#257

Post by kgwxd »

jdgoesmarching wrote: post #217
goostavos wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Classic analysis by someone who seemingly has never been dirt poor. It may be tough to believe, but y'know what'd surprise literally none of the poors if you told them? That they pay more money for less product at the dollar store than elsewhere. Despite their limited ability, they ARE able to look at price tags in different stores and go "hey, wait a minute!" If you're dollar store level poor, it's expensive and str…

Your first sentence sums up the majority of this site on any socioeconomic issue. At this point the term “financial literacy” is exclusively used by armchair poverty quarterbacks.

> armchair poverty quarterbacks

HA! I'm picturing the kid that owned the football and would threaten to take it home if he didn't get to be quarterback :)

Re: Dollar Tree says US$1.25 price point to become new standard

#258

Post by giantrobot »

jandrese wrote: post #193
gkoberger wrote: post #126

I don't think that people in this thread appreciate how prevalent grocery shopping in dollar stores is. In the US, half of shoppers buy groceries from a dollar store. They do it because it's literally all they can afford anything else. There are more dollar stores than Walmart, Starbucks and McDonald’s combined. "Kyle Dishman can’t afford to shop at the local grocery store anymore. Instead he goes to Dollar General,…

The big problem with this is that Dollar Stores generally don't have a produce section. Everything is in a box, bag, or can. This is not healthy. $40/week for a single person isn't an easy food budget, but I think could manage that at my grocery store. It's $5.71 per day for three meals. You really need to optimize for calories. Pasta, dried beans, potatoes, not much meat or dairy, even produce is a bit of a luxury.…

> You really need to optimize for calories. Pasta, dried beans, potatoes, not much meat or dairy, even produce is a bit of a luxury.

Pasta, rice, beans, and potatoes are good for calories but time consuming to prepare. They're also difficult to prepare if you've got a shitty stove, a lot of cheap apartments have ridiculously terrible electric stoves. The above food are also bland without some seasoning which is another thing to buy. A microwave a one or two good microwave safe containers is usually much cheaper, faster, and more consistent.

If you're on $5 a day to eat you'll get more variety and options just getting canned food. While dollar stores lack fresh produce they usually have a fair amount of canned produce. While obviously not as good it's better than pasta and rice every day.

Re: Dollar Tree says US$1.25 price point to become new standard

#259

Post by ingenieros »

HWR_14 wrote: post #225
javagram wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$100 is plenty to afford groceries at a grocery store. If they only had $4 or something your point would make more sense. You can take $30 to a grocery store and walk out with a decent quantity of rice and beans, at good prices per ounce.

I'm not sure where "poor people should subsist on only rice and beans" became a valid idea. Sure, I mean, it's a cheap meal. But it's also boring and soulcrushing to have everyday. You're also aside the fact that rice and beans takes a good amount of time to prepare, which is a problem if you're working 16 hours a day - making rice takes 30 minutes and that is coming out of your sleep. But most importantly, only havi…

"But it's also boring and soulcrushing to have everyday" It's also rich in vegetable protein and a great source of fiber. Geez, when I think of "boring and soulcrushing" meals I think of SOYLENT not a nutritious meal enjoyed by tens of millions across LATAM on a daily basis.

Re: Dollar Tree says US$1.25 price point to become new standard

#260

Post by Jach »

heartbreak wrote: post #221
wly_cdgr wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 50lb bag of white rice can be had on Amazon for $88, which translates into roughly 1k calories/$1 delivered to your doorstep for free in two-three days. You can get similar calorie/$ value with pasta, peanut butter, oatmeal. No one who has $40/week to spend on food in America needs to go anywhere close to hungry if they don't waste their money and time driving to dollar stores to buy overpriced non-bulk groceries.…

> A 50lb bag of white rice can be had on Amazon for $88 There's an obvious problem with cost per unit tricks like this. You have to be able to front the money to buy the big bag of rice. If your food budget is $40/wk, how are you going to spend $88 on a bag of rice? With your non-existent savings account? By eating plain rice and literally nothing else for > two weeks?

I'm picking your response, but it's typical of an archetype that's bothersome in a different way to the GP's archetype of pointing out that volume discounts exist. When you're poor, your food budget isn't a crisp reliable $40/wk that you give like an API call to the store for a constant amount of the same food with $0 left. No, the amount varies up and down, as does the kind of food you get that week, as does the amount left over after all ordinary expenses. This leads to the conclusion that if your time frame expands beyond one week, saving is possible! Even poor people understand saving up, despite archetypes like the GP imagining this is unknown to them and that their particular proposal is the best course of action, or archetypes like yours imagining that it's somehow impossible for them. Oh, and a savings account is unnecessary.

Incidentally, the median US household is said by the BLS to be capable of saving $1k/mo after all ordinary expenses. For those who actually save, a savings account typically isn't the mechanism to do it. This leads to "funny" statistics pushed by news outlets on how a huge percentage of people, even HNers who have thousands or even millions saved up in mostly liquid assets, have no savings, because they're sampling either non-existent or non-useful-and-thus-empty savings accounts.

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