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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

#641

Post by randerson »

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…

I rarely agree with Trump, but I'm a former exec at a public company and he's not wrong. You need a horde of lawyers and accountants and investor relations and SOX compliance people and auditors etc for the earnings reports. SOX adds burdensome processes at every layer of the organization. Your CFO and CEO will be preoccupied by earnings. It's a real disincentive for a small/medium cap company to go (or stay) public. A PE firm taking a company private can get rid of all this overhead on Day 1.

Not to mention, quarterly reports incentivize a company to focus on the current quarter instead of longer-term sustainability. Reporting twice a year doesn't solve all the above problems, but it sure would reduce them a little.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#642

Post by JumpCrisscross »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #636
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> owners of a public company can't raid it to fund other ventures This is a constant source of litigation in public and private companies alike. A recent prominent case on the public side was National Amusements constantly fucking up the sale of Paramount if it didn't have special goodies for Shari Redstone. > Selling off a public company like that is generally not trivial and is not surprise sprung on shareholders M…

> This is a constant source of litigation in public and private companies alike. A recent prominent case on the public side was National Amusements constantly fucking up the sale of Paramount if it didn't have special goodies for Shari Redstone. Instead they had to give “goodies” personally to Trump in the form of a $15 million bribe…

> Instead they had to give “goodies” personally to Trump in the form of a $15 million bribe

More of an in addition to than instead.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#643

Post by tadzikpk »

jefftk wrote: post #372

> 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. This very rarely happens in MA, because when it does the store has to give you the item for $10 off, including if that makes it free. And they have to post a sign at the register explaining the law, which means when you're invoking it all you need to do is point at the sign. https://www.…

I live in MA and wish that this were true, but do you have data / evidence to support that it rarely happens? Also, I don't know if you have tried to get your $10, but it's not like the sign is always obvious and every time I've tried, it's not like the cashier says "oops" and gives you the thing for free - they call a manager, the manager argues with you, other customers complain about the checkout delay you've created... there's social pressure there so I can understand why customers would not do this even when they can.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#644

Post by b3lvedere »

greenavocado wrote: post #602
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…

Was this in the US? I never purchased computers from people in a storefront.

No. Western Europe.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#645

Post by MangoToupe »

sgerenser wrote: post #605
zahlman wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... American "dollar stores" have items in the first place at $10+? I thought it was already amusing when Dollarama reached the $5 CAD threshold.

Family Dollar and Dollar General (the subjects of this piece) are not traditional “dollar stores” (and haven’t been in a long time) despite having Dollar in the name. They’re just discount stores, like a smaller Wal-Mart. Dollar Tree, on the other hand, had long been a traditional dollar store where most items are priced at a dollar. However after pandemic-induced inflation they have mostly changed to a $1.25-$1.50 p…

Even referring to them as discount stores is disingenuous as the items are mostly more expensive per unit, per weight, than at competitors.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#646

Post by adrianN »

pluralmonad wrote: post #611
joncp wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... 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?

I believe eating food from street vendors was the usual way for paupers until quite recently. Recall that it was common to rent a bed for a few hours and share it with someone who worked different shifts.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#647

Post by stronglikedan »

tadzikpk wrote: post #643
jefftk wrote: post #372

> 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. This very rarely happens in MA, because when it does the store has to give you the item for $10 off, including if that makes it free. And they have to post a sign at the register explaining the law, which means when you're invoking it all you need to do is point at the sign. https://www.…

I live in MA and wish that this were true, but do you have data / evidence to support that it rarely happens? Also, I don't know if you have tried to get your $10, but it's not like the sign is always obvious and every time I've tried, it's not like the cashier says "oops" and gives you the thing for free - they call a manager, the manager argues with you, other customers complain about the checkout delay you've crea…

> other customers complain about the checkout delay you've created

Other customers are complaining about the checkout delay the store created, so I'm not worried about what they think.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#648

Post by squigz »

stevenjgarner wrote: post #619
veunes wrote: post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Would you be willing to elaborate?

Given how important these stores are to many communities, any attempts at fixing the situation have to be very carefully considered so as to not negatively impact those communities too much. At least in cities and places with other options, if those stores shut down, it isn't nearly as significant as small towns that rely on dollar stores.

Re: Dollar-stores overcharge customers while promising low prices

#650

Post by bragr »

crazygringo wrote: post #634
sarchertech wrote: post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at Geek Squad almost 20 years ago and here’s how it went. We would preinstall office on say 80% of the door buster laptops for something like $29. Most people used office so they’d pay it. Occasionally some people didn’t want it so they’d buy a bare laptop. If all the bare laptops had been sold, we’d remove office from one of the preinstalled laptops. Then we’d take the box and send it back to the inventory…

Oh thanks, that's really interesting. It makes more sense if there's a physical box involved -- I don't remember ever getting physical boxes for preinstalled software, but it makes sense that way.

I do. Up until 2005ish, Office install CDs and the code would be in the box with the PC. You needed them if you wanted to install optional features (or reinstall). Stores rarely did the full install.
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