5 ms·

When they were competitors, before the merger in 2015, they built stores next to each other. Rite Aid did the same thing with Walgreens drug stores. Then afte

by prirun 3y ago

When they were competitors, before the merger in 2015, they built stores next to each other. Rite Aid did the same thing with Walgreens drug stores. Then after the merger, they ended up with redundant stores in the same location. Duh! https://corporate.dollartree.com/news-media/press-releases/detail/120/dollar-tree-completes-acquisition-of-family-dollar https://corporate.dollartree.com/news-media/press-releases/d... The thing I don't like about these stores is IMO they take advantage of poor people who think they are getting cheaper products, but in many cases, especially for food items, they're paying more. A gallon of milk was $3.50 last time I went to one, whereas it was $1.89 at Meijer. Of course, Meijer does the same thing: if you buy milk at their gas station store, it's also well over $3, but inside the store it's under $2. People trying to save money would be better off shopping at Aldi IMO, because Aldi doesn't have 5000 kinds of orange juice or paper towels. They have one kind and the price is usually reasonable, whereas the large grocery stores play all kinds of games intended to cause people in a hurry or with limited time or ability to compare products, to choose the wrong thing and pay more.

fires10 3y ago
Aldi's or another store is often very far away. I go to them because they are close and available. Most of us know they are more expensive. Time and travel need to be taken into account. Nearest grocery store is a minimum of 25 minutes one way. Family Dollar was 5 minutes away.
abnry 3y ago
> The thing I don't like about these stores is IMO they take advantage of poor people who think they are getting cheaper products This only makes sense if you think poor people are dumb or naive. They don't know how to compare prices? As other people have mentioned, sometimes the value is the amount you can buy. If your personal financial margins are small, it is okay to spend more per oz on a single bar of soap because it is the difference between having soap vs not. We shouldn't assume cost per unit is the only value a store provides.
- duxup 3y ago
  >This only makes sense if you think poor people are dumb or naive. I would say ALL consumers are not consistently logical / will make choices that aren't in their best interest.
  - zeroonetwothree 3y ago
    True, but I think most consumers aren't obviously "dumb". Most people past 3rd grade can tell that $4 for 1 gallon is cheaper than $2 for 1 quart. It gets trickier when it's not a direct comparison though... would you rather drive 20 min farther to save the $4? Probably not just for that one item, but if you are buying a large amount then the answer changes. We don't necessarily do a cost/benefit analysis of all these options, which is why we can have irrational preferences, but that doesn't mean we don't think about it at all. Irrational just means it's not optimal, it doesn't mean it's the actual worst choice.
    - duxup 3y ago
      Perception is a strange thing too, and I think greatly distorts when people do make comparisons. On a forum about my local area it became a common thing for folks to go down to the expensive grocery store and post pics of the most expensive thing (usually pre-preapred meals) and rant about how expensive it is at the expensive store. I was curious so one day I was at the more expensive store (I like it, they have good stuff) and I took some photos. I then went to Aldi and took some photos. Without commentary I posted the photos from the expensive store, but only of items that were actually less or equally expensive than Aldi on that day. People ranted about the prices being high at the expensive store and shared that "That's why I shop at Aldi." People are weird.
- BriggyDwiggs42 3y ago
  Poor people have less time, and also worse access to good educations. Stupidity is not required. “Sometimes the value is the amount you can buy” Sure, but on a systemic level we can still see the issue, i.e. that being poor is expensive.
babypuncher 3y ago
These places create food deserts, for the reason you mention. They are engineered to get poorer people to come there instead of a normal grocery store. The grocery store in your neighborhood struggles and closes, now you have to drive twice as far to get fresh produce, or go to Family Dollar and buy a week's worth of frozen Banquet meals. That can't be healthy for any population. I avoid these stores on principle now, even for things where it makes sense to go to a dollar store.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  I would have thought a certain portion of the population becoming poor enough to want to shop at a cheaper store for lower quality products is what causes a store selling at higher quality products at higher prices to go out of business. Edit to reply to post below due to posting limit: The people choosing to shop at the cheaper store are also benefiting, otherwise, they would not have switched from shopping at the higher priced store.
  - margalabargala 3y ago
    I live in the American West. Frequently these places open in very small towns, think sub-1000 people and 25 miles from anything else. Such towns only have the population to support one grocery store, usually a locally-owned store that's been there for a very long time. Then a dollar store moves in, takes advantage of the size of the parent company to take a loss for a few months/year until the local store is driven out of business, and then is able to sit on a monopoly for food for that town. Such stores destroy communities. The only people benefiting in the above scenario are the dollar store's shareholders.
  - margalabargala 3y ago
    To address your edit: > The people choosing to shop at the cheaper store are also benefiting, otherwise, they would not have switched from shopping at the higher priced store. The strategy is as follows: - Move into small town that can only support one store. - Undercut existing store, using corporate resources to stay afloat while doing so. - When other store closes, raise prices. - Enjoy your monopoly position that's near-impossible to disrupt due to town not being able to support two stores. Yes, you are correct that some consumers briefly spend a couple of months benefiting from lower prices during step two. The raised prices in the years following make up for that, not to mention the decrease in quality and variety, and the destruction of the town's local businesses, speeding the demise of the town.
superkuh 3y ago
For the truly poor on food stamps Aldi is not an option. They do not accept food stamps.
- t3rabytes 3y ago
  This isn't true -- all Aldi locations accept SNAP EBT. https://www.aldi.us/about-us/snap-ebt-payment/ https://www.aldi.us/about-us/snap-ebt-payment/
