TLDR: The products in Dollar Stores aren't 'cheap' in the sense that they cost less than other stores per unit - its just that they're (mostly) packaged into smaller units that people living paycheck to paycheck can afford.
Note the other stores mentioned: Walmart, Target and Costco--all discount stores. When you compare prices to convenience stores or drug stores the Dollar Stores are much cheaper.
And when you look at Walmart, Target and Costco remember time is money. And it takes significantly longer to shop at Walmart, Target and Costco (the long walks to and from your car, the long walk in the store itself, the waits at the cashiers).
How often are people going to Walmart/Target/Costco that walking time is a material factor?
I make weekly Costco runs and my total time car door back to car door is 15 minutes or less. I just order for pickup at Target, but even if I had to find the item, I can just see what aisle the product is in in the app and grab it and go within 10 minutes easy.
On the other hand, Dollar Tree or Dollar General is probably only budgeting 1 person for the staff, maybe 2 and so there is at most 1 register open 90% of the time. So you have a high probability of spending minutes just waiting in the checkout line. At Walmart/Target/Costco, you have self checkout and at Costco you have super fast staff at checkout with many lines open such that the lines are always moving quickly.
There's absolutely a difference. Going to Costco is a monumental hassle compared to Dollar General. They have few locations so for most people it's a farther drive. There's a line of cars snaking around the place waiting to buy gas. The parking lot is huge and I have to walk through it. Once inside, I have to pass the giant-screen TVs and half a warehouse of rarely-purchased items before I get to the food. All the food is in huge units. Often the lines at checkout are extremely long, and then there's another line to have my receipt checked before I get out. Then I have to load the stuff into my car - they don't bag it. Oh - and I paid a membership fee to experience all this!
Dollar General has many multiples more locations, and I can park right in front of the door. I'm in Costco every week and it's fine but yes, that walking time combined with everything else is definitely a factor.
I’d say it’s less about “time is money” and more about “I can afford 100 diapers with this week‘s pay check at 25 cents a diaper” and use my entire $25 budget if I go to Walmart, or “I can afford 25 diapers at 50 cents a piece and spend the remaining $12.50 on food - that will get me through this week” if I go to dollar general.
That’s literally the definition of living pay check to pay check - one’s outlook only cares about the next week or two, because you have to make trade offs between food, clothing, shelter, and essentials.
Is Target a discount store? It’s not Whole Foods, but I always heard it was a high-end Walmart. Costco is also known for really good quality, though the prices are still cheap.
Absolutely. When I do my grocery shopping, I occasionally think about how I could get a better deal on something at Costco, but I either don’t have the space or wouldn’t eat it fast enough.
The “they’re paying more per-unit because they’re buying smaller packages” crowd seems to realize this, but they think that the size packages they buy are the correct size, and anybody buying something smaller is being exploited.
Not really. I use dollar stores for junk stuff. I'll finish a bag of Oreos in a day, regardless of how much stuff is in it. If it's cheaper and smaller proportionally, whatever.
The reason smaller stuff is slightly more expensive is shipping costs. Compare two identical products in any store, the larger one will be cheaper, the smaller one will be more expensive, and this scales with weight.
TLDR: people who have never worked in retail, don't understand retail.
Also, saying that these stores are more expensive is crazy if you actually lived at a time when these stores didn't exist. These stores grew because production moved offshore for many products, and retailers took all that profit to their bottom-line (and the five layers of distributors). A lot of these chains cut this out and returned that profit to the consumer. Ofc, the product composition of each store is different (the ones with more FMCG do more optimisation of store size, range of products)...but yes, it turns out people will complain about lower prices...loudly (I have seen this in almost every country where similar formats exist, the loudness of the people complaining about low prices outweighs everything else).
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27650477
TLDR: The products in Dollar Stores aren't 'cheap' in the sense that they cost less than other stores per unit - its just that they're (mostly) packaged into smaller units that people living paycheck to paycheck can afford.