7 ms·

I disagree with the assertion that discount stores are dependent on economic stagnation. I live in a dense urban area well served by traditional retailers, and

I disagree with the assertion that discount stores are dependent on economic stagnation. I live in a dense urban area well served by traditional retailers, and have a great job that allows me to shop wherever I want. And yet, half my shopping trips for household goods seem to be to Dollar Tree. They've got equivalent products to other stores, except that almost everything is 50%+ cheaper. You don't have to be part of a "permanent underclass" to appreciate cheap.

code_duck 9y ago
Anecdotally... I have a close friend who is a PhD, has tens of thousands in the bank, a great job, and absolutely loves the dollar store.
- samstave 9y ago
  I love daiso - the Japanese dollar store. It's amazing.
  - coffeevradar 9y ago
    Except that they charge $1.50 for everything. Which is only annoying because similar stores in Japan (which for me are a highlight of any trip to Japan) only charge ¥100. I don't know if it's because of proximity to China or because Daiso knows they're offering better stuff than their literally $1 competitors here in the U.S.
  - clairity 9y ago
    daiso is great. in LA, we now also have http://miniso.com/ http://miniso.com/ (which i'm sure will expand to other major US cities soon).
  - stevenwoo 9y ago
    Thanks for that - there's one near me in Mountain View but I could not for the life of me tell what Daiso was from window shopping while going on trips to Trader Joes.
- madcaptenor 9y ago
  That's probably part of why your friend has lots of money in the bank.
- notyourday 9y ago
  Q: Why does the guy with a Black Amex shop in a Walmart? A: Because he is the guy with a Black Amex
  - DarronWyke 9y ago
    Exactly. How does someone with money stay in money? Buy it cheap, stack it deep. Get stuff for super cheap and get a lot of it while it's cheap, so you don't have to buy it again when it's much more expensive, and can wait for it to be cheaper again.
    - notyourday 9y ago
      That's a foreign concept to people who bitch how poor they are while making $150k/year.
  - majormajor 9y ago
    That's not the right comparison. The reported spend level for that card is $250,000 a year. Spending 250K on a credit card annually is not living frugally. "You get rich by saving what you have" is a nice feel-good story, but you get a lot richer by getting magnitudes more in income.
    - tsunamifury 9y ago
      Thank you, this string was beginning to sound like r/personalfinance was leaking -- a place where people think they can save their way to ultra-wealth. You can be frugal enough to live a comfortable middle class lifestyle -- but the people who are rich just make a ton more than you. That's it, that's the secret!
    - notyourday 9y ago
      You do realize that AWS and GCP take credit cards? If it was just that you are already at sub $25k/mo.
- fma 9y ago
  You would need to know what to buy. Helium balloons...$1. Greeting cards, $.50, there are certain things that are much cheaper at Dollar Tree than else where. There are some items that they get you to splurge on impulse on that have a higher profit...Some candy you can get for $.70 at Walmart is $1 at Dollar Tree.
  - Sohcahtoa82 9y ago
    IMO, the best ting to get at Dollar Tree are gift bags. $1 for something that's usually $5-12 anywhere else!
  - code_duck 9y ago
    I have noticed that too. Some items are a good deal, some are average, and some overpriced relative to standard discount stores. Clearly Dollar Tree cuts the corner on materials and durability. The items I am pleased are things like ceramic or glass dishes that are painted slightly imperfectly.
taurath 9y ago
I can't help but feel like you're the exception there!
darawk 9y ago
Yes, but for whatever reason, people who have the means tend to prefer 'higher end' stores, even if there is no reason to, in the purely economic/material sense.
- dboreham 9y ago
  I can speak to why I prefer Target over Walmart: much quicker to get in and out (because the Target parking lot is smaller and less congested, and the store is much smaller and less congested) and... if I have to need to speak to an employee I am much more likely to have a productive pleasant experience.
- Sohcahtoa82 9y ago
  It's something I will never understand. A box of Kraft Mac and Cheese is the same whether I get it from Walmart or Whole Foods. Why would I pay more that I have to?
  - lotsofpulp 9y ago
    Because you wouldn’t be buying Kraft Mac and Cheese at a Whole Foods. I’d be surprised if they even sell it. Also, time. I would rather pay more at Target than wal mart because in my experience it takes longer to check out at Walmart, and god forbid the person paying has a problem with their debit card or coupons or whatever. And I pay more to shop at Amazon.com so that I don't have to go to Target.
  - CM30 9y ago
    Yeah, can't understand it over here either. All the supermarkets in the UK sell virtually the same products, at least as far as major brands are concerned. Why pay say, £3 for something if the exact same product is available for £1.50 or so in another supermarket down the road?
    - mywittyname 9y ago
      In the US, most major grocers sell big brand products at roughly the same price. There's variance week-to-week as sales come and go, but if you were to plot the prices of P&G, Kraft, or Nestle products at stores in a specific area, there would be strong overlap. High-end grocery stores do not tend to sell these brands -- You'll find 0 P&G products at a Whole Foods or Fresh Market. So in that sense, they are selling the same exact products.
ghaff 9y ago
