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There is a presumption here that "local" grocery stores are an unalloyed good. In my experience, having grown up in these kinds of places, they were often more

There is a presumption here that "local" grocery stores are an unalloyed good. In my experience, having grown up in these kinds of places, they were often more exploitive and extractive than the national chains. When Walmart rolls into town, many times it breaks a local monopoly that used this fact to its advantage with both customers and employees. A problem in the US is that there are many thousands of communities that are below the size/density threshold where the traditional Walmart model makes sense. Dollar General seems to be well-optimized to fill this part of the market. Another nice thing about national chains is that they mostly stay out of community politics. Local monopoly business owners have a bad tendency to leverage that status into completely unrelated political and personal matters.

RC_ITR 5y ago
This is the same argument about local newspapers - sure it is probably good to have local reporters covering local events, but replacing $5/line classified ads with Facebook Marketplace probably had a more positive impact on people vs. biased and poorly-read write-ups of a city counsel meetings ever did.
- mrtesthah 5y ago
  Moving local news to Facebook sounds like exactly the wrong thing to do. https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/solution-trump-biden-polarization-may-be-easier-cheaper-we-think-n1246573 https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/solution-trump-biden-polarizat... > Studies show a direct correspondence between the closing of newspapers and the polarization of people formerly served by those newspapers.
  - emodendroket 5y ago
    Most local papers are glorified circulars now.
  - RC_ITR 5y ago
    >We assess the impact of newspaper closures on polarized voting, using genetic matching to compare counties that are statistically similar but for the loss of a local newspaper. We identify a small but significant causal decrease in split-ticket voting in presidential and senatorial elections in these matched communities: in areas where a newspaper closed, split-ticket voting decreased by 1.9%. A 1.9% decrease as a result in a social science experiment does not exactly feel like a lot to me. The paper is paywalled, but I'd love to see their community matching methods and confidence intervals. EDIT: Found it [0] The paper tests how 66 communities (defined as only the county that the newspaper is headquartered in) with closed newspapers voted in 2012. The experiment tests for how many people split their vote only among President and Senator. Those communities skew very white (76% vs. 60% US average) and way over-represented the US East Coast + Midwest. Even taking all of that for granted, when they ran a placebo test on the 2008 election, they found literally the same difference (1.9%), just with a higher standard deviation (so they could call the result not significant). I don't think Facebook is good for news at all (we probably agree that it is by design polarizing), but local papers are not the salvation many make them out to be. 0: https://joshuadarr.weebly.com/uploads/5/1/8/1/51819147/darr_et_al._-_newspaper_closures_jcomm__as_accepted_.pdf https://joshuadarr.weebly.com/uploads/5/1/8/1/51819147/darr_...
etempleton 5y ago
The grocery business is extremely low margin. The independent grocer is increasingly being squeezed. There really is no way for an independent operator in this space to compete head-to-head on price or selection. If the local market allows they can go niche, or high-end and increase prices further while offering better product/ better customer experience, but most markets won’t support such a store.
- urthor 5y ago
  Very much disagree with this broad generalisation. There is still a niche for independent grocers, and I live in the middle of a triangle of multiple large supermarkets. However, these days the independent grocers really have to try hard. There's not that many of them, but the ones that are left are survivors.
  - etempleton 5y ago
    Based on your spelling of “generalisation” I take it you are from the UK. I am speaking of my knowledge of the US grocery business. There may be differences. I fully admit to having essentially zero knowledge of the grocery business landscape in Europe. Independent grocers certainly do exist here, but it is increasingly rare and, in my experience, it is almost always a long running business that, yes, is trying very hard and have either a market that is too small for a chain to move into or, as I said in my previous comment, a specific niche. Typically this niche is the very high end or a specific ethnic cuisine such as Korean, Mexican, or Italian where you can find ingredients and brands you just can’t find in a chain store. Though these stores are typically very small and are closer to general stores in some cases. A good deli or grill is another good differentiator for some grocers. I have yet to see a fully independent one store grocer compete head to head with a chain grocery store. I just don’t think the economies of scale are there to allow it. There are smaller regional chains that are able to compete with the national grocers, but they get bought up eventually by chains to eliminate competition in a region.
Red_Leaves_Flyy 5y ago
Dollar general is arguably worse than many mom and pop shops they’re replacing. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/dollar-general-thriving-workers-say-they-pay-price-n1137096 https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/dollar-genera...
emodendroket 5y ago
I generally agree but if the grocers offered fresh produce and the dollar store doesn't the picture is murkier.
- jandrewrogers 5y ago
  Poor people don't eat much fresh produce unless they grow it themselves. Frozen vegetables are preferred because they are cheaper and often higher quality because they weren't sitting around for days and weeks. I grew up quite poor in a few different regions of the US, it works like this everywhere. In more rural areas, there are a lot personal gardens and barter. You aren't going to convince a poor person to spend more money on a worse product. Insisting that grocers in poor areas carry large stocks of fresh produce isn't helpful, it just demonstrates a naive lack of familiarity with how poor people optimize their food spending. They have plenty of access to quality vegetables. I know a wealthy person with impeccable culinary taste whose guilty pleasure is eating certain frozen/canned vegetables. She grew up very poor and loves the taste/texture of them even though she can easily afford the most bougie fresh vegetables available. It isn't nearly as bad to get your produce this way as I think some upper-middle class people assume it is.
  - emodendroket 5y ago
    I don't mean to offend the honor of frozen vegetables, which often are fresher even in the fancy grocery store, are equally nutritious (maybe less true of canned ones), and are perfectly suitable for many uses. Nor do I mean to pretend to have some kind of deep understanding of how the other half lives. My point is just that if the grocer had nutritious options and the dollar store just sells garbage then there are some negatives to the latter replacing the former for people's health.
  - throwaway984393 5y ago
    Back in the day we used to have a butcher, a baker, maybe a local fisherman, and fresh eggs & vegetables in a farmer's market. All of that was supplanted by supermarkets & grocery stores. With those options gone, an array of services will be unavailable to poor people, and they'll grow up on canned food and candy. That leads to poor decisions about food, which leads to poor health, which leads to all sorts of problems. And then of course there's the death of human culture. It's not uncommon today for poor households to not even know how to boil rice. It's not all the Dollar Store's fault, but at some point we do need to push back on the slow decline of our civilization.

