When I’ve been poor and seen this happen, I tended to shop at both stores because some items at the dollar store are actually cheaper. Just like many grocery s

When I’ve been poor and seen this happen, I tended to shop at both stores because some items at the dollar store are actually cheaper. Just like many grocery stores have rotisserie chickens sold under cost, the dollar store has its own anchor items like the balloons. The fact that some items are overpriced is part of the game they’re playing. It’s asking the customer “are you really going to wait in another lineup to save a buck?” It’s also taking advantage of the fact it’s cognitively difficult to memorize the price of each product in both stores, especially because the prices change and the size of products is often different, so it’s easy to get confused and overpay. Yet they aren’t really taking advantage of customers any more than Walmart is when they throw a sale and puts their best value items at the back corner of the store forcing their customers to walk past worse value items. It’s also simply the case that Walmart simply has less overhead and can pass the savings on. Not to mention more negotiating power.