I don't know about Dollar General but the demographics of Walmart shoppers is not especially low-end. If my own experience is any indication, there's one that's convenient to me, they have good prices, and they're a one-stop shop for a lot of things. I don't particularly like shopping there but it's a convenient place to pick up staples. According to Kantar Retail’s ShopperScape, the average Walmart customer is a 51-year-old female with an annual household income of $56,482. Interestingly, that number exceeds the U.S. median household income by $4,500, as measured by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2013, which goes against the perception of Walmart as a low-end discount chain. Eighteen percent of Walmart shoppers earn more than $100,000 per household annually. And Walmart shoppers as a whole, actually earn more than Kmart shoppers. https://www.ama.org/publications/eNewsletters/Marketing-News-Weekly/Pages/kantar-retail-shopper-data-walmart-kohls-target-kmart.aspx https://www.ama.org/publications/eNewsletters/Marketing-News...
- dpeck 9y ago
  probably says more about our collective perception that anything near the median, even above it, is low-end.
  - KekDemaga 9y ago
    That perception becomes even more laughable when you realize that the 51 year old female in question is in the top .3% of income globally, while the "permanent underclass" are in the .4% - .8%.
    - notfromhere 9y ago
      global averages are also meaningless. No one cares if you're doing better than subsistence farmers in west africa if you're having trouble paying rent on your shitty apartment and living paycheck to paycheck in the wealthiest country in the world
      - KekDemaga 9y ago
        You know in movies where the villain rich kid goes to a nice upper middle class home and calls the place a dump? That's what the global poor (as in virtually everyone on the planet) see when western "poor people" complain. It's really tone deaf and quite frankly it only takes a few minutes thought to realize all the talk of "fairness" and "equality" is window dressing and all they are purposing is the .1%'s wealth being redistributed to the .2% - .8%, ignoring the 99.2% of human beings who are actually poor and suffer on a scale that no westerner will ever experience. If 99% of the world would swap places with you economically speaking how on earth do you get to call yourself poor?
ptero 9y ago
I have the same experience. I am probably upper middle class (whatever that means) and my kids, as well as my wife like dollar stores. Whenever we visit one I also end up buying at least $10 of random stuff myself (jigsaw puzzles or light sticks or toys to hack). While I do not dispute the fact that many folks, especially in rural areas are very tight on money, the argument that Dollar Tree cannot be successful without rampant poverty seems unproven. Just a single data point.
- Buttes 9y ago
  >I am probably upper middle class (whatever that means) It means upper class
  - tsunamifury 9y ago
    I think things have spread out enough where we have a true upper middle and upper class now. 750k+ is probably a solid upper class person, and 250K+ is probably solidly "upper-middle".
    - buzzdenver 9y ago
      Maybe you feel middle class among the people that you're friends with, but the facts are that in the US, $85k puts you in the top third and $120k in the top fifth, so $250k which is top 4.3% is far from middle for most definitions of it. https://dqydj.com/household-income-percentile-calculator-2016/ https://dqydj.com/household-income-percentile-calculator-201...
      - tsunamifury 9y ago
        I think this data is being very generous. The Tax Policy Center pins the 1% threshold at 750k+
dboreham 9y ago
Also Jim Cramer gets his candy there.
TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
> You don't have to be part of a "permanent underclass" to appreciate cheap. Right, but they're talking about their business plan. They are growing and expanding into rural, economically depressed areas. You can be rich and still enjoy Dollar General, but if they are expanding massively into areas that mostly just contain the new "underclass," then their claim that "what the dollar stores are betting on in a large way is that we are going to have a permanent underclass in America" can still be accurate.
1_2__4 9y ago
I feel like this should be a banner on every comment page: your anecdotal experience is completely irrelevant when discussing something on a country-wide scale. What you personally choose to do has no bearing on the conversation.
- macintux 9y ago
  I just wish someone could make our bozo-in-chief understand that.
  - sctb 9y ago
    Would you please edit-out name calling and flamebait before posting to Hacker News, like the guidelines ask? Sometimes that means not posting at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- StevePerkins 9y ago
  I wouldn't say it's irrelevant, as they're directly related to the OP and are in some cases interesting. You could certainly say that it's "not conclusive proof" of anything. However, this isn't a crowdsourced thesis paper. It's a web forum discussion thread, about a topic with only a thin tangential connection to the forum's main subject matter (i.e. technology and tech entrepreneurship).
CM30 9y ago
I'd disagree with it as well. Over here in the UK, shops like Poundland and Poundstretcher are doing a booming trade, even in areas with both wealthier populations and a ton of retail options in general. Same goes with cheaper supermarkets too, with the likes of Aldi and Lidl opening up a lot more shops now than they did in the past and gaining a much larger share of the market than the established brands. It's not just those with few options. It's a general shift towards extremely cheap goods in general, which seems to often be true regardless of the amount of options in the area or the demographics of the folks that live there.