RC_ITR 5y ago

This is the same argument about local newspapers - sure it is probably good to have local reporters covering local events, but replacing $5/line classified ads with Facebook Marketplace probably had a more positive impact on people vs. biased and poorly-read write-ups of a city counsel meetings ever did.

mrtesthah 5y ago
Moving local news to Facebook sounds like exactly the wrong thing to do. https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/solution-trump-biden-polarization-may-be-easier-cheaper-we-think-n1246573 https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/solution-trump-biden-polarizat... > Studies show a direct correspondence between the closing of newspapers and the polarization of people formerly served by those newspapers.
- emodendroket 5y ago
  Most local papers are glorified circulars now.
- RC_ITR 5y ago
  >We assess the impact of newspaper closures on polarized voting, using genetic matching to compare counties that are statistically similar but for the loss of a local newspaper. We identify a small but significant causal decrease in split-ticket voting in presidential and senatorial elections in these matched communities: in areas where a newspaper closed, split-ticket voting decreased by 1.9%. A 1.9% decrease as a result in a social science experiment does not exactly feel like a lot to me. The paper is paywalled, but I'd love to see their community matching methods and confidence intervals. EDIT: Found it [0] The paper tests how 66 communities (defined as only the county that the newspaper is headquartered in) with closed newspapers voted in 2012. The experiment tests for how many people split their vote only among President and Senator. Those communities skew very white (76% vs. 60% US average) and way over-represented the US East Coast + Midwest. Even taking all of that for granted, when they ran a placebo test on the 2008 election, they found literally the same difference (1.9%), just with a higher standard deviation (so they could call the result not significant). I don't think Facebook is good for news at all (we probably agree that it is by design polarizing), but local papers are not the salvation many make them out to be. 0: https://joshuadarr.weebly.com/uploads/5/1/8/1/51819147/darr_et_al._-_newspaper_closures_jcomm__as_accepted_.pdf https://joshuadarr.weebly.com/uploads/5/1/8/1/51819147/darr_...

