Thanks for mentioning that the problem isn't employees at Dollar General. My friend works there and she regularly has to man the whole store herself. Last week they got three trucks, all early. They needed to put things out in the aisles because the stockroom was getting too full to walk in. Corporate does not care whatsoever.
I have heard that. I was in a Orlando Florida Family Dollar, 🛒. It was dark, 75% of the retail space had no lights. It was 1100am on a weekday. The FD store had 2 employees. Products, boxes 📦 everywhere. I guarantee some of that cheap stuff was 10-15yr old! The brands made me think of the 1980s 1970s. Lol.
@@ubulayne_ Not at all. Jobs like that are easy as hell to find and if a ship is sinking that bad you jump off. After all the hardships throughout history I think someone can handle quitting a dollar general good lord.
Don't dismiss the demand for the cassette audio adapters. Since the avg age of vehicles is about 12 yrs, there are many cars from the early 2000s and late 1990s on the road with cassette players. Especially where you are (Arizona) where cars don't rust out. Also the demographic of the customers is more likely to own older or used cars. Also the cars that last the longest (Hondas and Toyotas) had cassette players longer than other makes.
It's not my main ride, but I still have an 02 Ford F-150 4 door crew cab long bed with a bed shell for pulling my boat, yard/golf cart trailer, etc, and it still does it job, so why replace it? But yep it still has a tape deck, and I use an old trusty Sony adapter with my phone to stream audio on longer trips with it.
I had a 1995 Toyota Tercel that just shelled out a couple years ago and I never had a cassette tape player in it!! You would have to have a car from thrb80’s to have that!
@@1gr8chef123 read my comment again Ford had Cassette decks well in the 00's, my aunt use to drive a 99 Toyota Corolla, and it had a tape/CD combo radio from the factory, so they where around a lot long then you think.
having stuff block the fire exit is actually a violation i do believe just like in a restaurant, if you have a cart or even a box blocking a sink that's a violation too.
I worked at DG in Georgia and it’s tough to keep up on anything when you’re alone from open to 1pm. Since moved to the mid-west and the DGs up here are actually well arranged for whatever reason, possibly because one DM isn’t trying to manage 20+ stores since they have so many in the south. The concrete floors are a godsend compared to the white tiles mine had, that was the main part of the renovation plus adding more of the home goods. The toys were split because the first aisles you showed were seasonal. Seasonal was always a nightmare because they’d send random stuff and it’d never go to planogram. Luckily our promo was on the same aisle so we avoided that problem. You just put things where you can. RE safety stuff: our back room was always impacted on truck day and was unacceptably blocked when they dumped out post inventory double truck on us. People would’ve died in a fire if the front doors got blocked. The company will just pay the fine and blame the store manager whether it’s their fault or not. They are much more interested in police style interrogations of employees by loss prevention, which is why I left. Mesa Family Dollars are nicer than the ones up here though, ours are about on par with DG but without the snack selection.
Yo glad somebody else pointed out their weird obsession with liss prevention! When I worked there in highschool they'd rummage through your bag and make you turn out your pockets at the end of every shift. Who the heck wants to steal the cheap stuff dollar general sells!?
I can't see how Dollar Tree 🌳 , Family Dollar, Dollar General can stay in business with just 1 or 2 staffs. That's not only a safety 🚨 point, but a loss prevention/crime factor 🚔. With many cities, states saying shoplifters won't get prosecuted or only items $950.00 & up ⬆️ warrant legal actions, I can't see a Family Dollar not having thefts, problems.
The family dollar you visited is the "new" layout they call "H2" it's meant to make the isles a tad wider, and make the store feel bigger, it also has more practical department grouping. We remodeled our family dollar last year. For the most part, the only stores that haven't been done yet are very rural stores with lower sales.
Dollar General and Family Dollar vary SOOO much by location, some are just awful and a complete hazard, but some are DG market locations and even have some fresh groceries, which can be great if they locate in areas with no other places besides convenience stores. I can’t believe how they except a single person to stock the shelves and run the register though. They’ve also started combining Family Dollar and Dollar tree locations into one building, and selling kind of the best of each of them.
I'd actually like to see your take on the Big Lot's chain, not sure if they're out west though. They're like a slightly higher end Dollar General/Family Dollar, they actually seem to have more than two people staffing the store whenever I go.
I work at Dollar Tree and we are required to keep all aisles clear and keep all of the emergency exits clear. That Dollar General was in direct violation of the fire code.
Your dollar general is actually maneuverable. Ours has these huge carts of boxes of merchandise they can’t fit on the shelves and you literally have to squeeze past them everywhere in the store. It’s like that at all of the ones near me, which I can count 6 in a ten mile radius
Our DG has a similar yet slightly different situation. The shelves are empty, but the aisles are still blocked with merchandise carts because no one is restocking.
I went to my Dollar General to get my mom some distilled water for her CPAP machine. It’s 5 mins from my house. Couldn’t find it and saw a box of it next to the sodas. I just opened it and gotwhat I needed. Only to find they put it two aisles over. Such a mess. Another one in town has a self checkout that basically isn’t functioning. Also I live in Arkansas where they found rats in the Family Dollar Warehouse Never been to a Family Dollar though. 😬
i just noticed your comment im in the uk and use a CPAP machine myself i was told of my doctor that distilled water wasn't suitable and that boiling water from a clean limescale free kettle and letting it cool was much better ?
Dollar Trees 🌳 in Florida: Orlando area are decent. Clean, no blocked lanes, employees(3 or 4). Some are better than others but they aren't dirty or trashy.
