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It's not clear to me what the problem is that the article is outlining. The Dollar General near me has the exact same brands as you would find in any larger re

• gameswithgo 5y ago
  When dollar stores replace grocery stores in a community it reduces the quality of nutrition available. Potential vicious cycle there. Economic downturn --> worse nutrition -> decline in mental and physical health of community -> more downturn
  • mumblemumble 5y ago
    There's a part of me that wants to push back against this idea that fresh produce is synonymous with good nutrition. Frozen produce - which the dollar stores in my area do carry - tends to be more nutritious nowadays. It is also much easier to prepare, and, assuming you have access to a freezer, is less susceptible to spoilage. And if your food preparation options don't amount to much more than a microwave oven, or you simply don't have the time to do a lot of cooking, the frozen dinners that these types of stores sell might be one of the healthiest meal options you have. Which isn't to say that food deserts are necessarily a good thing. I used to live in one and it was awful. But I do want to at least consider the possibility that the reason that these stores get a lot of business is that they are better serving the actual needs of their clientele. If that's the case, then perhaps the way forward is not to try and force everyone back to the old stores they probably did have a reason to not be shopping at anymore, so much as to try and figure out new things that suit their needs even better.
    • deleted 5y ago
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    • tspike 5y ago
      It's worth pointing out the difference between frozen produce (which, as you say, is nutritionally sound) and frozen TV dinners, which often contain multiple times the daily recommended intake of sodium and typically have miniscule portions of vegetables.
      • mumblemumble 5y ago
        Sure. But, if you lack the ability to make good use of frozen produce, then that maybe isn't a realistic option, anyway. Then you might be looking at something more like a choice between TV dinner and McDonald's.
        • nicoburns 5y ago
          How can you have the ability to cook a frozen TV dinner, but the not to ability to cook frozen vegetables?
          • mumblemumble 5y ago
            I specifically chose the phrase "make good use of" over the word "cook" because it's an important distinction. Nobody can make a decent meal exclusively out of frozen vegetables; there just aren't enough macronutrients there. And everyone wants their meals to be appetizing. So it's not just about whether or not you can make frozen vegetables hot, it's about whether or not you can feasibly incorporate them into a nutritionally complete and appetizing meal. Also, with TV dinners, you can buy just tonight's dinner on the way home from work, heat it up as soon as you get home, and have nothing left over to store. So, even though the food is frozen, there's no need to own a working freezer. With frozen vegetables, unless your meal plans typically involve eating half a pound of Normandy blend in one sitting, not so much.
            • 5y ago
  • jcims 5y ago
    Nutrition available =/= nutrition consumed. If there was a large market for produce someone would seek to fill it...minimally with produce stands/farmers markets/etc.
• tshaddox 5y ago
  It's always odd to me to throw Dollar General into the same category as Dollar Tree. Dollar Tree is an actual "dollar store" where literally every item costs $1. Dollar Tree's items are generally no-name discount brands that wouldn't be found in big grocery store chains, or familiar brands in unique very small packages. Dollar General, at least in the two parts of the US I've seen them in (areas of California and the Midwest), is as you describe: something between a convenience store and a traditional grocery store sans produce. They have all the normal big brands: Oreos, Doritos, etc. in the normal package sizes at what seemed to me to be normal grocery store prices.
  • imwillofficial 5y ago
    Aren’t Dollar Tree and Dollar General owned by the same company?
    • tshaddox 5y ago
      As far as I can tell, they're not.
      • imwillofficial 5y ago
        It’s family dollar I was thinking of: https://www.mashed.com/199834/the-untold-truth-of-dollar-tree/ https://www.mashed.com/199834/the-untold-truth-of-dollar-tre...
    • reducesuffering 5y ago
      No. Separate public US companies. You can buy their stock $DG and $DLTR
      • imwillofficial 5y ago
        It’s family dollar I was thinking of: https://www.mashed.com/199834/the-untold-truth-of-dollar-tree/ https://www.mashed.com/199834/the-untold-truth-of-dollar-tre...
