How Dollar Stores Quietly Consumed America
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ก.ย. 2023
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Writing by Sam Denby and Tristan Purdy
Editing by Alexander Williard
Animation led by Max Moser
Sound by Graham Haerther
Thumbnail by Simon Buckmaster
[1] www.forbes.com/sites/laurende...
[2] www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/da...
[3] inventory-management.com/inve...
[4] www.dollargeneral.com/p/tide-...
[5] www.dollargeneralforsale.com/...
[6] www.loopnet.com/Listing/1748-...
[7] www.crexi.com/properties/1141...
The joke in the South is if you build a trailer-park or RV park anywhere Dollar General will put up a store right next to it.
I think that's not a joke😂
This I'm certain isn't a joke. A Dollar general will put a dollar general next to a dollar general
Yeah probably not a joke. In my country, companies simply follow mcdonalds. If McDonald's opens a branch in a location, they rush to open one there too.
It means the clown has a good team & it is cheaper to bet on locations his team has chosen than to invest in your own feasibility study.
Trailer parks are probably the McDonald's of the dollar store industry.
"If you build it, they will come"
@@CharlesDavis-to9hwon an aside I can't remember exactly where but as I was going around Florida I remember seeing a McDonald's across the street from another McDonald's on the highway, granted it was limited access cuz there was a median in between so it probably made some financial sense but literally they were 500 ft away from each other
Fun fact: Online pranksters also concluded that the Wal-Mart in Kodiak is probably their least trafficked store. When Wal-Mart did a promotion with rapper Pit Bull to have him visit whichever location got the most likes on Facebook (probably assuming that people would give likes to their local stores), people thought it would be hilarious to send him to the most remote store in Alaska. Despite the obvious tomfoolery, Pit Bull went ahead and visited it, receiving keys to the city and some bear repellent.
Like a true Mr. Worldwide
Also because Kodiak sounds like Kodak, and Pitbull rhymed Kodak with Kodak in one of his hits
sounds like a hacker named 4chan would be involved in this
Except that Kodiak's store isn't their least-trafficked. The entirety of Kodiak Island shops there, plus the transient fishing fleet, plus a considerable number of summer and fall visitors. The lousy research from this channel would make one think that Kodiak city is the entirety of the population. It's actually about double.
Plus: we don't have a dollar store of any kind.
Kodiak is # 4 most frequented town and unloads up to 7 cruise ships for day stops. At 2000- 6000 people tourism each ship, including military ships, smaller tourist, hunting boat traffic, including mining, oil boat traffic & barges. Very busy port. It gets more visitors than people think being one of the only ports.
My grandpa told me when I was young "It costs more to be poor". I never really understood that until I was old enough to pay bills on my own. Just like the video explained. Buying the bulk items is more money at once, but cheaper in the long run. Buying the smaller sizes is cheaper at the time, but ends up costing you more in the end. It's a sad circle of eating your own tail sometimes and hard to get out of once you start.
It's the way of the world The poor people lack most everything.
Lesson from your grandpa: work hard to avoid being poor.
It's the Sam Vimes Boots theory of socioeconomic inequality.
@@wwaynemcgif only reality worked that way
Reality: if you're bright, and have a good work ethic, you won't end up poor. If you're dull, and lazy, you stand a real good chance of wallowing in poverty most of your life. Guaranteed@@topapo3661
I love how much importance was placed on soda in this video. it's so true. I used to work at one of their other branches and people mostly came in for cheap junk food, cheap paper products, and cheap chemicals.
I work for a soda distribution company (the 3rd one not pepsi or coke) and 25% of our sales for our whole company come from dpllar generals just on the sheer number of them that are out there. I service 27 every week.
Jesus loves you! He did die on the cross for us and he did come back to life in 3 days by God! Trust in him + Repent of sins✝️❤️ Jesus loves you! He did die on the cross for us and he did come back to life in 3 days by God! Trust in him + Repent of sins✝️❤️
@@nkarma4491First: Do not repeat your comment twice. Second: You know, maybe consider that 23 words will not change someone’s religion. Stop botting.
@@i69420Antisemitism/Christianophobia
@@nkarma4491Jesus shops at Dollar Tree. I know cuz I was working that shift.