Congrats on your play-button!! no one deserves it more than you! and I loved this vid...so glad when I see a notification that you have uploaded...looking forward to the next one. Cheers!
Carpet squares/remnants are used a lot in childcare or preschools to assign a child a "spot" on the floor at circle time or for games, activities. Helps kids with spatial awareness and general classroom management.
Yep there was one recently built in my small town, and I don't think they are as good as the stand alone Family Dollar, or Dollar Tree locations, but at least it's much cleaner, and overall better staffed than the older Dollar General about 1 minute down the road.
I think family dollar has a better feeling because my local dollar general had missing floor tiles and the store never had restocking days so we had empty peg hooks almost every week
I noticed that the Family Dollar in the video removed the floor tiles and was sporting a polished concrete floor, much like Walmart. the concrete floor could very well be just as dirty as the tiled floor in the Dollar General but you would never know it because it's naturally grey so the dirt blends in.
A lot of the time stuff just doesn’t come in. There are these sour bands that I love that we’d get 1 box of and sell out immediately, or just not get any at all. Driving me nuts trying to find them where I live now because I don’t have 5 DG in the county any more.
Wow! That was one clean Family Dollar. I also thought it was going to be a comparison of two bad stores, but that was shocking. Dollar General is usually my go to when I need to pick up something grocery related , but I don't want to go to the actual grocery store. That may have just changed.
I'm in Northern Virginia and yet STILL I nodded along with EVERYTHING you said because even though I haven't run errands at either of those stores in YEARS, every word of it is gospel!
Dollar General does not worry about an individual store getting dinged. They put every store into a different LLC (would you love to be the accountant keeping track of all these LLCs?) so that way no matter how much a store gets dinged the authority cannot come after the main company because it is protected from the store's LLC.
From experience. Stores will often be tipped off a couple days or maybe on the day that an inspection is happening and quickly clean up before the safety auditor arrives.
Oh the carpet remnants are super useful to recarpet a cat tree. Last time I needed some scrap carpet, I found it at a flea market, but $2 for a scrap is actually a good deal. It's surprisingly hard to find a small scrap of carpet.
They're also rad to cover a table in if you do doll dioramas or just to stop dolls feet from scratching a table. You can take the whole thing down and vacuum it once a week to really cut down on dust.
My DG's fire exit was, for about a week, so blocked that even employees couldn't get through to move new stock into the store. HEY, dude! I want those. And CONGRATULATIONS!
Congrats on 100K subscribers! I've been here since the K-Mart video from 5 years ago and never left. Retail Archeology has been a calming presence on TH-cam and I hope this channel continues to be around for a long time.
DG is a meme in itself at this point. I remember hearing that the CEO wanted a DG to be within walking distance of every house in America, which is why some of them pop up in the most out of the way, illogical places. My mother would say "learn to take care of what you've got before you get anything new," but I guess DG doesn't believe in that.
Dollar General definitely has issues with staffing and store upkeep, but they play a critical role in the retail industry. They go into markets that others won't touch. They compensate for low profit margins with a quantity over quality approach (i.e. having tons of low-margin stores vs a few high-performing ones). An overwhelming majority of Dollar Generals are in towns with fewer than 10k people and/or areas with a below-average income. They know their demographic and capitalize on the absense of any competition
Every time I go to a dollar store I get stuck behind the 1 person in line buying over $100 worth of $1 crap. We go for the Lays Stax ($1-$2 less than grocery stores) and crossword puzzle books.
The cassette adapters are still used a lot. Used cheap cars and vintage 80-90s cars that are restored and/or kept original as possible. So they still have a cassette player, need external Bluetooth or CD adapters.
Congrats on the 100k! Here’s to 100k more! 🎉 I like this vid idea. I’d say do it again with another Family Dollar & Dollar General pair and see if you get the same results. In my experience, whether one in an area is better than the other is really location-specific and unpredictable. The Family Dollar near my grandmothers was clean and well-kept, while in my home town, the Family Dollars were cesspools, and Dollar General & Dollar Tree were the way to go. “Everything’s a dollar” was my fave as a kid… 😂
On my recent trip to the US this year (I'm from Australia), I was amazed by the sheer amount of Dollar General stores in rural Oklahoma where I visited. Every few miles in every small community along the highway there was a Dollar General in a generic brown metal shed with a brick facade. Is this normal in other parts of the US? I travelled between Tulsa and Oklahoma City and the country around Tulsa where I saw them. My assumption is Dollar General has taken over the role of the rural general store in small rural communities going by what I saw.
I have worked for both of these companies during my retail career. The biggest problem is the labor model used to operate these stores. Second is the amount of merchandise sent to the stores. Stores need more help and less stock in order to serve the customers. Also lower the shelves, too.
Honestly I can't remember ever going into a dollar general and that's unfortunate to see how they are done. It's been a few years since I've been into a family dollar but I remember it being decent but that could have also been just that location.
Well when you live in a small town like I do, and Walmart, Target, etc.. are a 20 - 40 minute drive away with the current prices of gas it does not make sense to drive that far for just a few items, and as of late the dollar stores often have items in stock the Walmarts, and Targets in my area don't have like OTC medications, and pet food as just 2 examples. Having said that could places like Dollar General could do far better.
It FASCINATES me, it's like convergent evolution lol! Speaking of stocking and register both, that's why I had to quit my job at Wawa, they WANTED me to do all that crap on overnights WHILE two or three of them STOOD there in the deli gabbling like chickens and it was "Lura, you've got a customer...". I WILL END YOU!
another great video as always love how you film the products it gives me insight into what is sold in America so many shops etc that i have never heard of before finding your channel and you film so smooth and calm not a camera flying all over the place which i very much appreciate !
