Posted on 04/20/2014 6:52:57 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
We can't spell FRUGALITY let alone practice it on any level.
Family Dollar owners The Levine Family
Built the children’s hospital in Charlotte NC
They saw the lack of a children’s hospital
In the south. That facility saved the life of my grandson.
2 years ago. We are so thankful for the generosity .
>Most big corporations don’t care if you are personally >successful or if you are able to take care of your family. >What they want is to get as much out of you as possible for >as little money as possible.
What planet was this person on?
You are only worth paying to the point that you can be replaced. This is why min wage laws kill jobs. People can be replaced by machines. No one is owed a job. Obama was put in place to kill the middle class and he is doing a fine job at it.
Family Dollar failed because it’s not a dollar store. My wife hates it for that reason— goes to Dollar Tree instead. The name is stupid.
Overblown rhetoric. Weak retailers will and should fail as Americans shift their purchasing online. Again, my wife is my guide on this. She has always looked at Coldwater Creek, Land End and Eddie Bower catalogs, but things she ordered from CC always didn't seem to fit, seemed cheap or didn't look right. So she stopped ordering from them year ago. They just suck. Why is it a "retail apocalypse" when lousy or inefficient retailers die?
This is a big reason why 62 percent of all Americans make $20 or less an hour at this point.
Lost me right there.
Another clueless idiot spouting the same old liberal crap while completely ignoring all the damage his savior Obama has done. Higher taxes, a war on energy, market uncertainty, huge rises in food and fuel costs, outrageous healthcare costs and never-ending class warfare rhetoric have absolutely nothing to do with this, aye Snyder?
Crickets
An apocalypse is a disclosure or a revelation.
Not to dismiss all of the points in this article out of hand, but if you go back over the last 50 years and look at the ratio of retail space to population in this country, you'll see a huge increase in the retail space that started in the 1980s and continued for about 20-25 years. It all came crashing down in the late 2000s because there was never a "need" for all these retailers in the first place.
Our modern understanding of the word unfortunately has CHANGED ( much like we use the word — ‘gay’ today ).
It now means an event involving destruction or damage on an awesome or catastrophic scale.
Family Dollar also faces competition from Dollar General, which has good value on high quality basics.
All of the middle class jobs have been shipped out of the country or automated out of existence.
We once had 3 different Dollar-type stores within 20 miles. We now have (had) just Family Dollar.
They were all full of 1) low quality house brand merchandise. Watered detergent is not a bargain, for example. 2) Merchandise that was exactly one cent less than the exact same product at Walmart.3) Stuff that no one really needs much of, such as gift wrap/bags, beach toys, candles with odd scents.
At one point, they all carried a decent line of personal hygiene and first aid items. This seemed to shrink down to staples like peroxide, kiddie bandaids which are pricey to begin with because of the illustrations and an entire shelf dedicated to Black hair products in an area that is 99% Caucasian.
Then there were the grocery aisles. Originally, several items I would and did return for. But then, again, national brands at one cent below Walmart or sometimes at the very same price.
That, IMO, is why they are out of business.
Yeah, let's reduce everything to buying online. That's the ticket! Who wants to bother trying on clothes? Trying out a guitar to see how it sounds and plays. Test driving a car. Yeah, let's just park our fat butts in front of a computer so we can point and click items from those 'efficient' retailers. Heck, why don't we just get rid of retail altogether and buy online direct at wholesale from the Chinese manufactures and eliminate those American retail middle men. Talk about efficient.
A search on *overstock*,*closeouts* and *drop ship* is instructive.
The world is awash in stuff. Pallet loads of stuff available for very little, assuming one can afford the freight, has the space to store it and the means to distribute it. Clothing, toiletries, electronics, you name it. It is overwhelming. Materials and space were purchased, energy was consumed, people were paid to manufacture so much of everything that there is probably enough to supply the world for five years or more without producing another non-perishable thing. So now, more space is leased, and people are paid to stack pallets and shrinkwrap the stuff, which is then trucked somewhere, stored again, while people are paid to unwrap and inventory and it is then put on shelves and offered at discount.
This is true at all price points. Nordstrom and Macy’s have their own discount web sites now rather than use a liquidator.
Yeah, and undoubtedly, you will blame the Koch Brothers, and not the cause -- your guy, Barack Obama.
About 14 years ago, my town of 14k (10k then) had Walmart and one Dollar General. The DG was tucked away in a strip shopping center. It did enough to stay in business but never had any crowds.
A couple of years later, the Walmart closed the existing store and opened a supercenter across town — about 4 miles from the old location.
Several years later, the void started being filled by the DG moving to a new shiny strip shopping center, another DG opening just across the state line, a Family Dollar opening on the corner opposite the old Walmart, a Dollar Tree opening in the old Walmart building, and a Fred’s Discount opening in another strip shopping center.
Most of the new stores get a moderate trickle of traffic. None, even during the holidays, are crowded. Walmart still owns much of the shopping.
The Fred’s closed about 5 years after it opened. I expect that the Family Dollar will close, beause it never has more than a couple of customers.
The town has also had 3 grocery stores close, one of which reopened in a different location. Walmart has a full grocery line and an Aldi’s opened across the highway about 10 years ago. Walmart is opening one of those Market (grocery) stores across the highway from the old Walmart location.
About 8 years ago, Walgreens opened to compete with the 5 other pharmacies. A couple of years ago, the Walgreens chain bought out one of the existing small drug chains, thus eliminating one local competitor.
All in all, small towns like mine have difficulty. A dozen or more restaurants have opened and closed in the last 10 years.
Even now, none of those new stores draw crowds.
Gee, maybe we’re starting to miss those 50 million American workers and consumers we aborted along the way.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.