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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

#131

Post by jmspring »

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…

The sad thing is, people in rural areas that depend on places like Dollar General, and are getting fleeced blame everyone but republicans and they are usually in red areas

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#132

Post by regera »

sema4hacker wrote: post #122
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…

Has private equity ever done anything good for anyone outside of the investors?

Not yet. Sometimes employees if they get second bite of the big apple. PE do well in capital-intensive sectors. I'm not sure if their playbook fits the real needs of dollar stores. Instead of focusing on things like debt and aggressive cost cuts, most customers just want fair prices, stocked shelves, clean stores, friendly cashiers and basic respect—things that PE firms often ignore. In DFW, I was surprised to see 1-2 person dollar stores!

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#133

Post by sneak »

amarant wrote: post #123
JSR_FDED wrote: post #2

23% of items are rung up at a higher amount at the register than what it says on the shelf, yet North Carolina law caps penalties at $5,000 per inspection, offering retailers little incentive to fix the problem. In other words, regulatory capture at its finest, over the backs of the poorest in the country.

Say what you will about the EU, but they figured out how to scale corporate fines correctly: max 10% of owning entities annual income.

Why are fines capped?

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#134

Post by whynotmaybe »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #128
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…

> They already run on a thin-staff, high-volume model. Like every other retail business not targeting the top 5%. And Dollar Tree and Dollar General are both publicly listed companies, not private equity. Dollar Tree sold Family Dollar for $1B 10 years after buying it for $8.5B, a pretty big loss. Dollar Tree’s market cap is $25B, so a pretty negligible part of the national dollar store business is “private equity”.

Costco

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#135

Post by zdragnar »

mschuster91 wrote: post #124
hippo22 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Unfortunately, this type of conflict can only be adjudicated by courts, which low-income people don't have the time and money for. Here in Europe, we have consumer protection agencies. Get wronged? Shoot them off an email and they'll take care of it. And overcharging at the cash register? That gets handled by the responsible authorities. Again, call them, tell them what happened and it can get real messy real fast.

We have such agencies over here as well. Most states have some sort of weights and measures agency that handles inaccurate price scanning complaints.

I can't say how effective they are at remediating small figure issues, but no company wants to hear from them regardless.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#136

Post by alephnerd »

whynotmaybe wrote: post #134
lotsofpulp wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They already run on a thin-staff, high-volume model. Like every other retail business not targeting the top 5%. And Dollar Tree and Dollar General are both publicly listed companies, not private equity. Dollar Tree sold Family Dollar for $1B 10 years after buying it for $8.5B, a pretty big loss. Dollar Tree’s market cap is $25B, so a pretty negligible part of the national dollar store business is “private equity”.

Costco

Costco's revenue comes from their membership fees and their ability to strongarm suppliers to give them favorable terms (eg. Costco is one of the largest alcohol importers in the US and tends to strongarm LVMH).

I love Costco (I practically grew up at Costco as a kid), but their ICP is not the kind of person who shops at Dollar General or is on SNAP - it's very much targeted at the 50th percentile income bracket and above [0].

And this is why PE has taken over the dollar market segment - because it's a trash business that no one else wants to service over the long term. PE is basically the last resort if a business cannot raise capital from traditional avenues, and leadership and investors want to exit. For y'all graybeards think of "Sam Vimes Boots theory".

Mine Safety Disclosures did a great overview on Costco's operating model a couple years ago [1].

[0] - https://www.businessinsider.com/how-costco-sams-club-shopper...

[1] - https://minesafetydisclosures.com/blog/2018/6/18/costco

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#137

Post by mminer237 »

spwa4 wrote: post #37
analog8374 wrote: post #9

Happened to me yesterday. Haagendaz ice cream. $4 on the shelf, $5 at the register.

If it says $4 on the shelf and you pay $4 at the register and walk out with the goods, that's a 100% legal sale and not theft. Not even if it was a mistake on the part of some employee (and it's not the employee's fault either, by the way)

The store is under no legal obligation to sell it to you, just like you're not obligated to buy it for that price. Depending on the situation, that might be false advertising they could get in trouble for, and obviously you're not committing a crime if you don't know the real price, but if someone says "oops, that's a mistake", and you take it anyway and give less money, that is theft in most states.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#138

Post by zdragnar »

burnt-resistor wrote: post #67
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.

Yup. Dollar General is worse than a convenience store like 7-11, it's an expensive inconvenience store. And we need more local co-op grocery stores like Berkeley Bowl, the Davis Co-op, and ATX Wheatsville.

I have yet to visit a co-op that had cheaper than grocery store prices. Every single one focused on quality over cost savings.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#139

Post by paultopia »

potato3732842 wrote: post #83
paultopia wrote: post #16

At a certain point we have to acknowledge that a huge share of our economy is just raw predation.

Yeah. Why do I have to pay a plumber to install gas appliances? It's just a protectionist racket. Point is, it's easy to screech "predation" or whatever but the problem is that every one of these things has some justification that can be used in the abstract. It does legitimately cost more to run a store like Dollar General than Walmart so the same can of beans has to cost more on their shelf for the same margin. How…

A justification for lying to poor people about the prices of things they're trying to buy? Do tell.
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