That Paul Blart bit was hilarious. You're not even in a mall and he's after you. That Family Dollar looked way better than the one in your 2019 video, maybe they watched your video and got their act together XD And congratulations on the silver play button! You've sure as hell earned it. Love your work as always
I find that all the "dollar store" type places vary by state and region. The Dollar Tree stores near me all look like bombs went off in them. These kinds of stores tend to also be in areas of cities or towns in some states where you don't want to go into them after dark or at all, depending on the area.
It's a wide net. They're the go-to place in small towns for a lot if they don't have a nearby Walmart and I guarantee you that the Dollar Tree in Cedar Park, TX or the Dollar General not far off isnt in the sort of area you're suggesting. As I said: wide net.
Is that Family Dollar you visited at Main and Recker in Mesa? That's one of their new stores, it's maybe 18 months old at most. The new FD stores are a lot nicer looking now, wider aisles, etc. Coincidentally that space used to be a Dollar General that closed a few years ago.
Every Dollar General I have gone to always has stuff in the aisle or blocking the whole aisle altogether. You should check out PopShelf, which is a cross between a Five Below and a dollar store. PopShelf is owned by Dollar General and it supposed to be somewhat of a nicer Dollar General then a regular Dollar General store.
Congrats on the 100k! Thanks for the comparison video... We don't have Dollar General where I live so it's interesting to see how different the two stores are!
I know it’s not in the contest but I found Yoohoo drinks and a Cibo Matto CD at dollar tree so that wins for me! They started really pushing their CD and DVD section lately so if you go there be sure to check it out, I’m sure they get more weird stuff like that from time to time.
Those DVDs in cardboard sleeves can be a real treasure hunt. I found a set of two at one store that between them had all the old Lash LaRue westerns from the '40s.
There is probably stuff in front of the fire exit to deter shoplifters. Boy do people love to load up on goods and just make it out the fire exit pissing off just about everyone until an underpaid employee has to disable and then re arm the alarm
I hate dollar general. All the dg's I've seen only have windows at the front door, combined with the high shelves and often dim lighting I feel like I'm in a dungeon whenever I go
Dollar General's whole game plan seems to be to rent/buy small buildings and stuff them to the gills. There's one close to me that's kept reasonably clean, but I still don't bother with it. The nearest Family Dollar closed a few years back.
I use to work for Dollar General in the late 00's - early 2010's, and you are 1/2 right, as lot of their newer stores are stand alone buildings they outright own, but yeah a lot of their older locations are lease/rental units, and those are the ones that are always the worst stores, but the worst problem is understaffing, and overworking the staff they have with managers who don't know how to schedule their staff, as when I worked at DG it was part time, and my original manager was very understanding that I worked a day job with guaranteed hours each week, and would always schedule me nights, weekends, and Holidays if I wanted to work them that I was not working my other job, but when she left due to family reasons, and I got a new manager, and they were crazy enough to not understand my scheduling with my other job after nearly 5 years of being at that store, and wanted me to quit my other job for hours that were not guaranteed, and ultimately ended up being less with a higher workload so I said enough is enough, and quit!!
There's a DG that is semi-close to where I live that is immaculate, but they burn through employees, I almost never see the same employee more than 2 or 3 times. It's so clean and well-stocked, I had to edit this to stress how weird it feels walking around in it. Employees are always out of sight unless at the register, and there seems to be very few shoppers. It's by a road that has natural gas industry, 24/7 trucks and equipment up and down the road so I think the DG was put there just for that reason. There's a few waves of workers who shop there at a specific time of day and the rest of the time it's empty.
Being in a wheelchair these blocked aisles are a major issue for me. Its bad enough when the stores are empty but then put people and carts in those aisles too.....
I have friends and family who has worked in both places. One of them was a manager in both stores at one time. One thing I was told a lot in both stores was on how the payroll was often very low and while they sometimes may have it to where only one person is working for awhile and because of that they can't restock due to them being told that someone has to be on the counter(one person got fired at one time for going leaving the counter). Having two employees at a time didn't happen too much and if it did, the 2nd employee may be there for 2-4 hours, which helps on the lunch breaks(which btw some managers never could take), but doesn't help in restocking quickly at times. That family dollar having three employees on at a time is a good reason why it was doing much better. Also as to the dirty floors and all, I was told a lot that the employees just don't have that much motivation and love for the company so they just don't care, or that they are doing so much because of corporate and with some customers leaving a mess, they just don't feel that motivated to go out there and take the extra mile to clean it up a lot and in turn just do the minimum. I am sure a lot of these are just people complaining but when you hear it enough and go into a store and watch for a bit after awhile you do think that there is perhaps a nugget of truth in it.
Wow! That was one clean video of Family Dollar. I also thought it was going to be a comparison of two bad stores, but that was shocking. Dollar General is usually my go to when I need to pick up something grocery related , but I don't want to go to the actual grocery store. That may have just changed.
Congratulations, your content and editing is worth the play button. My daughter and I love your channel. She gets a glimpse of the past and I get to reminisce. I agree, Family Dollar stores tend to be more clean and stocked.
I’ve been watching you for years! You should really check out Ollie’s if you have one in AZ. They usually sell stuff other stores can’t sell, and it’s incredibly unorganized. Also, I’d love to see an episode on struggling AMC.