etempleton 5y ago

The grocery business is extremely low margin. The independent grocer is increasingly being squeezed. There really is no way for an independent operator in this space to compete head-to-head on price or selection. If the local market allows they can go niche, or high-end and increase prices further while offering better product/ better customer experience, but most markets won’t support such a store.

urthor 5y ago
Very much disagree with this broad generalisation. There is still a niche for independent grocers, and I live in the middle of a triangle of multiple large supermarkets. However, these days the independent grocers really have to try hard. There's not that many of them, but the ones that are left are survivors.
- etempleton 5y ago
  Based on your spelling of “generalisation” I take it you are from the UK. I am speaking of my knowledge of the US grocery business. There may be differences. I fully admit to having essentially zero knowledge of the grocery business landscape in Europe. Independent grocers certainly do exist here, but it is increasingly rare and, in my experience, it is almost always a long running business that, yes, is trying very hard and have either a market that is too small for a chain to move into or, as I said in my previous comment, a specific niche. Typically this niche is the very high end or a specific ethnic cuisine such as Korean, Mexican, or Italian where you can find ingredients and brands you just can’t find in a chain store. Though these stores are typically very small and are closer to general stores in some cases. A good deli or grill is another good differentiator for some grocers. I have yet to see a fully independent one store grocer compete head to head with a chain grocery store. I just don’t think the economies of scale are there to allow it. There are smaller regional chains that are able to compete with the national grocers, but they get bought up eventually by chains to eliminate competition in a region.

Red_Leaves_Flyy 5y ago

Dollar general is arguably worse than many mom and pop shops they’re replacing. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/dollar-general-thriving-workers-say-they-pay-price-n1137096 https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/dollar-genera...

emodendroket 5y ago

I generally agree but if the grocers offered fresh produce and the dollar store doesn't the picture is murkier.

jandrewrogers 5y ago
Poor people don't eat much fresh produce unless they grow it themselves. Frozen vegetables are preferred because they are cheaper and often higher quality because they weren't sitting around for days and weeks. I grew up quite poor in a few different regions of the US, it works like this everywhere. In more rural areas, there are a lot personal gardens and barter. You aren't going to convince a poor person to spend more money on a worse product. Insisting that grocers in poor areas carry large stocks of fresh produce isn't helpful, it just demonstrates a naive lack of familiarity with how poor people optimize their food spending. They have plenty of access to quality vegetables. I know a wealthy person with impeccable culinary taste whose guilty pleasure is eating certain frozen/canned vegetables. She grew up very poor and loves the taste/texture of them even though she can easily afford the most bougie fresh vegetables available. It isn't nearly as bad to get your produce this way as I think some upper-middle class people assume it is.
- emodendroket 5y ago
  I don't mean to offend the honor of frozen vegetables, which often are fresher even in the fancy grocery store, are equally nutritious (maybe less true of canned ones), and are perfectly suitable for many uses. Nor do I mean to pretend to have some kind of deep understanding of how the other half lives. My point is just that if the grocer had nutritious options and the dollar store just sells garbage then there are some negatives to the latter replacing the former for people's health.
- throwaway984393 5y ago
  Back in the day we used to have a butcher, a baker, maybe a local fisherman, and fresh eggs & vegetables in a farmer's market. All of that was supplanted by supermarkets & grocery stores. With those options gone, an array of services will be unavailable to poor people, and they'll grow up on canned food and candy. That leads to poor decisions about food, which leads to poor health, which leads to all sorts of problems. And then of course there's the death of human culture. It's not uncommon today for poor households to not even know how to boil rice. It's not all the Dollar Store's fault, but at some point we do need to push back on the slow decline of our civilization.