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• MattGaiser 5y ago
  The problem as I understand it is that products aren’t priced in a grocery store to all have the same margin. So the prepared foods and toiletries get marked up to make up for low margins on fresh fruit. Wealthier customers are fine with this as they want to not have to make two trips and they will pay for the fruit. Dollar stores ditch the fresh stuff and just take a lower margin on the toiletries and prepared food to make up for it, resulting in lower prices. A bit of extra savings matters more to poor people, so they shift those purchases to the dollar store. The grocery store’s business model fails.
  • lotsofpulp 5y ago
    The root problem is the populace being too poor to afford fresh fruit. Blaming dollar stores is a waste of time.
    • freemint 5y ago
      If we have a semi functional system and a change made to it worsens the populations health it is more reasonable to stop this change and reverse over hoping for revolutionary change. If some company has a buisness model that has negative externalities they should be taxed more for it. When taxing is not responsible because this would hit the poor dispropoertionally the buisness model should be banned.
      • lotsofpulp 5y ago
        It would be much easier and less corruption prone to just enact wealth transfers, especially via giving people more education opportunities and enhancing labor laws to allow time to invest in one's self.
    • MattGaiser 5y ago
      What I want to know is whether it actually changes fresh food consumption all that much. The food desert discussion is about availability.
    • protomyth 5y ago
• safog 5y ago
  After a couple of levels of indirection, I think the whole argument hinges on one anecdote. It might indicate a general pattern, but no actual authoritative sources back it up. Original Article quotes "growing evidence suggests these stores are not merely a byproduct of economic distress. They’re a cause of it. In small towns and urban neighborhoods alike, dollar stores are triggering the closure of grocery stores, eliminating jobs, and further eroding the prospects of the vulnerable communities they target" This links to a report here as a source: https://ilsr.org/dollar-stores-factsheet/ https://ilsr.org/dollar-stores-factsheet/ Which cites https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/aug/13/dollar-general-walmart-buhler-haven-kansas https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/aug/13/dollar-gene... as its only source. The actual quote: "“We lasted three years and three days after Dollar General opened,” he said. “Sales dropped and just kept dropping. We averaged 225 customers a day before and immediately dropped to about 175. A year ago we were down to 125 a day. Basically we lost 35 to 40% of our sales. I lost a thousand dollars a day in sales in three years.”"
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  • sokoloff 5y ago
    Dollar General comes in and offers local consumers a bargain that local consumers strongly prefer. Accordingly, local consumers vote with their feet. Unless the master plan is to run competitors out of town and then change to "Two Dollar General", it seems like Dollar General is good for consumers (at least if you judge by consumers' own revealed preferences).
    • Retric 5y ago
      Dollar general does frequently have a high markup in poor communities without alternatives. It’s for lack of a better term poverty optimized which counterintuitively isn’t about the lowest cost per pound of flour etc.
      • missedthecue 5y ago
        The shrinkage rate may also contribute to this. In other words, the more goods that are stolen from the shelves, the higher the prices have to be on everything else in order to maintain sustainability. In this way, shoplifting is essentially a tax on everyone else in your community.
• blendergeek 5y ago
  The real issue is that all value created by the likes of Dollar General leaves the community. If the owner of the store is in the community, those dollars will more likely be spent withing the community. The increased tax value on the owner's home will be in the community. With Dollar General, all of that leaves. Nobody in a Dolllar General is making much more than the proprietors of the old local store were making. Yet, their prices are cheaper. Why? Because Dollar General is taking a cut. This may seem better to the local community at first (lower prices means more money in their pockets) yet this money is leaving the community forever. With the local grocery store, money flowed in circles, now Dollar General is extracting what value is in the community until the community dies.
  • toast0 5y ago
    The margin may have flowed in circles, but grocery margins are low, so most of the money leaves the community anyway. A community needs a way to import money, not just a way to export less. That could be a locally owned store, but only if it's attractive enough to get clients outside of its community.