It really shows that DG don't give a damn about Shrink or the employees until it's time to blame the single store employee for merchandise being stolen. Family Dollar on the other hand although i'm sure they're a pain to work for just like any other retail discount outlet at least looks clean, easy to shop and has a lot more. I feel sorry for the workers are DG that have to be there alone which should be an illegal practice.
6:08 I'll tell ya what it looks like in the back: The entire back room is filled, wall to wall, by those floats of merchandise that never gets ran. There's stuff from the previous year in there too, becasue, again, nobody has the time to run it.
Family dollar is owned by Dollar Tree. Im a store manager at a Dollar Tree and corporate has really been pushing “brand standards” and forcing bad stores to improve. Most likely doing the same for Family Dollar.
I wish they'd improve in my area of Texas. The last time I saw inside of one near me, or talked to someone who'd been in one, it was like a bomb went off inside and it wasn't being fixed. It gives off a very creepy and unsafe vibe, especially when some of them in Texas tend to be in neighborhoods where you don't want to be after dark or at all in some cases if you don't live there already.
if you come to the northeast i’d love if you went to ocean state job lot, its a big discount department store pretty much and they have some reallyyyy weird stuff. i work at one and every day i find something new thats very strange
Wow! That's insanely low mileage for a car that age. I drive a 2004 Toyota Tundra that has fairly low miles on it for it's age (160,000ish). It actually does have a cassette player that I use. It has a CD player also but I never use it 😂
This is such a contrast to our FD/DGs. FD was more like shopping in a neighborhood garage (dim lights, stuffed aisles) and DG was neat, bright, and very craft-store-from-the-80s vibe.
You should check out the PoundLand documentary series that aired in the UK, Pound Wars, (it's on TH-cam). They spent millions working out what products work best in each store and having them as enticing as possible. They would absolutely lose their sh!t at how these stores display their products.
My Ex use to work at a Dollar General and she ended up quitting because it was just to much they wanted her to stock and run the store at the same time and that is no easy job when it gets busy.
I live just down the street from a Dollar General and my heart always breaks for the employees. There is rarely more than 1-2 people working in the entire store. Impossible for them to keep up with stocking inventory/cleaning all while running the cash register. The store seems to do pretty good business so I'm not sure why they can't increase employee pay to attract more help.
Love this video, dude. Gotta be honest, I LOVE those Icee/SlushPuppie pouches - our local Market Basket grocery store carries those around here, LOVE THEM! I'm a sucker for those whenever I find them...expecially in the summer!
It's funny, because comparing the cleanliness and clutter, DG and FD are exactly inverted in my area. The Dollar General near me is pretty well laid out and clean, and the Family Dollar a mile away is a total disaster.
I worked at the family dollar earlier this year. Dollar/discount stores tend to only have 2 employees maybe 3 at a time in the store. They also expect us to be stockers, cashiers and janitors all at the same time and get annoyed at us for not paying attention and having a customer waiting. Even if we’re in a back corner stocking something that causes us to be unable to see our register. That being said. Family dollar does look nicer. They pride themselves on being “organized”. Each store is different. Some are more organized than others.
Thanks for mentioning that the problem isn't employees at Dollar General. My friend works there and she regularly has to man the whole store herself. Last week they got three trucks, all early. They needed to put things out in the aisles because the stockroom was getting too full to walk in. Corporate does not care whatsoever.
I have heard that. I was in a Orlando Florida Family Dollar, 🛒. It was dark, 75% of the retail space had no lights. It was 1100am on a weekday. The FD store had 2 employees. Products, boxes 📦 everywhere. I guarantee some of that cheap stuff was 10-15yr old! The brands made me think of the 1980s 1970s. Lol.
If you decide to work there , it's on you.
@@donavonmacallister3101wildly ignorant take
@@ubulayne_ Not at all. Jobs like that are easy as hell to find and if a ship is sinking that bad you jump off. After all the hardships throughout history I think someone can handle quitting a dollar general good lord.
@@ubulayne_ But hey if you think you’re stuck at dollar general then you’re stuck at dollar general lol
you guys are like vaporwave for retail, and i love it.
Don't dismiss the demand for the cassette audio adapters. Since the avg age of vehicles is about 12 yrs, there are many cars from the early 2000s and late 1990s on the road with cassette players. Especially where you are (Arizona) where cars don't rust out. Also the demographic of the customers is more likely to own older or used cars. Also the cars that last the longest (Hondas and Toyotas) had cassette players longer than other makes.
It's not my main ride, but I still have an 02 Ford F-150 4 door crew cab long bed with a bed shell for pulling my boat, yard/golf cart trailer, etc, and it still does it job, so why replace it? But yep it still has a tape deck, and I use an old trusty Sony adapter with my phone to stream audio on longer trips with it.
I had a 1995 Toyota Tercel that just shelled out a couple years ago and I never had a cassette tape player in it!! You would have to have a car from thrb80’s to have that!
@@1gr8chef123 read my comment again Ford had Cassette decks well in the 00's, my aunt use to drive a 99 Toyota Corolla, and it had a tape/CD combo radio from the factory, so they where around a lot long then you think.
That would make them 22 years old, not 12.
I drive a 1998 Mercedes it has a cassette player and cassette adapters are the only way to play my iPhone on.
having stuff block the fire exit is actually a violation i do believe just like in a restaurant,
if you have a cart or even a box blocking a sink that's a violation too.
Plus the stuff blocking it is flammable.
It's only a violation if you get in trouble and get punished for it.
@@joewilson3393 agreed
I worked at DG in Georgia and it’s tough to keep up on anything when you’re alone from open to 1pm. Since moved to the mid-west and the DGs up here are actually well arranged for whatever reason, possibly because one DM isn’t trying to manage 20+ stores since they have so many in the south. The concrete floors are a godsend compared to the white tiles mine had, that was the main part of the renovation plus adding more of the home goods.