  - superkuh 3y ago
    Huh, wild. Thanks for the correction. I wonder why my local (USA) Aldi had a sign on it's door saying it doesn't.
    - dawnerd 3y ago
      That seems like something to bring up to corp. sounds like a store manager doesn’t want a certain clientele.
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darth_avocado 3y ago
The misconception about dollar stores is that they sell cheaper products. However it’d be cheaper to buy almost anything per unit at Costco. Dollar stores provide a service when they sell the same products but smaller sizes, which makes it easier for people who don’t have enough cash to buy stuff.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
  1. Don't have enough cash to buy stuff 2. Don't have enough capacity to eat stuff quickly (single people, small families) 3. Don't have ability to preserve stuff (don't have a full kitchen, maybe not even a refrigerator, maybe live in their car, etc) 4. Don't have the ability to get anywhere else 5. Not everyone "poor" is stupid - some people just want to buy Velveeta Cheese and pay a lot for it, for whatever reason, instead of whatever Aldi is selling. etc... I'm growing tired of this idea that everyone "poor" is dumb. The median "poor" person isn't much less intelligent than the median middle class person (and probably upper class for that matter, too).
  - darth_avocado 3y ago
    Literally no one said poor people are dumb, just pointing out how dollar stores work because they provide a service.
    - onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
      Literally the top comment: > The thing I don't like about these stores is IMO they take advantage of poor people who think they are getting cheaper products, but in many cases, especially for food items, they're paying more. A gallon of milk was $3.50 last time I went to one, whereas it was $1.89 at Meijer. Of course, Meijer does the same thing: if you buy milk at their gas station store, it's also well over $3, but inside the store it's under $2. It's stating that poor people are being taken advantage of - not that they have different circumstances and these stores actually serve them - otherwise, they wouldn't exist. It's implying that all of us on HN are too smart to be taken advantage of and shop at better stores. > They have one kind and the price is usually reasonable, whereas the large grocery stores play all kinds of games intended to cause people in a hurry or with limited time or ability to compare products, to choose the wrong thing and pay more. Just because you shop at Dollar Family doesn't mean you're dumb and being taken advantage of. Or that you're not smart enough to compare products. It means you (likely) have different preferences (for maybe unfortunate reasons). Dollar Tree and Aldi are both trying to make as much money as possible off of their customers.
dawnerd 3y ago
And even then Aldi isn’t always cheaper. They make a ton of money on convenience items, like Soda. But I do agree, aldi is pretty incredible. Most of the people shopping at my local Aldi are definitely more well off.
- c0brac0bra 3y ago
  We could probably afford to shop somewhere other than Aldi but why would we? It would easily be 20%+ more expensive for most items. Anything we want that we can't get at Aldi (local items, good BBQ sauce, less popular stuff) we'll make a special trip for.
  - dawnerd 3y ago
    Exactly. I went into a Vons last night after going to Aldi and was just laughing at how expensive it’s gotten there. It’s not even inflation, it’s straight price gouging.
kerkeslager 3y ago
Another good thing about Aldi is that they let their cashiers sit down. It's unethical that other grocery chains don't provide chairs for their cashiers.
- mc32 3y ago
  Isn’t sitting less healthy than standing? Though, I agree, there should be stools. I see fatigued old timers at the registers who look like they could use a respit.
  - kerkeslager 3y ago
    I'd posit that neither is particularly healthy. Keep in mind that "standing" in this case means standing in one place on a hard floor. If you're comparing to the typical tech worker standing-desk setup, most such workers have done a lot to get the ergonomics of that setup correct, i.e. getting surfaces and screens at the right heights and adding a pad to stand on, whereas the ergonomics of a cashier station are geared toward the customer, not the cashier. You could address this partly by adding pads to standing surfaces. There's a larger problem here though, which is that the evidence behind standing desks being beneficial is... not good. There's lots of evidence that sitting is bad, but only in comparison to not sitting. That hides the fact that "not sitting" includes a lot of different kinds of standing--walking around is not the same as standing in one place. What studies we have of standing desks document back and leg pain as a possible side effect, and that's usually the best case of standing in one place. If there are any studies of standing in one place on a hard floor for hours, I'm not aware of them, but I'm not convinced that particular case of "not sitting" is much better than sitting. In short, the problem with sitting is probably that you're not moving, not the particular position in which you don't move. Talk to your cashier, ask how long they've been working there and if they experience pain from standing, and with the exception of new employees or employees under, maybe 25ish, I can almost guarantee the answer will be "yes".
  - bombcar 3y ago
    Sitting also provides a very clear indicator to the customer that the cashier is NOT going to walk around the corner and bag their items for them. Everywhere else with standing cashiers that I know of (besides banks, which more and more have stooled or sitting tellers) have a mat to stand on and will bag.
samstave 3y ago
Dollar stores are good for those little on-off random kitchen chotchki, some tin foil, greeting cards, toilet drop ins, basically things that dont need to be 'buy for life' but there is no need to spend regular grocery store prices for that thing you will use rarely - and such. Never for food. Oh and now that im older and I need lots of reading glasses - its GREAT for 1$ reading glasses - so now they are scattered all over the place so I am pretty much always within an arms reach of them. If I break them, its fine - but thats a great use of these stores. -- @margalabargala : True - but sometimes I only need a little bit. I dont use very much tinfoil... aside for my Hat Collection... but thats not what we're talking about. Can see some ID?
- margalabargala 3y ago
  Aluminum foil at the dollar store is about half the price of the supermarket, but you get about a tenth as much. It's fine if you truly know you'll never need more, but it's not like aluminum foil ever goes bad. Most of the time you're better off spending the extra dollar for 10x as much.