• freemint 5y ago
  > They don't have a produce section, just a bit of fruit. Is that the issue? Yes, it is as produce is a group of products that a better margin than produce (and produce spoils easier). By comming into an market and serving produce any other store is put at an disadvantage if they sell produce. This leads to "food deserts", places where you can not find healthy, affordable food. > Are the small independent grocery stores in these communities stocking produce? If there are any, they are worried. If you have 7 minutes this video by VICE from 2018 explains some of the concerns. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6IqsG-Iiik https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6IqsG-Iiik There are also community actions against dollar stores such as here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vLWTkBQWP0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vLWTkBQWP0 This CBS reports about grocers being closed due dollar stores moving into towns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtAvJBAJfnE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtAvJBAJfnE drawing parallels to Walmart killing mainstreets > Is Dollar General and the like creating some kind of price cartel that's putting them out of business? By serving only non produce goods a competing store which previously was able to carry produce and was able to bear this expense due non-produce sales will see reduced non-produce sales leading to worse financial performance and possibly clousure or a slow death while loosing customer to dollar general. > previously only had a gas station convenience store and people had to drive 12 miles This is an improvement for those people, good.
• axaxs 5y ago
  They are often criminally understaffed, and get away with lower prices as a result. Added to that their shear size, they are able to purchase in bulk cheaper. Which shuts down locally run things, because they can't compete without breaking the law in turn with somehow more abhorrent labor practices. There was recently a video about a lady who worked at Dollar Tree for just a short time before quitting. I posted a link below, but it's kinda long so I'll summarize. She basically wasn't allowed to take breaks, and had to find her manager to ask permission to get a drink of water. In Florida heat. It was pretty heartbreaking. https://youtu.be/Jkfjlo3VFcs https://youtu.be/Jkfjlo3VFcs
• shagmin 5y ago
  I don't think Dollar General is the bad guy so much as a symptom of a problem. As it is, they're often in low income areas and have a high markup. Grocery stores have low margins that prevent them from entering these markets (hence food deserts). Dollar General fills that niche - but as a result low income people who already spend a disproportionate amount of their income on groceries have to pay that higher markup as well. Meanwhile I can go to Trader Joe's or something and get much better stuff, cheaper too. I remember living in a rural area where people couldn't afford a car, but could walk to a gas station and pay 3x the prices on everything compared to if they bought everything at grocery store - it just helps keep them poor. And often, I think people see "dollar" in the name, and think that automatically means cheap, but being poor doesn't mean being financially literate. If people weren't segregated into rich areas | poor areas, or maybe grocery stores found some other way to be profitable in low income areas, or some other thing, this wouldn't be such a problem. But as it is right now, they are filling a need, granted with negative side effects. Edit: I realize the article focuses more on Dollar Generals causing food desserts, rather than being a response to them. Guess I'm focusing on more what I've seen.
  • mgkimsal 5y ago
    outside of 'food deserts', there may be other factors people shop at DG. There's one a block from my office, and I drop in there now and then to get stuff (snacks, or light bulbs, or whatever). Almost every time I'm in there, I'll see an older person doing what seems to be a weekly shop (or more) - they'll ring up $70+ of stuff - canned/packaged foods. Clearly stuff for meals. They then get in to a taxi or rideshare car and are driven away. .7 miles from here - in a more convenient area to drive to, is a Lidl, with everything that person bought about 40% cheaper. 1 mile away there's a Wegmans. 1.4 miles away there's Target, Lowes, and Harris Teeter. All just as accessible via taxi/uber as this DG. The only real thing I can think of in DG's favor is it's very easy in/out - there's 2 counters, no self-checkout, the store is small itself. Just walking around to find what you want in those other stores would take 3-4x as long as hitting the 6 aisles in DG. But... they're paying a terribly high price for that little bit of convenience. There's been a couple of times I've wanted to tell that person "hey, you can save $20 or more by driving another 3 minutes down the street" but I doubt it would be welcomed. I can't think of a way to intrude that isn't intrusive or patronizing. :/
• difu_disciple 5y ago
  When you see a dollar store, odds are that: - it is newly built. Building a dollar store is a fairly cheap way to raise the value of undeveloped land so some land owners use them as an exit strategy for declining communities. - likely in an odd location, compared to other stores. The developers asked an inexperienced city council to rezone non-commercial land to approve the new build. Dollar stores wouldn't be as much of an issue if they leased existing commercial space but this rarely happens. Sub-optimal land usage can lower the chances of a depressed community from ever rebounding.
• ahallock 5y ago
  I see these springing up in economically depressed areas--that and those check-cashing and payday loan businesses.
