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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

#251

Post by youarentrightjr »

gruez wrote: post #185
CPLX wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private equity is far worse. It means 100% ownership by a group of sociopaths who are executing on a plan to extract as much cash as possible quickly with no other goals at all. At least public companies have some diversity in ownership and agenda.

>Private equity is far worse. It’s mean 100% ownership by a group of sociopaths who are executing on a plan to extract as much cash as possible quickly with no other goals at all. ...as opposed to the average public company? An average company might have more "average joe" shareholders (almost by definition, because private equity is typically off limits to non-accredited investors), but outside of meme stocks, there…

I see these private equity takes on HN frequently and am really baffled by the ignorance. There's a very clear difference between a public and private company - the fiduciary duty to shareholders.

There is a legal requirement for directors of public companies to act in the financial interests of all shareholders. In practice, and according to precedent, this means long term viability of the company, in other words, a sustained profitable business.

There is no such requirement for a private company. In practice (esp. recent history), this means private equity firms acquire successful businesses to "mine them" of their wealth - capitalizing their assets for personal gain, and leaving nothing left.

The question for public companies isn't how many retail vs institutional investors they have, it's whether an investor can make a claim about a breach of fiduciary duty. It's patently false to say that the institutional investors (who yes, do have more sway) aren't interested in the company acting in their financial interests.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#252

Post by jkaplowitz »

gruez wrote: post #249
jkaplowitz wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Call the police to stop a store from criminally restraining the freedom of a customer to leave with their purchase after the customer pays the legally mandated maximum price which is often the lower of shelf and scanner price, yes. That's not going to be a high enforcement priority for the police, but it's absolutely a crime if the store does that.

>Call the police to stop a store from criminally restraining the freedom of a customer [...] Realistically no store is going chase after the customer for that, but that doesn't mean the average shopper is going to risk arrest/banned (for what the store essentially sees as shoplifting) to send a $2 message over the price difference. And all of this assumes your novel legal theory is actually correct.

It's not a novel legal theory, But yeah, I did call it a theoretical option, not a practical one. I don't pretend that it's practical.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#253

Post by darth_avocado »

gruez wrote: post #237
darth_avocado wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big difference is the extent to which PE will go to juice the quarters earnings. Public companies cannot and will not just fire all staff, fleece customers to the point they won’t return and take on debt that they have no intention of paying back. PE will do all of the above and more if it means they get their money. Which means, you as a customer get screwed over more when PE is involved.

>Public companies cannot and will not just fire all staff, fleece customers to the point they won’t return and take on debt that they have no intention of paying back. Why? Is there some code of conduct for public companies but not private ones?

> Is there some code of conduct for public companies but not private ones?

No but there’s a difference between private companies and PE owned companies. PE model is very different from regular private companies, and it often involves extracting maximum profits at the expense of the company itself.

And as far as public companies go, shareholders will have to say something about the operation of the company if you start intentionally sinking it.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#254

Post by youarentrightjr »

gruez wrote: post #235
rs186 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me explain this with a simple example: * If a company controlled by PE goes bankrupt, shareholders (PE) likely make a profit * But if a publicly listed company goes bankrupt, shareholders lose their money In other words, PEs almost never lose money, so they could extract the last bit of a company, even more short sighted than shareholders of a public company

>* If a company controlled by PE goes bankrupt, shareholders (PE) likely make a profit That's not necessarily a bad thing, or sign of anything sinister. If a business is failing, and you buy it for pennies on the dollar, and despite your best efforts it still goes under, so you liquidate it, you can still turn a profit if the price you paid is lower than what you got from liquidating it. That's not bad, because priva…

> despite your best efforts

Citation needed.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#255

Post by Supermancho »

gruez wrote: post #237
darth_avocado wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big difference is the extent to which PE will go to juice the quarters earnings. Public companies cannot and will not just fire all staff, fleece customers to the point they won’t return and take on debt that they have no intention of paying back. PE will do all of the above and more if it means they get their money. Which means, you as a customer get screwed over more when PE is involved.

>Public companies cannot and will not just fire all staff, fleece customers to the point they won’t return and take on debt that they have no intention of paying back. Why? Is there some code of conduct for public companies but not private ones?

> Is there some code of conduct for public companies but not private ones?

There's a pattern of behavior, to be sure. The primary control on public companies is shareholder scrutiny. Gutting your company for short term gains, is not always popular. The more diverse the shareholder cohort, the less popular it tends to be.

Private companies don't mind it when they can literally start a new company with the assets from the old without the pesky plebian investors.

Ofc you know this.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#256

Post by seanmcdirmid »

chongli wrote: post #146
sema4hacker wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Private equity are the crows of the economy. They pick off weak / dysfunctional businesses and open space for fresh competition (or for other markets to open up).

I think the avian analogy you are looking for are vultures picking at the remains of road kill.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#257

Post by pests »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #142
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.

Saying it only targets the vulnerable because of high unit prices is like saying the local gas station is a rip off that only targets the vulnerable because prices are higher. I lived in a city that’s in North Metro Atlanta (Johns Creek) where the median household income was $160K. There was a Dollar General right by a Publix. People still went in the Dollar General for little things where the small packages that you…

There is one near Naples in Florida I go to often just for the insane drink discounts compared to the Publix or Wawa or the Walmart Neighborhood Market thing across the street.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#258

Post by cs702 »

> Red Baron frozen pizzas, listed on the shelf at $5, rang up at $7.65. Bounty paper towels, shelf price $10.99, rang up at $15.50. Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, Stouffer’s frozen meatloaf, Sprite and Pepsi, ibuprofen, Klondike Minis – shoppers were overpaying for all of them. Pedigree puppy food, listed at $12.25, rang up at $14.75.

Surely, now that this made the news, there will be an investigation into the fraudulent behavior of Dollar General and Family Dollar.

Left unsaid is that both Dollar General and Family Dollar would become unprofitable if they stop tricking customers. (Both companies typically earn only 3-4% on sales.)

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#259

Post by strix_varius »

Waterluvian wrote: post #148
thanhhaimai wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is exactly why I only shop at Costco. While other retailers try to get me to buy more stuffs, Costco try to make sure I'm satisfied enough that I'll renew my yearly membership (their main profit source). The incentive structure aligns very well.

Buying in bulk is about having the ability to both afford next week’s food this week and have the means to store it. Not to mention the annual subscription. Responding to a comment about dollar stores preying on the poor with, “that’s why I shop at Costco” is… a choice.

The fact that the strategic wedge with which a successful, relatively socially-positive business manages to sustain itself isn't universally accessible doesn't negate its value.

The Venn diagram between people who shop at dollar stores and people who shop at Costco isn't empty.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#260

Post by antonvs »

expedition32 wrote: post #179
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…

Interesting. The Netherlands is no class society so rich or poor nobody has any goddamn shame to stand in line at the Action checkout if there's a good sale to be had. Seeing people in BMWs at the Aldi parking lot. Strange country.

> The Netherlands is no class society

Americans used to claim this too. It’s invariably false. It just means that the wealthiest people do a better job of concealing, or not advertising, how vast the wealth discrepancy between them and the average person is.

> Seeing people in BMWs at the Aldi parking lot

The least wealthy person on the list at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dutch_by_net_worth could afford 10,000 high-end BMWs and still be extremely wealthy, far too wealthy to have any interest in lining up at Aldi’s for a sale.

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