The toys were split because the first aisles you showed were seasonal. Seasonal was always a nightmare because they’d send random stuff and it’d never go to planogram. Luckily our promo was on the same aisle so we avoided that problem. You just put things where you can.
RE safety stuff: our back room was always impacted on truck day and was unacceptably blocked when they dumped out post inventory double truck on us. People would’ve died in a fire if the front doors got blocked. The company will just pay the fine and blame the store manager whether it’s their fault or not. They are much more interested in police style interrogations of employees by loss prevention, which is why I left.
Mesa Family Dollars are nicer than the ones up here though, ours are about on par with DG but without the snack selection.
Yo glad somebody else pointed out their weird obsession with liss prevention! When I worked there in highschool they'd rummage through your bag and make you turn out your pockets at the end of every shift. Who the heck wants to steal the cheap stuff dollar general sells!?
I can't see how Dollar Tree 🌳 , Family Dollar, Dollar General can stay in business with just 1 or 2 staffs. That's not only a safety 🚨 point, but a loss prevention/crime factor 🚔. With many cities, states saying shoplifters won't get prosecuted or only items $950.00 & up ⬆️ warrant legal actions, I can't see a Family Dollar not having thefts, problems.
The family dollar you visited is the "new" layout they call "H2" it's meant to make the isles a tad wider, and make the store feel bigger, it also has more practical department grouping. We remodeled our family dollar last year. For the most part, the only stores that haven't been done yet are very rural stores with lower sales.
Dollar General and Family Dollar vary SOOO much by location, some are just awful and a complete hazard, but some are DG market locations and even have some fresh groceries, which can be great if they locate in areas with no other places besides convenience stores. I can’t believe how they except a single person to stock the shelves and run the register though.
They’ve also started combining Family Dollar and Dollar tree locations into one building, and selling kind of the best of each of them.
I'd actually like to see your take on the Big Lot's chain, not sure if they're out west though. They're like a slightly higher end Dollar General/Family Dollar, they actually seem to have more than two people staffing the store whenever I go.
There's a Big Lots about 2 miles from my house 🙂
@@RetailArchaeology No, you have a Big Lots! instead. The exclamation point is part of its name.
Oh Big Lots vs Ollies's!
Big Lots often has higher prices than Walmart and most of the stuff is expired. Ollies is the same way.
@@misterhat5823 The Big Lots! near me, I've only been there a couple times, actually sells furniture.
I work at Dollar Tree and we are required to keep all aisles clear and keep all of the emergency exits clear. That Dollar General was in direct violation of the fire code.
That dollar general looks nice compared to the ones near me. They should actually pay decent wages and then they'd be able to hold onto staff
Your dollar general is actually maneuverable. Ours has these huge carts of boxes of merchandise they can’t fit on the shelves and you literally have to squeeze past them everywhere in the store. It’s like that at all of the ones near me, which I can count 6 in a ten mile radius
Our DG has a similar yet slightly different situation. The shelves are empty, but the aisles are still blocked with merchandise carts because no one is restocking.
Stores like this were a big help during c*v*d when people were waiting in line to get into box stores.
I went to my Dollar General to get my mom some distilled water for her CPAP machine. It’s 5 mins from my house. Couldn’t find it and saw a box of it next to the sodas. I just opened it and gotwhat I needed. Only to find they put it two aisles over. Such a mess. Another one in town has a self checkout that basically isn’t functioning. Also I live in Arkansas where they found rats in the Family Dollar Warehouse Never been to a Family Dollar though. 😬
I also live in Arkansas (which doesn’t mean much admittedly) but my local dollar generals are… fine. But the family dollars are always a bit janky LOL
i just noticed your comment im in the uk and use a CPAP machine myself i was told of my doctor that distilled water wasn't suitable and that boiling water from a clean limescale free kettle and letting it cool was much better ?
@@schwiftynintendonerd U.S. standards may differ for what constitutes 'distilled' water vs. U.K. standards.
Dollar Trees 🌳 in Florida: Orlando area are decent. Clean, no blocked lanes, employees(3 or 4). Some are better than others but they aren't dirty or trashy.
Congrats on your play-button!! no one deserves it more than you! and I loved this vid...so glad when I see a notification that you have uploaded...looking forward to the next one. Cheers!
Thank you 😁
Carpet squares/remnants are used a lot in childcare or preschools to assign a child a "spot" on the floor at circle time or for games, activities. Helps kids with spatial awareness and general classroom management.
And now there's the Family Dollar/Dollar Tree combos.
Yep there was one recently built in my small town, and I don't think they are as good as the stand alone Family Dollar, or Dollar Tree locations, but at least it's much cleaner, and overall better staffed than the older Dollar General about 1 minute down the road.
Dollar Tree bought Family Dollar some time ago.
I think family dollar has a better feeling because my local dollar general had missing floor tiles and the store never had restocking days so we had empty peg hooks almost every week
I noticed that the Family Dollar in the video removed the floor tiles and was sporting a polished concrete floor, much like Walmart. the concrete floor could very well be just as dirty as the tiled floor in the Dollar General but you would never know it because it's naturally grey so the dirt blends in.
@@dindog22 yeah I did notice that for a second. BTW do all the stores do that or just the one he went to?
A lot of the time stuff just doesn’t come in. There are these sour bands that I love that we’d get 1 box of and sell out immediately, or just not get any at all. Driving me nuts trying to find them where I live now because I don’t have 5 DG in the county any more.
