Posted on 02/05/2018 9:28:04 AM PST by rightwingintelligentsia
“THEY want to build one every four miles,” says the cashier at Dollar General, a discount shop, in Lewisburg, a small town in the rolling hills of central Tennessee. Situated on a big parking lot, next to a provider of payday loans open 24 hours a day, a supermarket chain called Priceless and Dirt Cheap, another southern chain of discount shops flogging the unsold or returned merchandise of other retailers, the shop is one of three Dollar Generals in Lewisburg. Tennessee is the home state of Dollar General, which in recent years overtook its rivals to become the retailer of choice of low-income Americans, so it has one of the denser statewide networks of shops. Yet with well over 14,000 outlets across America (about the same number as there are McDonald’s restaurants) almost 75% of Americans now live within five miles of a Dollar General.
“Over the last five years a new Dollar General opened every four-and-a-half hours,” says Garrick Brown at Cushman & Wakefield, a property agent. The chain’s profits have risen like a helium balloon since the recession, to more than double those of Macy’s, one of the most famous brands in retail, in the past fiscal year. Its market value is a whopping $28bn.
How does Dollar General thrive when so many other retailers are struggling, downsizing or, in the case of Sears, Bon-Ton, 99 Cents Only, Neiman Marcus, Land’s End, Nine West and J. Crew, are close to bankruptcy? One reason is that it filled a void. “They set up shop where Walmart does not want to make an effort,” says Christopher Merrett at the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs, referring to the world’s biggest retailer.
(Excerpt) Read more at economist.com ...
I was last in a dollar store a year ago. Saw a block of sliced American cheese which looked good, and cheap.
Got it home and found out it actually contained no dairy whatsoever. They tasted like orange slices of rubber.
You get what you pay for.
Cheapest price anywhere for NECCOs.
It can sometimes be expensive being poor.
I never even heard of them and there are none near me(Eastern MA).
.
DG was much better prior to KKR’s arrival, I prefer Dollar Tree and Family Dollar.
Result? Needs of those "others" are met in a way that Walmart is not meeting them and the economy of the nation benefits by such exercise of freedom--if the heavy hand of government does not allow its "elitists" to bring down the hammer on both providers and the citizens who buy from those providers.
I use the dollar stores like I do Harbor Freight, good for cheap stuff where quality isn’t critical, like the stuff you spray in the shower, buck a bottle, also lots of cleaning products, plastic containers and crap that I use in my shop and throw away after one use, etc. Just use your head.
Aldi and Sav-a-lot are much better options for food, same thing, a banana is a banana no matter who’s sticker gets slapped on it. (Sorry foodies, but that’s just the way it is).
I’d like to read the full story. Where’s the link?
It can indeed. Then take away the first line of support - the family, then take away community and civil society. Then take away church and moral formation. Then add on globalization and competition with workers in China, then add on a piss poor, undisciplined public school systems, and then add on a phony fiat currency that steals your wages and savings through money printing and inflation.
The net result is that we will have a permanent, and steadily growing, underclass.
It can sometimes be expensive being poor.
But I don’t include “sometimes”. I say it plainly: It’s expensive to be poor in the US.
There was a store called Pay ‘n Save in the Seattle area up until a couple of decades ago. They had a store in the Renton Highlands, a middle class area, and Rainier beach, a poor, mostly black area.
The latter was next to a great Chinese restaurant so I went there a lot. The former was by where I lived.
Anyway, one day they had a sidewalk sale at all stores and I perused the merchandise at both. The prices at the Rainier Beach store were significantly higher. I remember an item that went for $1.99 in Renton highlands went for $2.99 in Rainier beach.
Part of it is shrinkage (shoplifting), which is so high in poor neighborhoods that the prices reflected it.
An acquaintence owned a chain of “off price” grocery stores around the western US and he actually closed his store in a very poor part of the Seattle area because the shrinkage was just killin’ him. That is why there are “food deserts”. And that is why the poor tend to be fat and eat expensive stuff like fast food. Part of the reason, anyway.
the very State whose duty is to protect citizens from exploitation is the very exploiter who manipulates those whom they are intended to protect into voluntarily giving up their own dollars--a cruel and sad tax.Then, the State advertises the one citizen who picks up a "crumb" of the millions of dollars voluntarily paid to the State, thereby, enticing more victims to fill State coffers.
It can sometimes be expensive being poor.
A poor person, out of money, has to deal with a payday loan outfit and pay premium bucks to get a “loan”.
Oops! Sorry; thought I had put the link in there.
Then there’s the fact that most low-income people can’t even come up with the cash to buy used furniture at a thrift store, and instead have to buy overpriced new furniture on credit, or even worse, use one of those high-interest “rent-to-own” stores.
Dollar stores are great places to get shelf stable foods. Some of my camping trips don’t have coolers or refrigeration. I get lots of dollar store stuff.
News flash, there are dollar general stores in more affluent areas too.
Every farm town seems to have one. Smart people shop smart and wouldn’t know a Wegman’s or Whole Foods.
Economic development person told me when the latest “dollar store” came to town their request was to locate a piece of property on a high-traffic street that was close to low income housing areas. That’s because they become the local store for those without a vehicle and attract others who will stop if they’re easy to get to in a car. They serve a range of incomes but in different ways.
“Lord...please give me the strength to stay away from the candy aisle at the dollar store.”
I’m series. We buy doggy poop bags there and they are cheap...and great for what they’re intended for (as long as you don’t pull too hard getting them off the roll). BUT...
Don’t let me walk near the candy aisle.
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