by prirun 3y ago

fires10 3y ago

Aldi's or another store is often very far away. I go to them because they are close and available. Most of us know they are more expensive. Time and travel need to be taken into account. Nearest grocery store is a minimum of 25 minutes one way. Family Dollar was 5 minutes away.

abnry 3y ago

> The thing I don't like about these stores is IMO they take advantage of poor people who think they are getting cheaper products This only makes sense if you think poor people are dumb or naive. They don't know how to compare prices? As other people have mentioned, sometimes the value is the amount you can buy. If your personal financial margins are small, it is okay to spend more per oz on a single bar of soap because it is the difference between having soap vs not. We shouldn't assume cost per unit is the only value a store provides.

duxup 3y ago
>This only makes sense if you think poor people are dumb or naive. I would say ALL consumers are not consistently logical / will make choices that aren't in their best interest.
- zeroonetwothree 3y ago
  True, but I think most consumers aren't obviously "dumb". Most people past 3rd grade can tell that $4 for 1 gallon is cheaper than $2 for 1 quart. It gets trickier when it's not a direct comparison though... would you rather drive 20 min farther to save the $4? Probably not just for that one item, but if you are buying a large amount then the answer changes. We don't necessarily do a cost/benefit analysis of all these options, which is why we can have irrational preferences, but that doesn't mean we don't think about it at all. Irrational just means it's not optimal, it doesn't mean it's the actual worst choice.
  - duxup 3y ago
    Perception is a strange thing too, and I think greatly distorts when people do make comparisons. On a forum about my local area it became a common thing for folks to go down to the expensive grocery store and post pics of the most expensive thing (usually pre-preapred meals) and rant about how expensive it is at the expensive store. I was curious so one day I was at the more expensive store (I like it, they have good stuff) and I took some photos. I then went to Aldi and took some photos. Without commentary I posted the photos from the expensive store, but only of items that were actually less or equally expensive than Aldi on that day. People ranted about the prices being high at the expensive store and shared that "That's why I shop at Aldi." People are weird.
BriggyDwiggs42 3y ago
Poor people have less time, and also worse access to good educations. Stupidity is not required. “Sometimes the value is the amount you can buy” Sure, but on a systemic level we can still see the issue, i.e. that being poor is expensive.