code_duck 9y ago

Anecdotally... I have a close friend who is a PhD, has tens of thousands in the bank, a great job, and absolutely loves the dollar store.

samstave 9y ago
I love daiso - the Japanese dollar store. It's amazing.
- coffeevradar 9y ago
  Except that they charge $1.50 for everything. Which is only annoying because similar stores in Japan (which for me are a highlight of any trip to Japan) only charge ¥100. I don't know if it's because of proximity to China or because Daiso knows they're offering better stuff than their literally $1 competitors here in the U.S.
- clairity 9y ago
  daiso is great. in LA, we now also have http://miniso.com/ http://miniso.com/ (which i'm sure will expand to other major US cities soon).
- stevenwoo 9y ago
  Thanks for that - there's one near me in Mountain View but I could not for the life of me tell what Daiso was from window shopping while going on trips to Trader Joes.
madcaptenor 9y ago
That's probably part of why your friend has lots of money in the bank.
notyourday 9y ago
Q: Why does the guy with a Black Amex shop in a Walmart? A: Because he is the guy with a Black Amex
- DarronWyke 9y ago
  Exactly. How does someone with money stay in money? Buy it cheap, stack it deep. Get stuff for super cheap and get a lot of it while it's cheap, so you don't have to buy it again when it's much more expensive, and can wait for it to be cheaper again.
  - notyourday 9y ago
    That's a foreign concept to people who bitch how poor they are while making $150k/year.
- majormajor 9y ago
  That's not the right comparison. The reported spend level for that card is $250,000 a year. Spending 250K on a credit card annually is not living frugally. "You get rich by saving what you have" is a nice feel-good story, but you get a lot richer by getting magnitudes more in income.
  - tsunamifury 9y ago
    Thank you, this string was beginning to sound like r/personalfinance was leaking -- a place where people think they can save their way to ultra-wealth. You can be frugal enough to live a comfortable middle class lifestyle -- but the people who are rich just make a ton more than you. That's it, that's the secret!
  - notyourday 9y ago
    You do realize that AWS and GCP take credit cards? If it was just that you are already at sub $25k/mo.
fma 9y ago
You would need to know what to buy. Helium balloons...$1. Greeting cards, $.50, there are certain things that are much cheaper at Dollar Tree than else where. There are some items that they get you to splurge on impulse on that have a higher profit...Some candy you can get for $.70 at Walmart is $1 at Dollar Tree.
- Sohcahtoa82 9y ago
  IMO, the best ting to get at Dollar Tree are gift bags. $1 for something that's usually $5-12 anywhere else!
- code_duck 9y ago
  I have noticed that too. Some items are a good deal, some are average, and some overpriced relative to standard discount stores. Clearly Dollar Tree cuts the corner on materials and durability. The items I am pleased are things like ceramic or glass dishes that are painted slightly imperfectly.

