Remember that these used to be called a “5 and dime”. The concept is the same but the pricing changes over time. Eventually we’ll stop thinking of them as a dollar store.
The dollar store is more expensive outside ephemeral purchases like party supplies... it's cheaper to go to mass furnishing retailers, grocery stores or hardware stores and your shit doesn't break in two weeks.
Most customers looking for extreme budget items are now turning overseas to things like temu because they actually deliver lower prices.
Dollar general isn't actually a "dollar store", more like a "discount" store. They sit in-between a dollar store and traditional store. They'll have more recognizable name brand products VS a dollar store, but the sizing might be smaller or slightly damaged packaging. They're like a Burlington or TJ Maxx, but with smaller stores and sell groceries.
That being said, our actual dollar stores like Dollar Tree have also gotten more expensive, used to be everything was a dollar. Now many things are a 1.25 going up to 5 for the more..."premium" stuff
Their prices get higher and higher and their stores get mismanaged from the top (John Oliver did a whole segment on this I recommend looking up). Their customers are financially constrained because they are gouging them.
Their customers are also often in food deserts. If they can't afford to shop at Dollar General, they're going to the soup kitchen.
As if they weren't purposely treating employees like shit and understaffing.
Over pictures of stores overcrowded with unboxed products, Oliver described dollar stores as “less like functioning stores and more like American Ninja Warrior: Retail Edition”
“That chaos isn’t a one-off mistake or the fault of those stores’ employees,” he said. “It is the natural end product of how the companies behind these stores choose to operate them. And if you think it can be bad shopping at a dollar store, it is nothing compared to what it’s like working there.”
A company's own employees make up a tiny share of its customers, so it doesn't matter if their employees are destitute. What we really need is for all companies to pay reasonable wages. Because but no company individually benefits from raising its own workers' wages, what we need is regulation, like perhaps some sort of "minimum wage" that's enough to live on. Can't see that happening as long as Republicans have a say in it, though.
“While we believe the softer sales trends are partially attributable to a core customer who feels financially constrained, we know the importance of controlling what we can control,” said CEO Todd Vasos in a statement.
We are selling less in part because our customers have less money is not "blaming the customer." It's describing the situation.
Fucking DG. they are a nuisance. They should give near total franchises. Let local people own and manage stores. Allow them to set wages, ect. DG limits wages and staffing. Currently the biggest thing holding back DG is the system that got them this far... People need money to spend it.