The Tide bottle is a perfect example of the poverty trap. Poor people pay more for most products because the don't have a lot of money at any one time. This keeps them poor.
and the populations of southern and western states that are mentioned in the video, continue to elect officials (Republicans/Maga) that enable and worsen this poverty trap. capitalist and conservative economic policies increase the wealth gap drastically. simple economics/politics.
republicans well tell you its the mexicans and lgbtqs fault youre poor tho
@@andrewbrooks3559Both parties are not providing solutions to what is making the country critically unstable. Modern US politics are failing us, soon we'll have to take it with our own hands and control.
The costs of poverty are absurd.
It's baffling how the USA turned 300 years of geographic and resource wealth into maintaining some of the worst systems longer than less privileged communities
@@andrewbrooks3559bro go walk around NYC and tell me dems have poverty fixing policies
The Foodliner in Haven Kansas was a nice store with friendly people working there, but Dollar General didn't simply outcompete them, they started out stocking fresh food options to rival the Foodliner. Dollar General sold everything at a very low price to run the Foodliner out of business and, once the Foodliner closed its doors, Dollar General raised prices dramatically and slashed their fresh food options. Dollar General used scummy market practices in order remove their competition and establish a local monopoly.
Source: I'm a lifelong Kansan with ties to/family in Haven.
These kind of business practices are what's destroying America's middle class and emptying the small towns of main streets. We need to draw attention to this as a country, thank you for covering this video Sam.
What exactly is "scummy" about outselling your competition? Selling at a lower price is standard practice with any industry. It's just business. Sure it's kinda sad that smaller companies lose out but it's not "scummy" to adhere to the general principles of supply and demand.
@@beeb6809 It's scummy to lower your prices on purpose to drive your competition out of business with the intent of recuperating those losses via higher prices once you've established a monopoly. I'm all for competition between businesses - it drives our nation - but lowering prices on purpose to eliminate competition is scummy if you plan to raise prices once your competition is gone. That removes the competition and restricts the supply you refer to with "supply and demand". All this amounts to is large businesses using their size to crush their competition so that they can squeeze the consumers via a local monopoly.
@@beeb6809 It's an anticompetitive practice to intentionally bring in products and services below the wholesale price and use that as a cudgel to force competitors out of the space. It's called dumping, and it's a very potent trick that large companies can use to bully smaller companies. Dollar general has way more competitive pressure on suppliers than a random grocery store in Kansas, making it very easy to dump products onto the shelves. Avocados for 50 cents each? A bunch of carrots for a dollar? A whole bag of potatoes for $2? Not realistic prices in an American grocery store, but if you're charging those rates, people will pick your store way more often.
And when the customers abandon the other store in a year or two, then you can raise prices, cut out low margin products, and go back to selling product to consumers without any regards to health, wellbeing, or basic decency. Supply and demand is an economic principle, not a moral principle or a value.
@@watchinvids155 I dunno, that sounds pretty much exactly like being competitive to me, not "anticompetitive" at all. Just sounds like you're mad that the little guy lost. Driving your competition out is just good business. If you can do that by giving the people what they want at a good price then great. And if you're playing the long game like DG is, to make profits over time you sometimes make sacrifices over the short run. It's what ALL businesses do and it how DG has been able succeed where all those small businesses have failed.
@@alanning9331 Thats just competition. "Scummy" practices implies things like interfering with suppliers, running negative ad campaigns or using undue government influence to cheat the system and succeed where others cant. Using your companies well earned place in the market to make short term sacrifices in exchange for long term profit is just good business. It sounds like you're just mad the little guy couldn't compete but DG started with one store in Scottsville KY in 1939 so they were the little guy once.
I bicycled across the US this summer, and even in the smallest middle of nowhere towns, one thing I could always count on was the dollar general stores. I was a bit confused who was even going to these stores. Makes sense now
Bro that's so fkn rad . How long did you do it in or were you just doing it for charity or something?
How many decades did it take you to bike across the US?
@@ytsux9259 2 months
@@johnfrigo417any chance you were inspired by Cade Media’s trip?
@@tsuihintree Ya! I watched a bunch of his videos for tips on my journey
being broke, cash strapped, paycheck to paycheck, on tour, etc,,, makes you really realize how effective this is in most of the country. you might not see it in your area but $1 single use options become preferable especially when youre traveling/homeless and bulk goods are just not practical to bring with you. single use doesnt just become a convenience but a necessity
doesent help america its disgustingly narcacistic and capitalist hell. When your poor they want you to stay poor
My family owned a grocery store in rural SD and I can confirm, Dollar General drove us to bankruptcy in 2018. These dollar stores are both brutal to the local economy and inhumane to the people that both live and work there.
Im on your side but its not inhumane
Yet the population will flock to them to save money.