taurath 9y ago

I can't help but feel like you're the exception there!

darawk 9y ago

Yes, but for whatever reason, people who have the means tend to prefer 'higher end' stores, even if there is no reason to, in the purely economic/material sense.

dboreham 9y ago
I can speak to why I prefer Target over Walmart: much quicker to get in and out (because the Target parking lot is smaller and less congested, and the store is much smaller and less congested) and... if I have to need to speak to an employee I am much more likely to have a productive pleasant experience.
Sohcahtoa82 9y ago
It's something I will never understand. A box of Kraft Mac and Cheese is the same whether I get it from Walmart or Whole Foods. Why would I pay more that I have to?
- lotsofpulp 9y ago
  Because you wouldn’t be buying Kraft Mac and Cheese at a Whole Foods. I’d be surprised if they even sell it. Also, time. I would rather pay more at Target than wal mart because in my experience it takes longer to check out at Walmart, and god forbid the person paying has a problem with their debit card or coupons or whatever. And I pay more to shop at Amazon.com so that I don't have to go to Target.
- CM30 9y ago
  Yeah, can't understand it over here either. All the supermarkets in the UK sell virtually the same products, at least as far as major brands are concerned. Why pay say, £3 for something if the exact same product is available for £1.50 or so in another supermarket down the road?
  - mywittyname 9y ago
    In the US, most major grocers sell big brand products at roughly the same price. There's variance week-to-week as sales come and go, but if you were to plot the prices of P&G, Kraft, or Nestle products at stores in a specific area, there would be strong overlap. High-end grocery stores do not tend to sell these brands -- You'll find 0 P&G products at a Whole Foods or Fresh Market. So in that sense, they are selling the same exact products.

ghaff 9y ago

I don't know about Dollar General but the demographics of Walmart shoppers is not especially low-end. If my own experience is any indication, there's one that's convenient to me, they have good prices, and they're a one-stop shop for a lot of things. I don't particularly like shopping there but it's a convenient place to pick up staples. According to Kantar Retail’s ShopperScape, the average Walmart customer is a 51-year-old female with an annual household income of $56,482. Interestingly, that number exceeds the U.S. median household income by $4,500, as measured by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2013, which goes against the perception of Walmart as a low-end discount chain. Eighteen percent of Walmart shoppers earn more than $100,000 per household annually. And Walmart shoppers as a whole, actually earn more than Kmart shoppers. https://www.ama.org/publications/eNewsletters/Marketing-News-Weekly/Pages/kantar-retail-shopper-data-walmart-kohls-target-kmart.aspx https://www.ama.org/publications/eNewsletters/Marketing-News...

