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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

#611

Post by pluralmonad »

joncp wrote: post #221
Waterluvian wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

... and a car to haul all that stuff, and time to drive to the nearest Costco. It really is a luxury that a ton of people can't afford.

Time to go and acquire necessary food stuff is not a luxury in any reasonable framing. What is the alternative, eating drive-thru every day or having Instacart deliver overpriced groceries?

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#612

Post by salawat »

EGreg wrote: post #567
spockz wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can still have shares and pay out dividend. Then when you want to sell your shares they are like a fixed price?

There can be many models. One model is just to have shares expire after a certain point, the same way options do. Or undergo demurrage (a discount that grows from 0 to 100% over a decade, for instance, where the remaining % from the sale goes back to the ecosystem and is distributed as UBI to all tokenholders). In fact, staking your shares and getting a perpetual flow of utility tokens, or selling the shares, could b…

Stop trying to reimagine stocks as crypto to try to justify a failed attempt at manifesting a problem that cryptocurrency can attempt to be a solution to.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#613

Post by CyberDildonics »

cbdevidal wrote: post #559
b3lvedere wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once i had a very amusing discusson with a store that sold laptops. I wanted to purchase a laptop at the advertised price. The sales person told me i was in luck, because all their laptops came preinstalled with Microsoft Office for a little extra money. I told him politely i did not want to buy Microsoft Office, even for such little extra money. I just wanted the laptop. Semi-flabbergasted he told me this was not po…

The irony is even though Dollar Tree prices are honest because they all are the same $1.25 (excluding the new “More Choices” $3-5 items) they’re still ripping you off. I always shop on a per-unit basis e.g. dollars per pound or cents per ounce, since that’s how I actually eat food. I need a certain amount of calories and a certain quantity of food to survive, and the less I pay per unit, the lower overall cost. On a…

There are some things at dollar tree that are a good deal and some that aren't.

I think part of the appeal when everything was a dollar was so that people would know exactly how much it would be when they went to check out. Then they could manage a little bit of money with precision.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#614

Post by addicted »

EGreg wrote: post #527
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Has private equity ever done anything good for anyone outside of the investors? If it's not publicly traded, it's super secure from any public accountability. And while I'm increasingly hostile toward the shareholder model, we do get one transparency breadcrumb from this (gov managed) contrivance: The Earnings Call Earnings Calls give us worthwhile amounts of internal information that we'd never get otherwise - inf…

I'd even go so far as to say that shareholding in PUBLICLY TRADED companies is one of the primary engines of enshittification. Shareholders want to extract rents from the ecosystem, full stop. And if the CEO isn't sociopathic enough about it, they’ll replace them with one who is. Everyone who buys shares at price X wants to sell at >X, forever. That incentive structure alone guarantees a race to the bottom. How to fi…

I'm curious what you think VCs, etc. who are investing in all these private companies want to do?

The only difference with public companies is we actually have data about their finances.

The private companies are doing it all under wraps.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#615

Post by account42 »

cbdevidal wrote: post #559
b3lvedere wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once i had a very amusing discusson with a store that sold laptops. I wanted to purchase a laptop at the advertised price. The sales person told me i was in luck, because all their laptops came preinstalled with Microsoft Office for a little extra money. I told him politely i did not want to buy Microsoft Office, even for such little extra money. I just wanted the laptop. Semi-flabbergasted he told me this was not po…

The irony is even though Dollar Tree prices are honest because they all are the same $1.25 (excluding the new “More Choices” $3-5 items) they’re still ripping you off. I always shop on a per-unit basis e.g. dollars per pound or cents per ounce, since that’s how I actually eat food. I need a certain amount of calories and a certain quantity of food to survive, and the less I pay per unit, the lower overall cost. On a…

> I always shop on a per-unit basis e.g. dollars per pound or cents per ounce, since that’s how I actually eat food.

For staples that's definitely sensible but surely there are also times where you need one-off items where any extra amount would just be waste?

