Amusing. My personal experience is that DG is awesome. Before DG in the town I'm familiar with if you wanted to buy basic office or school supplies, basic OTC medical supplies that were not a gas-station 2-pack of aspirin, essentially any cookware, or a better variety of packaged goods than the local mediocre grocery store (like detergent, snacks, juice, sauces) you had to drive over 20 miles. The produce that DG does have is fresher than the local store and they also don't try to resell expired meat. Now people can use way less gasoline for their basic needs. Now senior citizens with limited mobility can drive slowly or take a golf cart to DG. Rather than "eroding prospects" it adds to sales tax revenue and makes the town more attractive for tourists, remote workers, and other people who are relocating. Dollar stores also have a small land footprint and use few utilities.
If there are two underrepresented groups in HN comments its poor folks and people that live in rural communities. This article is just scapegoating 'dollar stores' for scenarios where their growth intersects with environments suffering from incompetent leadership and shitty education as if a) it's the only place these stores exist and b) they are the root cause for the problems being outlined.
Yeah, as someone who grew up (and still is) lower middle class near rural areas, DGs and the like served a niche that would be hard-press to be filled by other companies, national or local.
So I can't really blame a company for taking over a market underserved. They are a symptom of larger changes in the economy and society, that which one SHOULD criticize.
Yeah, I don’t think this is the dollar store chain’s fault. They are serving a niche. The problem is that this is such a growing niche, that well, it isn’t really a niche anymore.
The problem is poor and low to middle income folks everywhere in America seem to be getting poorer.
There are regular excellent comments and discussions here on homelessness and poverty prompted by @DoreenMichele.
A notable outlier here, and one I suggest checking out.
Yup, most of the comments here are by people who wouldn’t be caught dead shopping at dollar store since it’s “for poor people” yet they are happy to extol the ills of such a business and demand it go away to protect “poor people”.
I no longer live in the rural area where I grew up, but near enough that I've been out there periodically.
The Dollar General was a real game changer. Prior to its arrival, you had a 25+ minute/mile (your pick - mostly 55 mph speed limit country roads) drive to the nearest thing passing as a grocery store. When I was a kid there was a gas station, which did sell some food (maybe bread and milk and some canned goods, along with the typical junk food).
DG is such a real improvement for people out that way. It sells the stuff they need at prices that aren't ridiculous.
Crucially, it doesn't displace or undercut anything. There wasn't any other store to displace - even that old gas station is still there! Dollar General is effectively an oasis in a food desert, even with its lack of fresh produce.
I don't know what percentage of Dollar General / Family Dollar / etc type stores are in areas like that, versus in small towns where they might be competing with an IGA or something. But there are definitely places where their presence is a real win.
Does Amazon refuse to deliver to homes in the town you're familiar with? Doesn't help with produce since not everywhere has same-day Amazon Fresh I guess (and Amazon's isn't very good compared to store alternatives in the Bellevue, WA area), but it hasn't occurred to me to buy basic office/school supplies, OTC medical stuff, or many other things from a store instead of Amazon for a long time.
Amazon tends towards larger quantities, which is what people have trouble affording. I am happy to buy in bulk for things that I use -- as an example I take Zyrtec every day, and buy a 365-count container every year for $15. Dollar stores aren't competing with that, they're for people that can only afford $1 right now, and so they end up with a 14 count container for that. Those people will pay $26 for a year supply, but the important part is that they have $14 right now and are still free of allergies.
That is the problem that people have with dollar stores. They have a cheaper cost of entry, but are more expensive overall. Those of us that aren't living paycheck to paycheck have the liberty of buying things a year in advance to get a better price, and Amazon is great for us. But most of the country isn't doing quite so well.
