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Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

theguardian.com

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Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#111

Post by kube-system »

securingsincity wrote: post #98

Massachusetts has a quite prominent law against this. "When buying groceries—food and non-alcoholic beverages, pet food or supplies, disposable paper or plastic products, soap, household cleaners, laundry products, or light bulbs—you must be charged the lowest displayed price, whether on the sticker, scanner, website, or app. If the lowest price you saw for an item is $10 or less, and that lowest price is not what yo…

I can’t help imagining that the likelihood of successfully arguing for a free product with a DG cashier is slim to none.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#112

Post by hippo22 »

securingsincity wrote: post #98

Massachusetts has a quite prominent law against this. "When buying groceries—food and non-alcoholic beverages, pet food or supplies, disposable paper or plastic products, soap, household cleaners, laundry products, or light bulbs—you must be charged the lowest displayed price, whether on the sticker, scanner, website, or app. If the lowest price you saw for an item is $10 or less, and that lowest price is not what yo…

Unfortunately, this type of conflict can only be adjudicated by courts, which low-income people don't have the time and money for. You couldn't just walk out of the store with the items. You'd need to either:

1. Buy the items and sue.

2. Take the items without paying, likely get the police called on you, and defend yourself in criminal and civil court.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#113

Post by smallmancontrov »

IncreasePosts wrote: post #82
smallmancontrov wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The loot is already spoken for by complements and embedded in real estate prices, stock prices, etc. Hobbes arguments can rationalize any Nash Equilibrium.

Isn't it just the predators that care about stock price to enrich themselves? Couldn't a co-op exist which offered non-predatory pricing and didn't try to maximize their stock price constantly? And real estate in destitute rural areas is generally dirt cheap. Of course this could be offered. But, no one wants to do it because it's a thankless job. And if you're going to do a thankless job, you'd probably rather get p…

You're ducking the argument. The loot from predatory practices is quickly absorbed not just by the single player perpetuating them, but by their complements in the economic network -- complements which a competitor would have to deal with on the loot-enriched terms, which turn launders exploitation into a "necessity" and transforms any charity into a weakness that will ensure your replacement. That's what Nash Equilibrium is, and it's an elementary result of game theory that Nash Equilibrium can lie very far from the global optimum. Even the global minimum can be a Nash Equilibrium. We should aspire to do better.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#114

Post by ghaff »

eudamoniac wrote: post #61

As someone who typically only enters a Whole Foods or a Home Depot for her retail experiences, the one time I entered a Dollar General, I was struck by how depressing it felt. I would never go back into one. Yes, I know how out of touch this sounds.

I have a very, very convenient Walmart including a pharmacy so I do go in from time to time especially for standardized purchases. But I don't really like it. And I poked my head into an adjacent Aldi once and retreated. Otherwise not really worth the headache.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#115

Post by kube-system »

hamdingers wrote: post #12

Even if they accurately charged shelf prices, these places are still a ripoff targeting the vulnerable. The list price is low but the per-unit price is astronomical compared to grocery store prices.

While that can be bad, sometimes you come out ahead after accounting for spoilage, time, and travel.

Sometimes I pay higher unit prices at a dollar store intentionally because they offer smaller package sizes not offered elsewhere and I only need the smaller amount. I could get a much better unit price at another store but would waste the rest of the product.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#116

Post by regera »

Dollar stores are private equity with a checkout lane.

In 2025, Dollar Tree sold Family Dollar to a group of private-equity firms: Brigade Capital Management, Macellum Capital Management and Arkhouse Management Co.

https://corporate.dollartree.com/news-media/press-releases/d...

It’s a business model cosplaying as poverty relief while quietly siphoning money from the people least able to lose it. They already run on a thin-staff, high-volume model. That 23% increase is not a glitch. They know their customers can’t drive across town to complain. They know the regulators won’t scale fines to revenue.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#117

Post by tialaramex »

danaris wrote: post #64

"The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. ... 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. ... But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who cou…

Yes, being poor is expensive and people just don't seem to grok that

Take energy. I'm not rich but I'm comfortable, my energy is paid for in an efficient way, I can shop around easily for the best rates for my lifestyle and so on. But if I had no money they'll fit a pay-per-use meter, they charge more money to fill that meter, if I can't fill it or forget to then the power goes out - and it's inconvenient to use it.

Years ago now I had a dispute with the water utility. I refused to pay, so, they eventually concluded that fixing their error was too difficult so they just created a new account starting from zero and wrote off all the costs for the disputed period entirely. If I'd been poor, they'd have threatened to cut off the supply (they're only threatening, fortunately it's not actually legal here to cease supplying clean water to poor people like they're not even animals) and sent scary people to demand payment.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#118

Post by cormorant »

securingsincity wrote: post #98

Massachusetts has a quite prominent law against this. "When buying groceries—food and non-alcoholic beverages, pet food or supplies, disposable paper or plastic products, soap, household cleaners, laundry products, or light bulbs—you must be charged the lowest displayed price, whether on the sticker, scanner, website, or app. If the lowest price you saw for an item is $10 or less, and that lowest price is not what yo…

Not only that, but they post a sign about this at every register. (That must be required.) So you can point to the sign. I think a typical store manager would comply. Maybe I'm not cynical enough.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#119

Post by calmbonsai »

regera wrote: post #116

Dollar stores are private equity with a checkout lane. In 2025, Dollar Tree sold Family Dollar to a group of private-equity firms: Brigade Capital Management, Macellum Capital Management and Arkhouse Management Co. https://corporate.dollartree.com/news-media/press-releases/d... It’s a business model cosplaying as poverty relief while quietly siphoning money from the people least able to lose it. They already run on a…

Kudos! This is beautifully succinct, elegant, and accurate writing.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#120

Post by michaelmrose »

hippo22 wrote: post #112
securingsincity wrote: post #98

Massachusetts has a quite prominent law against this. "When buying groceries—food and non-alcoholic beverages, pet food or supplies, disposable paper or plastic products, soap, household cleaners, laundry products, or light bulbs—you must be charged the lowest displayed price, whether on the sticker, scanner, website, or app. If the lowest price you saw for an item is $10 or less, and that lowest price is not what yo…

Unfortunately, this type of conflict can only be adjudicated by courts, which low-income people don't have the time and money for. You couldn't just walk out of the store with the items. You'd need to either: 1. Buy the items and sue. 2. Take the items without paying, likely get the police called on you, and defend yourself in criminal and civil court.

If you walk out and it goes to court you will surely lose. You may have started with the right to get it for nothing but you cannot realize that right by force. Self-help is almost always illegal in any case of disagreement between parties.
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