DOLLARS AND SENSE
DOLLAR STORES AREN'T ALWAYS CHEAPER
You still have to shop around. We compared dollar store prices to Walmart prices, and how well a shopper does depends on how closely they check the unit price. Sometimes, a dollar gets you less at Dollar Tree than it would somewhere else.
SOME ITEMS MAY COST MORE THAN $1
PRODUCTS MIGHT BE CHEAPER BECAUSE THEY'RE SMALLER
YOU CAN FIND NAME BRANDS -- BUT THEY'RE NOT ALWAYS A BARGAIN
THEY'RE CUTTING COSTS -- BUT STILL WANT YOU TO SPEND MORE
Unfortunately, these stores aren't passing the savings onto consumers. Dollar General said earlier this year that it wants to make its more than 30 percent gross margin even bigger. It's making stores smaller to prevent shoplifting, using anti-theft tags on all items, managing and expanding its own fleet of trucks, expanding its generic product line, sourcing from places cheaper than China, and most goods will remain below $5, they're looking to encourage impulse buying on goods with higher price points.
DOLLAR STORES BET AGAINST YOU
THEY FEED OFF OF MISERY
THEY HAVE A TYPE OF SHOPPER IN MIND ...
... AND THEY ACTIVELY SEEK OUT THAT TYPE
EVEN WELL-OFF SHOPPERS HUNT FOR BARGAINS AT DOLLAR STORES
THERE ARE MORE DOLLAR STORES THAN WALMARTS AND COSTCOS
The two biggest dollar chains, Dollar Tree and Dollar General, have more stores combined than the six biggest U.S. retailers — Walmart, Kroger, Costco, Home Depot, CVS and Walgreens — put together, according to Forbes. If you put Macy's, Kohl's, Nordstrom, JCPenney, Dillard's, Saks/Lord & Taylor, Neiman Marcus, and Belk together, they'd be less than 15 percent of the total number of dollar stores.
THE STORES CAN GET MESSY
Walking into a dollar store in disarray, isn't a rarity, but that's by design. These stores run on minimal staff and they're built to move a lot of product quickly. If that product has to sit on floors or in boxes for a bit while a cashier handles the register, so be it.