babypuncher 3y ago

These places create food deserts, for the reason you mention. They are engineered to get poorer people to come there instead of a normal grocery store. The grocery store in your neighborhood struggles and closes, now you have to drive twice as far to get fresh produce, or go to Family Dollar and buy a week's worth of frozen Banquet meals. That can't be healthy for any population. I avoid these stores on principle now, even for things where it makes sense to go to a dollar store.

lotsofpulp 3y ago
I would have thought a certain portion of the population becoming poor enough to want to shop at a cheaper store for lower quality products is what causes a store selling at higher quality products at higher prices to go out of business. Edit to reply to post below due to posting limit: The people choosing to shop at the cheaper store are also benefiting, otherwise, they would not have switched from shopping at the higher priced store.
- margalabargala 3y ago
  I live in the American West. Frequently these places open in very small towns, think sub-1000 people and 25 miles from anything else. Such towns only have the population to support one grocery store, usually a locally-owned store that's been there for a very long time. Then a dollar store moves in, takes advantage of the size of the parent company to take a loss for a few months/year until the local store is driven out of business, and then is able to sit on a monopoly for food for that town. Such stores destroy communities. The only people benefiting in the above scenario are the dollar store's shareholders.
- margalabargala 3y ago
  To address your edit: > The people choosing to shop at the cheaper store are also benefiting, otherwise, they would not have switched from shopping at the higher priced store. The strategy is as follows: - Move into small town that can only support one store. - Undercut existing store, using corporate resources to stay afloat while doing so. - When other store closes, raise prices. - Enjoy your monopoly position that's near-impossible to disrupt due to town not being able to support two stores. Yes, you are correct that some consumers briefly spend a couple of months benefiting from lower prices during step two. The raised prices in the years following make up for that, not to mention the decrease in quality and variety, and the destruction of the town's local businesses, speeding the demise of the town.

superkuh 3y ago

For the truly poor on food stamps Aldi is not an option. They do not accept food stamps.

t3rabytes 3y ago
This isn't true -- all Aldi locations accept SNAP EBT. https://www.aldi.us/about-us/snap-ebt-payment/ https://www.aldi.us/about-us/snap-ebt-payment/
- superkuh 3y ago
  Huh, wild. Thanks for the correction. I wonder why my local (USA) Aldi had a sign on it's door saying it doesn't.
  - dawnerd 3y ago
    That seems like something to bring up to corp. sounds like a store manager doesn’t want a certain clientele.
deleted 3y ago
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deleted 3y ago
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darth_avocado 3y ago

The misconception about dollar stores is that they sell cheaper products. However it’d be cheaper to buy almost anything per unit at Costco. Dollar stores provide a service when they sell the same products but smaller sizes, which makes it easier for people who don’t have enough cash to buy stuff.

onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
1. Don't have enough cash to buy stuff 2. Don't have enough capacity to eat stuff quickly (single people, small families) 3. Don't have ability to preserve stuff (don't have a full kitchen, maybe not even a refrigerator, maybe live in their car, etc) 4. Don't have the ability to get anywhere else 5. Not everyone "poor" is stupid - some people just want to buy Velveeta Cheese and pay a lot for it, for whatever reason, instead of whatever Aldi is selling. etc... I'm growing tired of this idea that everyone "poor" is dumb. The median "poor" person isn't much less intelligent than the median middle class person (and probably upper class for that matter, too).
- darth_avocado 3y ago
  Literally no one said poor people are dumb, just pointing out how dollar stores work because they provide a service.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
    Literally the top comment: > The thing I don't like about these stores is IMO they take advantage of poor people who think they are getting cheaper products, but in many cases, especially for food items, they're paying more. A gallon of milk was $3.50 last time I went to one, whereas it was $1.89 at Meijer. Of course, Meijer does the same thing: if you buy milk at their gas station store, it's also well over $3, but inside the store it's under $2. It's stating that poor people are being taken advantage of - not that they have different circumstances and these stores actually serve them - otherwise, they wouldn't exist. It's implying that all of us on HN are too smart to be taken advantage of and shop at better stores. > They have one kind and the price is usually reasonable, whereas the large grocery stores play all kinds of games intended to cause people in a hurry or with limited time or ability to compare products, to choose the wrong thing and pay more. Just because you shop at Dollar Family doesn't mean you're dumb and being taken advantage of. Or that you're not smart enough to compare products. It means you (likely) have different preferences (for maybe unfortunate reasons). Dollar Tree and Aldi are both trying to make as much money as possible off of their customers.

dawnerd 3y ago

And even then Aldi isn’t always cheaper. They make a ton of money on convenience items, like Soda. But I do agree, aldi is pretty incredible. Most of the people shopping at my local Aldi are definitely more well off.

c0brac0bra 3y ago
We could probably afford to shop somewhere other than Aldi but why would we? It would easily be 20%+ more expensive for most items. Anything we want that we can't get at Aldi (local items, good BBQ sauce, less popular stuff) we'll make a special trip for.
- dawnerd 3y ago
  Exactly. I went into a Vons last night after going to Aldi and was just laughing at how expensive it’s gotten there. It’s not even inflation, it’s straight price gouging.

kerkeslager 3y ago

Another good thing about Aldi is that they let their cashiers sit down. It's unethical that other grocery chains don't provide chairs for their cashiers.

mc32 3y ago
Isn’t sitting less healthy than standing? Though, I agree, there should be stools. I see fatigued old timers at the registers who look like they could use a respit.
- kerkeslager 3y ago
  I'd posit that neither is particularly healthy. Keep in mind that "standing" in this case means standing in one place on a hard floor. If you're comparing to the typical tech worker standing-desk setup, most such workers have done a lot to get the ergonomics of that setup correct, i.e. getting surfaces and screens at the right heights and adding a pad to stand on, whereas the ergonomics of a cashier station are geared toward the customer, not the cashier. You could address this partly by adding pads to standing surfaces. There's a larger problem here though, which is that the evidence behind standing desks being beneficial is... not good. There's lots of evidence that sitting is bad, but only in comparison to not sitting. That hides the fact that "not sitting" includes a lot of different kinds of standing--walking around is not the same as standing in one place. What studies we have of standing desks document back and leg pain as a possible side effect, and that's usually the best case of standing in one place. If there are any studies of standing in one place on a hard floor for hours, I'm not aware of them, but I'm not convinced that particular case of "not sitting" is much better than sitting. In short, the problem with sitting is probably that you're not moving, not the particular position in which you don't move. Talk to your cashier, ask how long they've been working there and if they experience pain from standing, and with the exception of new employees or employees under, maybe 25ish, I can almost guarantee the answer will be "yes".
- bombcar 3y ago
  Sitting also provides a very clear indicator to the customer that the cashier is NOT going to walk around the corner and bag their items for them. Everywhere else with standing cashiers that I know of (besides banks, which more and more have stooled or sitting tellers) have a mat to stand on and will bag.

samstave 3y ago

Dollar stores are good for those little on-off random kitchen chotchki, some tin foil, greeting cards, toilet drop ins, basically things that dont need to be 'buy for life' but there is no need to spend regular grocery store prices for that thing you will use rarely - and such. Never for food. Oh and now that im older and I need lots of reading glasses - its GREAT for 1$ reading glasses - so now they are scattered all over the place so I am pretty much always within an arms reach of them. If I break them, its fine - but thats a great use of these stores. -- @margalabargala : True - but sometimes I only need a little bit. I dont use very much tinfoil... aside for my Hat Collection... but thats not what we're talking about. Can see some ID?

margalabargala 3y ago
Aluminum foil at the dollar store is about half the price of the supermarket, but you get about a tenth as much. It's fine if you truly know you'll never need more, but it's not like aluminum foil ever goes bad. Most of the time you're better off spending the extra dollar for 10x as much.