dpeck 9y ago
probably says more about our collective perception that anything near the median, even above it, is low-end.
- KekDemaga 9y ago
  That perception becomes even more laughable when you realize that the 51 year old female in question is in the top .3% of income globally, while the "permanent underclass" are in the .4% - .8%.
  - notfromhere 9y ago
    global averages are also meaningless. No one cares if you're doing better than subsistence farmers in west africa if you're having trouble paying rent on your shitty apartment and living paycheck to paycheck in the wealthiest country in the world
    - KekDemaga 9y ago
      You know in movies where the villain rich kid goes to a nice upper middle class home and calls the place a dump? That's what the global poor (as in virtually everyone on the planet) see when western "poor people" complain. It's really tone deaf and quite frankly it only takes a few minutes thought to realize all the talk of "fairness" and "equality" is window dressing and all they are purposing is the .1%'s wealth being redistributed to the .2% - .8%, ignoring the 99.2% of human beings who are actually poor and suffer on a scale that no westerner will ever experience. If 99% of the world would swap places with you economically speaking how on earth do you get to call yourself poor?

ptero 9y ago

I have the same experience. I am probably upper middle class (whatever that means) and my kids, as well as my wife like dollar stores. Whenever we visit one I also end up buying at least $10 of random stuff myself (jigsaw puzzles or light sticks or toys to hack). While I do not dispute the fact that many folks, especially in rural areas are very tight on money, the argument that Dollar Tree cannot be successful without rampant poverty seems unproven. Just a single data point.

Buttes 9y ago
>I am probably upper middle class (whatever that means) It means upper class
- tsunamifury 9y ago
  I think things have spread out enough where we have a true upper middle and upper class now. 750k+ is probably a solid upper class person, and 250K+ is probably solidly "upper-middle".
  - buzzdenver 9y ago
    Maybe you feel middle class among the people that you're friends with, but the facts are that in the US, $85k puts you in the top third and $120k in the top fifth, so $250k which is top 4.3% is far from middle for most definitions of it. https://dqydj.com/household-income-percentile-calculator-2016/ https://dqydj.com/household-income-percentile-calculator-201...
    - tsunamifury 9y ago
      I think this data is being very generous. The Tax Policy Center pins the 1% threshold at 750k+

dboreham 9y ago

Also Jim Cramer gets his candy there.

TheAdamAndChe 9y ago

> You don't have to be part of a "permanent underclass" to appreciate cheap. Right, but they're talking about their business plan. They are growing and expanding into rural, economically depressed areas. You can be rich and still enjoy Dollar General, but if they are expanding massively into areas that mostly just contain the new "underclass," then their claim that "what the dollar stores are betting on in a large way is that we are going to have a permanent underclass in America" can still be accurate.

1_2__4 9y ago

I feel like this should be a banner on every comment page: your anecdotal experience is completely irrelevant when discussing something on a country-wide scale. What you personally choose to do has no bearing on the conversation.

macintux 9y ago
I just wish someone could make our bozo-in-chief understand that.
- sctb 9y ago
  Would you please edit-out name calling and flamebait before posting to Hacker News, like the guidelines ask? Sometimes that means not posting at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
StevePerkins 9y ago
I wouldn't say it's irrelevant, as they're directly related to the OP and are in some cases interesting. You could certainly say that it's "not conclusive proof" of anything. However, this isn't a crowdsourced thesis paper. It's a web forum discussion thread, about a topic with only a thin tangential connection to the forum's main subject matter (i.e. technology and tech entrepreneurship).

CM30 9y ago

I'd disagree with it as well. Over here in the UK, shops like Poundland and Poundstretcher are doing a booming trade, even in areas with both wealthier populations and a ton of retail options in general. Same goes with cheaper supermarkets too, with the likes of Aldi and Lidl opening up a lot more shops now than they did in the past and gaining a much larger share of the market than the established brands. It's not just those with few options. It's a general shift towards extremely cheap goods in general, which seems to often be true regardless of the amount of options in the area or the demographics of the folks that live there.