@@Ushio01 oh buddy you're ALMOST there. Maybe they need to save money as a necessity because they're paid shit wages by shit corporations? nah, couldn't be that.
They cut prices on pantry goods with very little space for frozen or refrigerated. The mom and Pop supermarkets pay more for wholesale and they need around six times as much sq footage with at least ten times as much refrigerated and frozen food and perishable produce. An ALDI'S would be even worse than a Dollar General, but at least they pay their workers MUCH more than Dollar General.
@@JaKingScomezshoveling unhealthy foods to a captive market isn’t inhumane?
Its crazy how a youtube channel can do this comprehensive report better than national TVs
Agreed. This has more to do with the intention and not the amount of resources.
Because one wants to tell the truth while the other is paid to advertise the company.
Journalism is broken, local journalism has been annihilated
@@etbadaboum”Dog’s weather forecast after this commercial break. 🐶”
People are just so damn talented. It makes me happy.
Another thing to keep in mind with the small quantity option , like the small tide bottle, is there is alot of consumers that specifically looking for small quantities. Apartment residents , college students, campers and truckers need small quantity items for small spaces. I'm an otr trucker and I love going to a DG. I save a bunch of money vs truck stop prices and small quantity items fit in a truck.
As someone who uses a camper for a third of a year, I found it cheaper to keep that small bottle and refill it out of a bigger one at home. Sam's Club and Costco detergents are good for this, though it does require some planning
American Main Streets are actually remarkably resilient to dollar stores. The one thing you’ll notice about places that have a Dollar General is that they don’t have a real Main Street. They have a collection of parking lots with an occasional store. Places that look like the Main Street in your “main streets are fragile” shot at 17:58 don’t get dollar stores, because they have walkable downtowns with small storefronts where small businesses can actually survive.
I'm not so sure about that. A lot of places have main streets that are basically ghost towns. They may have a few businesses still going, but not a grocery store. I live in the South and such towns are everywhere. In the town I currently live in, which once had a relatively large and happening downtown, the railroad refurbishment plant left after 120 years, Walmart moved into the outskirts, and NAFTA killed the garment industry that had replaced the railroad. Multifactorial. Try as folks continue, it is slow going to actually revive the old downtown, and there are dozens of dollar stores everywhere.
Jesus loves you! He did die on the cross for us and he did come back to life in 3 days by God! Trust in him + Repent of sins✝️❤️
I suspect the bigger factor is that most dollar stores use much larger stores than most main street ones.
@@victoriabaker4400the big difference I see with many US "main streets" is they are not in walking distance from where people live. They have plenty of commercial but no residential. If you have to drive to main street it loses its appeal
@@mattitude4464 I agree that is a problem but that generally isn't true of small towns in the US South. But, another factor in all of this is suburbanization as policy following desegregation, which was already hollowing out main streets before the Walmart invasion. Another factor is the neoliberal impoverishment of the working class across the board. When I left high school in 1974 I worked as an entry-level receptionist for $5 an hour, and in today's money that is worth more than $26 an hour. Most of the working class today will never make that kind of money, much less to start.
I can't believe that you actually put the annual cost of some Dollar General stores rent in the video. Data like that just never seems to be revealed in almost any type of article or video. Very impressive!
It's a publicly traded company. Cost of rent is public for shareholders to.see
@@samelmudirso is Walmart but he couldn’t find store rental costs broken down for them.
@@eruben2Wal-Mart almost always owns their buildings
@@eruben2 Wal Mart has a real estate branch. You can lease within it's store. Owns 80% of it's US stores and 60% worldwide. Those huge anchor tenants are an average of $2 mil a month where they are renting in the US.
From how I heard them do it It seemed like they did some calculations based on the average cost of a house. I don't know what that equation is but it didn't seem like they were using actual numbers
Our local grocery store closed soon after a Dollar General was opened. Thankfully a larger regional (non-grocery) company bought the plaza and reopened the store by contracting the operations out to another grocery store owner. Dollar General has since opened another store 5 minutes further down the road so now people coming from both directions pass one before getting to the plaza. Hopefully the grocery store will survive. It was remodeled and they put in a large alcohol section with a walk in beer cooler. They also have good prices on meats, dairy, and frozen food.
Edited: I meant Dollar General not Tree!
Make sure you shop there for all your needs and not at either DG.
Don't hope they do well- help them do that. Spend your money their and encourage everyone else you know to do the same. When you're thinking about going shopping ask that friendly neighbor if they'd like to ride along. Build community, not corporations.