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#616

Post by account42 »

schnable wrote: post #604
cbdevidal wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony is even though Dollar Tree prices are honest because they all are the same $1.25 (excluding the new “More Choices” $3-5 items) they’re still ripping you off. I always shop on a per-unit basis e.g. dollars per pound or cents per ounce, since that’s how I actually eat food. I need a certain amount of calories and a certain quantity of food to survive, and the less I pay per unit, the lower overall cost. On a…

That's not really a rip off, it caters to people who can't afford to buy in larger quantities.

That makes it sound even more like a rip off tbh.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#617

Post by CamelCaseName »

ineedasername wrote: post #445
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Has private equity ever done anything good for anyone outside of the investors? If it's not publicly traded, it's super secure from any public accountability. And while I'm increasingly hostile toward the shareholder model, we do get one transparency breadcrumb from this (gov managed) contrivance: The Earnings Call Earnings Calls give us worthwhile amounts of internal information that we'd never get otherwise - inf…

>I'll bet 1 share... I won't be your counterparty on that bet, you've already won: https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2025/09/15/trump-wants... One of the reasons cited? All the work it takes. Which is just an insane response. If your business is so poorly run and organized that reconciling things each quarter represents a disproportionate amount of effort, something is very wrong. It means you definitely don't kn…

There's a huge difference between internal and external reporting from an effort and benefit perspective.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#618

Post by youarentrightjr »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #515
youarentrightjr wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where are you getting this from? I seriously doubt you're operating sincerely in this thread, given your ability to cite Revlon. But on the off chance, start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co . > And nothing about public companies says they can’t be structured in a way that sometimes undermines some shareholders. See above.

> seriously doubt you're operating sincerely in this thread, given your ability to cite Revlon I know about the topic and can correctly cite sources, herego I'm operating insincerely? > start here [1] You're citing a 1919 Michigan state court decision concerning the Ford Motor Company. Ford went public in 1956 [2]. The sole source you've cited is about a then-private company from over 100 years ago. You said "there i…

You're operating insincerely by attacking low quality interpretations of what I'm saying, among other problems. For example:

> You said "there is a legal requirement for directors of public companies to act in the financial interests of all shareholders." That is wrong. It's doubly wrong in the context of public versus private companies, given it applies to all business corporations.

Wouldn't that mean my statement is incomplete, not "doubly wrong", if it applies to all businesses, not just public ones?

Similarly, cherry picking sources that support narrow scenarios tangential to the discussion (Revlon) is not sincere.

By this point it's clear your religious grasp on the distinction between public and private companies will not be shaken. I'll continue living in reality, where in fact directors of private companies do act against the interests of the company itself (and in practice are still in accordance with the law), paying themselves off and leaving an insolvent heap. I'm honestly shocked regarding your insistence that public and private companies are the same in this matter; I can only assume that you already have, or stand to, gain from such a private endeavor, and this is causing a cognitive dissonance that is at fault for the vomit you've spewed above. Good day.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#619

Post by stevenjgarner »

veunes wrote: post #596
stevenjgarner wrote: post #351

It is important to understand that Dollar General and Family Dollar serve thousands of flyover communities where there are no Walmart stores or other viable market access. Dollar General has stated that it can generate profits in communities with fewer than 1,000 homes. Walmart generally requires a much larger population base for its stores. Dollar General is the largest retailer in the US by number of locations, wit…

This is the tension that makes the whole situation so hard to fix

Would you be willing to elaborate?

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#620

Post by opendomain »

cbdevidal wrote: post #559
b3lvedere wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once i had a very amusing discusson with a store that sold laptops. I wanted to purchase a laptop at the advertised price. The sales person told me i was in luck, because all their laptops came preinstalled with Microsoft Office for a little extra money. I told him politely i did not want to buy Microsoft Office, even for such little extra money. I just wanted the laptop. Semi-flabbergasted he told me this was not po…

The irony is even though Dollar Tree prices are honest because they all are the same $1.25 (excluding the new “More Choices” $3-5 items) they’re still ripping you off. I always shop on a per-unit basis e.g. dollars per pound or cents per ounce, since that’s how I actually eat food. I need a certain amount of calories and a certain quantity of food to survive, and the less I pay per unit, the lower overall cost. On a…

SO what do you buy for food and where do you buy it?

With your focus on calories per dollar, do you also get supplements? Which ones and where?

Why are you so focused on this?

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