Wow! That was one clean Family Dollar. I also thought it was going to be a comparison of two bad stores, but that was shocking. Dollar General is usually my go to when I need to pick up something grocery related , but I don't want to go to the actual grocery store. That may have just changed.
Decor from a HGTV show from 6 Years Ago, that is the coldest and mosr creative insult i have ever heard.
I'm in Northern Virginia and yet STILL I nodded along with EVERYTHING you said because even though I haven't run errands at either of those stores in YEARS, every word of it is gospel!
It really depends on the area and the mangment.
Dollar General does not worry about an individual store getting dinged. They put every store into a different LLC (would you love to be the accountant keeping track of all these LLCs?) so that way no matter how much a store gets dinged the authority cannot come after the main company because it is protected from the store's LLC.
From experience. Stores will often be tipped off a couple days or maybe on the day that an inspection is happening and quickly clean up before the safety auditor arrives.
Oh the carpet remnants are super useful to recarpet a cat tree. Last time I needed some scrap carpet, I found it at a flea market, but $2 for a scrap is actually a good deal. It's surprisingly hard to find a small scrap of carpet.
They're also rad to cover a table in if you do doll dioramas or just to stop dolls feet from scratching a table. You can take the whole thing down and vacuum it once a week to really cut down on dust.
Also use to put under a tire to get unstuck on ice/snowy roads.
@@michaelcap9550 interesting. Living in Florida, that's not something I deal with so I wouldn't know that.
Or to put in front of the litter box! I’ve done that before.
@@SilverGreeneye oh good idea too!
My DG's fire exit was, for about a week, so blocked that even employees couldn't get through to move new stock into the store.
HEY, dude! I want those.
And CONGRATULATIONS!
These are the times I thank God I jumped ship from retail to private security way back in the early 2000s.
There's a reason it's called "Retail Hell"
Congrats on 100K subscribers! I've been here since the K-Mart video from 5 years ago and never left. Retail Archeology has been a calming presence on TH-cam and I hope this channel continues to be around for a long time.
DG is a meme in itself at this point. I remember hearing that the CEO wanted a DG to be within walking distance of every house in America, which is why some of them pop up in the most out of the way, illogical places. My mother would say "learn to take care of what you've got before you get anything new," but I guess DG doesn't believe in that.
Dollar General definitely has issues with staffing and store upkeep, but they play a critical role in the retail industry. They go into markets that others won't touch. They compensate for low profit margins with a quantity over quality approach (i.e. having tons of low-margin stores vs a few high-performing ones). An overwhelming majority of Dollar Generals are in towns with fewer than 10k people and/or areas with a below-average income. They know their demographic and capitalize on the absense of any competition
Every time I go to a dollar store I get stuck behind the 1 person in line buying over $100 worth of $1 crap. We go for the Lays Stax ($1-$2 less than grocery stores) and crossword puzzle books.
A lot of teachers use the carpet remnants for reading corners.
I love your new Capcom intro to your channel!!! So please keep up with the tribute intros on your channel!!!
That is the nicest Family Dollar I have ever seen. The ones around here are very similar to the Dollar General you went to.
Thank you so much retail archeology. From one lifelong retail employee you've made my day.
The cassette adapters are still used a lot. Used cheap cars and vintage 80-90s cars that are restored and/or kept original as possible. So they still have a cassette player, need external Bluetooth or CD adapters.
Forget the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, NCAA Championship, and Wrestlemania THIS IS THE SHOWDOWN OF THE IMMORTALS
Congrats on the 100k! Here’s to 100k more! 🎉
I like this vid idea. I’d say do it again with another Family Dollar & Dollar General pair and see if you get the same results. In my experience, whether one in an area is better than the other is really location-specific and unpredictable. The Family Dollar near my grandmothers was clean and well-kept, while in my home town, the Family Dollars were cesspools, and Dollar General & Dollar Tree were the way to go. “Everything’s a dollar” was my fave as a kid… 😂
On my recent trip to the US this year (I'm from Australia), I was amazed by the sheer amount of Dollar General stores in rural Oklahoma where I visited. Every few miles in every small community along the highway there was a Dollar General in a generic brown metal shed with a brick facade. Is this normal in other parts of the US? I travelled between Tulsa and Oklahoma City and the country around Tulsa where I saw them. My assumption is Dollar General has taken over the role of the rural general store in small rural communities going by what I saw.
I have worked for both of these companies during my retail career. The biggest problem is the labor model used to operate these stores. Second is the amount of merchandise sent to the stores. Stores need more help and less stock in order to serve the customers. Also lower the shelves, too.
Honestly I can't remember ever going into a dollar general and that's unfortunate to see how they are done. It's been a few years since I've been into a family dollar but I remember it being decent but that could have also been just that location.
You were lucky to find one of those picture stands.
Congrats on the 100,000 subs!! Been one for a long time. 😀👍
You know what’s the crazy part? The prices aren’t any better than Walmart.
Well when you live in a small town like I do, and Walmart, Target, etc.. are a 20 - 40 minute drive away with the current prices of gas it does not make sense to drive that far for just a few items, and as of late the dollar stores often have items in stock the Walmarts, and Targets in my area don't have like OTC medications, and pet food as just 2 examples. Having said that could places like Dollar General could do far better.
It FASCINATES me, it's like convergent evolution lol!
Speaking of stocking and register both, that's why I had to quit my job at Wawa, they WANTED me to do all that crap on overnights WHILE two or three of them STOOD there in the deli gabbling like chickens and it was "Lura, you've got a customer...". I WILL END YOU!