Dollar Tree or Dollar General? I don't see Dollar Tree being the cause of a grocer going out of business, let alone having 2 within 5 minutes of each other, especially in a small community. DT has never been viewed as a go to for shopping for groceries, but DG has been
Take direct action against the dollar stores like those two teenagers mentioned in this video. Fight back
@@OkieOtaku a.k.a "Which kinda apples: Golden or Red Delicious? It makes a difference!" 😂
I'm just gonna push back a little on the idea that the reason that the new training the employees received "didn't take" has less to do with high turn-over or individuals "not caring," and more to do with the fact that there are two people in that store at any given time, trying to deal with a bunch of crap that's above their pay grade, on top of their own job duties. As a person who has worked more than ten years for a billion dollar chain establishment, I can tell you that we do, indeed, care about the safety of ourselves and our customers. But "safer cash handling procedures" fall by the wayside when you are taking orders at a drive-thru, working the window at the drive-thru and also preparing food/drinks for the drive-thru at the same time, in the middle of peak.
I know it's a small thing, but it's the kind of remark that can hit home for any service worker.
I don't blame employees for being generally unconcerned about petty crime when they are barely paid a living wage.
@@chickensalad3535 exactly
way too much effort and headache @@chickensalad3535
The latest 'Last week tonight' is eye opening about the BS workers have to deal with, like running a dollar store on their OWN, and being expected to reopen the store and get back to work 15 minutes after an armed robbery.
@keithpanton7486 I'd of just walked out and left the place to get luted
Would love to see something like this video for Spirit Halloween and a break down of their business model! Keep up these amazing videos please!
I always figured spirit was actually a good thing for the market, because they take over unoccupied stores during a tough time for retailers, but any big nation spanning corporation has some shadiness to it.
My uncle is the person who sets up all the signs and shelving for the east coast! Then he has to go take it all down after Halloween. They pay really good though! I would be mad though lol
yeah a Spirt Halloween business model video would be really cool
CNBC has done a good one if you're interested (on their YT page)
My first official job was at a Dollar General. I was a straight A’s, gullible high school student. I only lasted a month. From day one I was treated like a criminal - the training videos I had to watch said theft was more common from employees than by customers, so our bags had to be searched by a manager in front of the security camera before we could leave. And yet they immediately put me on the cash register, where I’d have to call up the manager every third customer in order to unlock the cigarette cabinet. The worst part, looking back, was that at close I had to clock out but still hang around unpaid for 15mins while my manager finished up. That way we could leave at the same time for “safety” (this was not a high crime area). In the end, the nail in the coffin was that they kept disrespecting my schedule requests for school. I left for a grounds crew job at a golf course and stayed there 3yrs, until I got an engineering job where I’ve been for the last 5yrs. And yet I only stayed at Dollar General for 1 month.
I like to shoplift at Dollar General
You’re not supposed to clock out until the key holder finishes up deposits. They weren’t following policy where you worked, and LP requires bag checks unless it’s taken out to your vehicle at time of purchase otherwise bag checks are required to make responsibility on both parties if theft is occurring. That’s just regular operation on loss prevention side. -a store manager
Sadly a lot of places do this Marshalls’s Ross and they max all check your bag purse before you leave and it must be done under or where a camera can see
Respect for getting a better job bro. Gonna play Devil’s advocate and say do you think that the reason they had to unlock the ciggys because state law is that you have to be 21 to sell them? That’s a pretty common law to stop kids who just graduate high school selling them to someone underage. Also, if your manager was a female, they might not have felt safe leaving the building by themselves. It took a bit for that to click in mind that some people get scared walking to their car at night thinking they can get jumped regardless if it’s a safe area or not.
I suspect the store is haunted that's why the manager needed someone else there to close up the store and didn't want to be alone.
Walmart tried to compete with small scale stores and failed completely. Fortunately, a local grocery chain took the opportunity and bought up most of the locations Walmart built and now we have small scale really nice grocery stores in several small towns here in Arkansas.
Excellent!
That's wonderful!!!
Sick.
Walmart ran off the grocery store and hardware store in our Arkansas town. Now, if Walmart were to shut down we would have to drive over an hour one way to buy groceries.
in nick her towns maybe. lol
Meanwhile in the UK we do get an equivalent "poundland" store all over especially poor areas but also almost every small town has shockingly good food access. Even my town of maybe a few thousand people has 1 large supermarket, a smaller store and 2 corner stores!