• handrous 5y ago
  One weird thing I've noticed about Dollar General is that they seem to get special versions of many products. Like sizes of food items/containers that I've never seen anywhere else. I wonder if there are other differences in what they're shipped. Like how "outlet stores" get shittier versions of brand-name clothes.
  • jasonhansel 5y ago
    IIRC, there are two primary reasons why dollar stores are cheaper: 1. Dollar stores do (as you say) offer products in much smaller sizes. This isn't necessarily bad for consumers: if you don't have the money to pay for extra product, it's to your benefit to shop at a store that lets you buy in smaller increments. 2. Dollar stores have no fixed inventory. They buy whatever brand is the cheapest at any given time, rather than trying to stock the same brands consistently. This leads to them often having unusual versions of products that aren't available elsewhere.
  • sangnoir 5y ago
    > Like sizes of food items/containers that I've never seen anywhere else. Per-unit cost of dollar-store goods is often significantly higher than regular grocery stores due to smaller packaged quantities of the exact same product. It is terrible for poor people, but ridiculously profitable for the dollar stores.
• ApolloFortyNine 5y ago
  I have the same experience with dollar generals, they tend to go in places where the only "competition" was driving further. And their prices tend to me pretty good, it's almost like a mini Walmart. Putting "dollar" in the name makes everyone think of the dollar trees (everything $1), so I guess the author wants this to be a bit of a commentary on how this is catering to the poor possibly? But the other chains are essentially just well stocked stores. Who doesn't want to shop somewhere that's both convenient and cheap?
• nimbius 5y ago
  >They don't have a produce section, just a bit of fruit. Is that the issue? 42% of the united states is overweight. nearly 20% of children are obese. dollar stores could be seen to directly undermine US health policy by displacing larger grocery stores and encouraging unhealthy consumption of overprocessed foods high in sugar salt and fat. "filling a niche" is an idea the marketing department came up with to justify selling garbage. the lack of access to food (food deserts) and a healthy balanced diet are direct contributors to obesity and its myriad of comorbidities. They disproportionately affect people of colour and low income communities, and have been correlated with income inequality and the wealth gap across racial boundaries as well. unpopular opinion: the "wealthy" version of the dollar store is Trader Joes in that both cater to the american "idea" of cooking food moreso than actually preparing a meal. Both rely on processed and frozen offerings of sugar salt and fat that present a reconstituted/reheated 'cooking' experience as opposed to actual cookery involving fresh ingredients and thoughtful planning. many people have a favourite product at these places, but few people can conceive of a favourite recipe they assemble from ingredients sourced at either.
• rurp 5y ago
  I haven't looked at this enough to have a strong opinion on dollar stores in general, but it strikes me that the 20% of grocery products they don't stock (ie. produce) are the things that most people consume too little of.
• Nasrudith 5y ago
  I thought the whole point of complaining about dollar stores was to mask concern for your property values and callousness to the impoverished as compassion. It struck me as more dog-whistle than any coherent non-cynical logic. "We don't want to get rid of the poor, just cheap stores. To help them!"
• etempleton 5y ago
  I think the problem, as the article states, is the “bifurcation” of the economy. Politicians talk about this as the erosion of the middle or working class. Wage stagnation is very real and inflation, which remained somewhat muted is now also very real. The average cost of a new vehicle in the US is now over $40,000. That is almost double what it was 20 years ago. The cost of groceries, anecdotally, is almost double what it was 10 years ago where I live. And yet, wages have increased only moderately. There is nothing wrong with Dollar stores. They serve an important niche. Most everyone has probably shopped at one. The problem is that this is the primary market demand. Dollar stores are many things, but “nice” or “pleasant” are not words used to describe them. People aren’t usually shopping at dollar stores as a first choice. People are shopping at dollar stores as an only or last choice. More dollar stores means that these chains are seeing increased demand for their retail niche, which could be interpreted as a leading edge economic indicator that families are getting poorer.
• emodendroket 5y ago
  These stores sell cheap junk most people will not buy if they gave the option of buying better stuff, so they're often considered a sign of blight, much like payday lenders. Besides that, the article seems to contend that they are driving businesses like grocers out of business, I would guess by undercutting them on high-margin items.