I just happened to check to see if there were any new videos and there was a brand new one! 😁👍
another great video as always love how you film the products it gives me insight into what is sold in America so many shops etc that i have never heard of before finding your channel and you film so smooth and calm not a camera flying all over the place which i very much appreciate !
That Paul Blart bit was hilarious. You're not even in a mall and he's after you. That Family Dollar looked way better than the one in your 2019 video, maybe they watched your video and got their act together XD And congratulations on the silver play button! You've sure as hell earned it. Love your work as always
I find that all the "dollar store" type places vary by state and region. The Dollar Tree stores near me all look like bombs went off in them. These kinds of stores tend to also be in areas of cities or towns in some states where you don't want to go into them after dark or at all, depending on the area.
It's a wide net. They're the go-to place in small towns for a lot if they don't have a nearby Walmart and I guarantee you that the Dollar Tree in Cedar Park, TX or the Dollar General not far off isnt in the sort of area you're suggesting. As I said: wide net.
Is that Family Dollar you visited at Main and Recker in Mesa? That's one of their new stores, it's maybe 18 months old at most. The new FD stores are a lot nicer looking now, wider aisles, etc. Coincidentally that space used to be a Dollar General that closed a few years ago.
A friend of mine's car has a tape deck, so yeah, there is definitely still a market for those tape adapters. Bluetooth ones even exist.
Every Dollar General I have gone to always has stuff in the aisle or blocking the whole aisle altogether. You should check out PopShelf, which is a cross between a Five Below and a dollar store. PopShelf is owned by Dollar General and it supposed to be somewhat of a nicer Dollar General then a regular Dollar General store.
Congrats on the 100k! Thanks for the comparison video... We don't have Dollar General where I live so it's interesting to see how different the two stores are!
I know it’s not in the contest but I found Yoohoo drinks and a Cibo Matto CD at dollar tree so that wins for me! They started really pushing their CD and DVD section lately so if you go there be sure to check it out, I’m sure they get more weird stuff like that from time to time.
It seems like dollar stores are the only types of stores that get saddled with everyone’s new-old stock like that-other than thrift stores, of course.
Those DVDs in cardboard sleeves can be a real treasure hunt. I found a set of two at one store that between them had all the old Lash LaRue westerns from the '40s.
There is probably stuff in front of the fire exit to deter shoplifters. Boy do people love to load up on goods and just make it out the fire exit pissing off just about everyone until an underpaid employee has to disable and then re arm the alarm
I hate dollar general. All the dg's I've seen only have windows at the front door, combined with the high shelves and often dim lighting I feel like I'm in a dungeon whenever I go
At 11:47 I noticed a cameo of our beloved Devil's Ivy from the Power Square mall. My, it has certainly grown!
DG is exactly the same in Indiana. Messy, cluttered, chaos.
Love the Capcom / street fighter cameo. Keep up the great work!
Dollar General's whole game plan seems to be to rent/buy small buildings and stuff them to the gills. There's one close to me that's kept reasonably clean, but I still don't bother with it. The nearest Family Dollar closed a few years back.
I use to work for Dollar General in the late 00's - early 2010's, and you are 1/2 right, as lot of their newer stores are stand alone buildings they outright own, but yeah a lot of their older locations are lease/rental units, and those are the ones that are always the worst stores, but the worst problem is understaffing, and overworking the staff they have with managers who don't know how to schedule their staff, as when I worked at DG it was part time, and my original manager was very understanding that I worked a day job with guaranteed hours each week, and would always schedule me nights, weekends, and Holidays if I wanted to work them that I was not working my other job, but when she left due to family reasons, and I got a new manager, and they were crazy enough to not understand my scheduling with my other job after nearly 5 years of being at that store, and wanted me to quit my other job for hours that were not guaranteed, and ultimately ended up being less with a higher workload so I said enough is enough, and quit!!
Always a pleasure to see a new Retail Archeology video.
There's a DG that is semi-close to where I live that is immaculate, but they burn through employees, I almost never see the same employee more than 2 or 3 times. It's so clean and well-stocked, I had to edit this to stress how weird it feels walking around in it. Employees are always out of sight unless at the register, and there seems to be very few shoppers. It's by a road that has natural gas industry, 24/7 trucks and equipment up and down the road so I think the DG was put there just for that reason. There's a few waves of workers who shop there at a specific time of day and the rest of the time it's empty.
Being in a wheelchair these blocked aisles are a major issue for me. Its bad enough when the stores are empty but then put people and carts in those aisles too.....
I have friends and family who has worked in both places. One of them was a manager in both stores at one time. One thing I was told a lot in both stores was on how the payroll was often very low and while they sometimes may have it to where only one person is working for awhile and because of that they can't restock due to them being told that someone has to be on the counter(one person got fired at one time for going leaving the counter). Having two employees at a time didn't happen too much and if it did, the 2nd employee may be there for 2-4 hours, which helps on the lunch breaks(which btw some managers never could take), but doesn't help in restocking quickly at times. That family dollar having three employees on at a time is a good reason why it was doing much better.
Also as to the dirty floors and all, I was told a lot that the employees just don't have that much motivation and love for the company so they just don't care, or that they are doing so much because of corporate and with some customers leaving a mess, they just don't feel that motivated to go out there and take the extra mile to clean it up a lot and in turn just do the minimum. I am sure a lot of these are just people complaining but when you hear it enough and go into a store and watch for a bit after awhile you do think that there is perhaps a nugget of truth in it.
