The stuff Dollar Tree sells is reeeeally low quality. Take a cheap, dishwasher-safe, plastic cup for example. I can get those in bulk from Alibaba for $0.10 / c

The stuff Dollar Tree sells is reeeeally low quality. Take a cheap, dishwasher-safe, plastic cup for example. I can get those in bulk from Alibaba for $0.10 / cup. Dollar Tree might sell something like that for $1.00 -- there's a bunch of additional overhead, of course, but I think it makes perfect sense that they'd profit on stuff like that. Also would not be surprised if they shrugged those losses off as marketing (brand recognition / visibility) costs.