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Family Dollar to close almost 1,000 stores

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Re: Family Dollar to close almost 1,000 stores

#61

Post by faeriechangling »

johnbellone wrote: post #53
kerkeslager wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another good thing about Aldi is that they let their cashiers sit down. It's unethical that other grocery chains don't provide chairs for their cashiers.

Is "unethical" really the correct word here?

Yes, I know grocery chains which harassed their cashiers to stand because of customer complaints even when they had a doctors note and were suffering from real physical ailments that made it painful to stand, and standing delayed their recoveries.

Unethical is an apt word. If I see cashiers seated that’s a place I want to shop. It signals that they care about their workers.

Re: Family Dollar to close almost 1,000 stores

#62

Post by iancmceachern »

diseasedyak wrote: post #54

Every Dollar Tree and Family Dollar that I've been in (and this applies to Dollar General as well, here in the southern US) has had 1, maybe 2, employees working and aisles filled with boxes waiting to be unloaded. A couple employees can't contain any sort of theft, much less help customers and unload all the stuff to put on shelves. Little reason to be shocked on why their business model isn't working...

They (management) does this deliberately, there are youtube videos on it

Re: Family Dollar to close almost 1,000 stores

#63

Post by duxup »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #55
duxup wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This only makes sense if you think poor people are dumb or naive. I would say ALL consumers are not consistently logical / will make choices that aren't in their best interest.

True, but I think most consumers aren't obviously "dumb". Most people past 3rd grade can tell that $4 for 1 gallon is cheaper than $2 for 1 quart. It gets trickier when it's not a direct comparison though... would you rather drive 20 min farther to save the $4? Probably not just for that one item, but if you are buying a large amount then the answer changes. We don't necessarily do a cost/benefit analysis of all thes…

Perception is a strange thing too, and I think greatly distorts when people do make comparisons. On a forum about my local area it became a common thing for folks to go down to the expensive grocery store and post pics of the most expensive thing (usually pre-preapred meals) and rant about how expensive it is at the expensive store.

I was curious so one day I was at the more expensive store (I like it, they have good stuff) and I took some photos. I then went to Aldi and took some photos.

Without commentary I posted the photos from the expensive store, but only of items that were actually less or equally expensive than Aldi on that day. People ranted about the prices being high at the expensive store and shared that "That's why I shop at Aldi."

People are weird.

Re: Family Dollar to close almost 1,000 stores

#64

Post by kerkeslager »

johnbellone wrote: post #53
kerkeslager wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another good thing about Aldi is that they let their cashiers sit down. It's unethical that other grocery chains don't provide chairs for their cashiers.

Is "unethical" really the correct word here?

Yes.

Most people are physically harmed by standing on hard floors for 8 hours a day. There is no conscionable reason for doing this to your workers.

Re: Family Dollar to close almost 1,000 stores

#66

Post by balderdash »

kerkeslager wrote: post #39
prirun wrote: post #7

When they were competitors, before the merger in 2015, they built stores next to each other. Rite Aid did the same thing with Walgreens drug stores. Then after the merger, they ended up with redundant stores in the same location. Duh! https://corporate.dollartree.com/news-media/press-releases/d... The thing I don't like about these stores is IMO they take advantage of poor people who think they are getting cheaper pr…

Another good thing about Aldi is that they let their cashiers sit down. It's unethical that other grocery chains don't provide chairs for their cashiers.

I had a job where i had to stand in one place all day - definitely hard the first couple of weeks - you adapt (+find comfy shoes), I would have never characterized it as unethical, and its probably a lot healthier...

Re: Family Dollar to close almost 1,000 stores

#67

Post by bombcar »

faeriechangling wrote: post #42
darth_avocado wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The misconception about dollar stores is that they sell cheaper products. However it’d be cheaper to buy almost anything per unit at Costco. Dollar stores provide a service when they sell the same products but smaller sizes, which makes it easier for people who don’t have enough cash to buy stuff.

Costco has a higher income cachet, there’s a reason Charlie Munger adored it so. When you’re living in a 100sqft SRO and walking for your groceries the value of the dollar store is more obvious. Because it’s a STORE for the things you can’t fit at home that is near your home, which sells items in small quantities. The entire dollar store model is many locations and small footprint. It doesn’t make a lick of sense for…

All that is true, but the dollar stores (perhaps more correctly called convenience stores?) have issues, too. Ours is literally across the street from a Walmart, and many items are priced higher than Walmart for the exact same size.

However, one of the best things you can do to save money is identify waste, which sometimes means buying a smaller more expensive (per unit) item than a larger and cheaper per unit one. There's no reason to buy a gallon of milk if you always throw away half.

Re: Family Dollar to close almost 1,000 stores

#68

Post by nyjah »

cpursley wrote: post #10
cpursley wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aldi has a number of high quality and healthy items. They have great prices for things like nuts, jerky, cheese, etc. Just skip the processed stuff like you should in any grocery store.

Also, I'm always amused that the same anti-Aldi people seem to love Trader Joes and also be the ones talking about food access, poverty issues, etc.

I don’t like Trader Joe’s either, to be fair.

Re: Family Dollar to close almost 1,000 stores

#69

Post by kerkeslager »

mc32 wrote: post #50
kerkeslager wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another good thing about Aldi is that they let their cashiers sit down. It's unethical that other grocery chains don't provide chairs for their cashiers.

Isn’t sitting less healthy than standing? Though, I agree, there should be stools. I see fatigued old timers at the registers who look like they could use a respit.

I'd posit that neither is particularly healthy.

Keep in mind that "standing" in this case means standing in one place on a hard floor. If you're comparing to the typical tech worker standing-desk setup, most such workers have done a lot to get the ergonomics of that setup correct, i.e. getting surfaces and screens at the right heights and adding a pad to stand on, whereas the ergonomics of a cashier station are geared toward the customer, not the cashier. You could address this partly by adding pads to standing surfaces.

There's a larger problem here though, which is that the evidence behind standing desks being beneficial is... not good. There's lots of evidence that sitting is bad, but only in comparison to not sitting. That hides the fact that "not sitting" includes a lot of different kinds of standing--walking around is not the same as standing in one place. What studies we have of standing desks document back and leg pain as a possible side effect, and that's usually the best case of standing in one place. If there are any studies of standing in one place on a hard floor for hours, I'm not aware of them, but I'm not convinced that particular case of "not sitting" is much better than sitting.

In short, the problem with sitting is probably that you're not moving, not the particular position in which you don't move.

Talk to your cashier, ask how long they've been working there and if they experience pain from standing, and with the exception of new employees or employees under, maybe 25ish, I can almost guarantee the answer will be "yes".

Re: Family Dollar to close almost 1,000 stores

#70

Post by bombcar »

mc32 wrote: post #50
kerkeslager wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another good thing about Aldi is that they let their cashiers sit down. It's unethical that other grocery chains don't provide chairs for their cashiers.

Isn’t sitting less healthy than standing? Though, I agree, there should be stools. I see fatigued old timers at the registers who look like they could use a respit.

Sitting also provides a very clear indicator to the customer that the cashier is NOT going to walk around the corner and bag their items for them.

Everywhere else with standing cashiers that I know of (besides banks, which more and more have stooled or sitting tellers) have a mat to stand on and will bag.

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