Wow! That was one clean video of Family Dollar. I also thought it was going to be a comparison of two bad stores, but that was shocking. Dollar General is usually my go to when I need to pick up something grocery related , but I don't want to go to the actual grocery store. That may have just changed.
Congratulations, your content and editing is worth the play button. My daughter and I love your channel. She gets a glimpse of the past and I get to reminisce. I agree, Family Dollar stores tend to be more clean and stocked.
such flex at the end
I’ve been watching you for years! You should really check out Ollie’s if you have one in AZ. They usually sell stuff other stores can’t sell, and it’s incredibly unorganized. Also, I’d love to see an episode on struggling AMC.
Picture holders can be found plentifully at any At Home or Michaels.
It really shows that DG don't give a damn about Shrink or the employees until it's time to blame the single store employee for merchandise being stolen. Family Dollar on the other hand although i'm sure they're a pain to work for just like any other retail discount outlet at least looks clean, easy to shop and has a lot more. I feel sorry for the workers are DG that have to be there alone which should be an illegal practice.
6:08 I'll tell ya what it looks like in the back:
The entire back room is filled, wall to wall, by those floats of merchandise that never gets ran.
There's stuff from the previous year in there too, becasue, again, nobody has the time to run it.
Awesome surprise at the end with the play button! Congrats man!
Family dollar is owned by Dollar Tree. Im a store manager at a Dollar Tree and corporate has really been pushing “brand standards” and forcing bad stores to improve. Most likely doing the same for Family Dollar.
I wish they'd improve in my area of Texas. The last time I saw inside of one near me, or talked to someone who'd been in one, it was like a bomb went off inside and it wasn't being fixed. It gives off a very creepy and unsafe vibe, especially when some of them in Texas tend to be in neighborhoods where you don't want to be after dark or at all in some cases if you don't live there already.
@@jwb52z9 idk about texas. Im here in So Cal. And theyre really pushing for clean locations.
I like Dollar Tree more than the others.
if you come to the northeast i’d love if you went to ocean state job lot, its a big discount department store pretty much and they have some reallyyyy weird stuff. i work at one and every day i find something new thats very strange
I have a '99 Pontiac Grand Am that has a am/fm cassette radio. After 23 years, it literally just rolled over 100k last week.
Wow! That's insanely low mileage for a car that age. I drive a 2004 Toyota Tundra that has fairly low miles on it for it's age (160,000ish). It actually does have a cassette player that I use. It has a CD player also but I never use it 😂
@@RetailArchaeology my 2011 Nissan Rogue has 160k miles so yeah, the Pontiac definitely has low mileage for its age!
Everytime im in a dollar general I feel like stuff is going to fall on me cause of how they stuff the isles and shelves to the max.
I'm so jealous of your play button! Congratulations!!
Congrats! We all love you. Also, MINI DRAGON'S LAIR
I miss when dollar stores were actual closeouts and overuns, not just crap made for them or the same stuff as every other store.
go to a small town Dollar General, that's where they get a lot more traffic because sometimes they're the only general store around for miles.
This is such a contrast to our FD/DGs. FD was more like shopping in a neighborhood garage (dim lights, stuffed aisles) and DG was neat, bright, and very craft-store-from-the-80s vibe.
DG is up the road from my house, convenient for me, glad to see you got the YT plaque :)
Love your videos, keep 'em coming dude!!!
In all my years in retail I never saw a safety inspector.
Dollar Tree & 99 Cent store near me sells carpet remnants too.
You should check out the PoundLand documentary series that aired in the UK, Pound Wars, (it's on TH-cam). They spent millions working out what products work best in each store and having them as enticing as possible.
They would absolutely lose their sh!t at how these stores display their products.
BOT
Our very rural Family Dollar and Dollar General stores are across the street from each other on a two-lane dead end road.
Laugh love live, love it
My Ex use to work at a Dollar General and she ended up quitting because it was just to much they wanted her to stock and run the store at the same time and that is no easy job when it gets busy.
I live just down the street from a Dollar General and my heart always breaks for the employees. There is rarely more than 1-2 people working in the entire store. Impossible for them to keep up with stocking inventory/cleaning all while running the cash register. The store seems to do pretty good business so I'm not sure why they can't increase employee pay to attract more help.
I found season six the office dvds for six bucks. Around the time it was taken off Netflix
Congratulations!!!!!! I love your channel
I haven't seen a Lynx in years! I forgot it existed!
Your stores are pretty clean. Mine has clothes scattered everywhere like a warzone
Thanks again for this really great video. I always love to travel with you. : )
Love this video, dude. Gotta be honest, I LOVE those Icee/SlushPuppie pouches - our local Market Basket grocery store carries those around here, LOVE THEM! I'm a sucker for those whenever I find them...expecially in the summer!
Usually I watch these videos to relax. This is giving me anxiety how gross they are.
It's funny, because comparing the cleanliness and clutter, DG and FD are exactly inverted in my area. The Dollar General near me is pretty well laid out and clean, and the Family Dollar a mile away is a total disaster.
Napoleon Dynamite 2 soundtrack that never was. Noice!!!!
"It's like a thrift store" wow, I don't think anyone has nailed stores like dollar general and family dollar better than that.
I worked at the family dollar earlier this year. Dollar/discount stores tend to only have 2 employees maybe 3 at a time in the store. They also expect us to be stockers, cashiers and janitors all at the same time and get annoyed at us for not paying attention and having a customer waiting. Even if we’re in a back corner stocking something that causes us to be unable to see our register.
That being said. Family dollar does look nicer. They pride themselves on being “organized”. Each store is different. Some are more organized than others.