In Kenya its called the 'Kadogo' market (small market) It winds up costing the poor more per month in basic household expenditure in these standard items than even some of the wealthiest homes in the country.
As a Canadian who just drove from Buffalo to Myrtle Beach, SC last week - I kept noticing these dollar stores in TINY rural townships. I went from wondering how they survived to now understanding that they actually thrive. Sad reality but thank you Wendover for helping me understand.
How do Canadians survive with that real estate cost
Canadians love Myrtle Beach haha
@@ihmpall we go to Myrtle beach to cope
@@ihmpall
The women Mary and divorce for passive income
hey bud, next time try north myrtle. Cherry grove as well. Way better of a vibe for family@@funby
The underhanded way national chain stores drive small businesses out, causes me to have NO compassion when they face hard times.
@@chrisgooglemaps2108 If only law enforcement would arrest those people who force the poor to buy alcohol, cigarettes and lottery tickets.
Have you ever noticed that local business are overpriced.... an average family shopping local are only able to afford maybe two-and-a-half weeks worth of food... I rather have my families stomach full for the whole month... if you've never been hungry you wouldn't understand
@@juniorjr.427well people aren't getting healthy options and they aren't subsidized by the government for better food. It's not your fault but the system screwed you. You don't need to defend the parasites who only have cheaper prices because they monopolize local area grocery stores and then take your wealth and give it to investors who hoard it. They also can then unilaterally decide what food options you can get.
@@juniorjr.427local businesses aren't overpriced, they just have to buy the stuff for more from the wholesalers. Dollar general buys way more in volume so you can't even compare the scopes. They get better deals because they buy so much
@@juniorjr.427it depends on how common that type of business is in the area, also if it's local enough you'd maybe be able to walk there and get a week's worth of food. There's a major problem in America where we waste the most food out of any nation partly due to how people buy groceries, going on a monthly trip to a national chain supermarket outside their neighborhood and overestimating how much they need. This is partly the reason why more walkable local business is a good thing.
fun how Aldi is visible in the background at 7:51 - competition is coming!
Crazy how much valuable information you can put in a 20 minute video thats easy to digest and retain. Great work as always Wendover.
Had a similar situation when I worked in a drug store. There was no supermarket nearby so we got all the elderly people and others with mobility issues doing their grocery shopping here. I was actually the manager in charge of the food department and when I noticed this, I requested more shelf space and more variety - including fresh fruit. Can you believe it? Fresh fruit at a drug store.
I mean the saying does go "an apple a day..." Am I right?
Good on you for caring about your customers over what is easiest for the store or purely maximizes profits.
We need to figure out a carrot or stick to ensure companies that are purely focused on profits -- without true care for the long-term health of their customers -- are also motivated to do the same kind of thing. First thought is that a tax on stores that offer food but where only a small fraction of sales are on fresh produce could be one such stick.
Were you able to persuade them to stock the fresh fruit?
Almost none of the well-known national brand stores of any kind allow 'stocking to order' anymore. The corporate office decides what you may (and WILL) stock, where it will be displayed, and what the pricing will be. You can't do anything else except ask for more or less of something and hope they will listen. All that store managers do now is manage the staff; the corporation runs the store without them.
Canada has those
I was a dollar general store manager from 2017 - 2020 and a district manager from 2020 - 2022. I left because it was an awful slave-driving work environment. Great video, you really did your research on this one. Hit everything right on point with 100% accuracy. You’ve earned a new fan and sub my friend.
Happy you got out bro. I feel bad when I work my dollar stores. The managers work 70+ hours often and me being a soda sales rep walking in to talk them I'm making like twice their salary while theyre technically the ones in charge of everything in there. I'm impressed how many of them are still hanging in there it's dog shit work.
lol ever heard of popshelf? it’s ran by dollar general you should see the managers there lol. only person who likes their job is the store manager but she’s likely insane
But would you truly consider Dollar General as a $1 store? Sure, they have some $1 items. But a lot of it is not. Same brand names and sizes as Walmart. Just not as many options in brands and sizes as Walmart, like Sam has pointed out.
@@johnburrell33Salaried managers being overworked and underpaid is not unique to Dollar General. It's a common practice throughout America. It's a way to maximize productivity for the least amount of money. It's a growing corporate tactic found everywhere. Panera Bread was in the news recently for doing this to their employees.
Do you think Temu will take share from dollar stores?
This was a great video, and I'm really glad this issue is being shown some attention. My only feedback is the presentation of Wal-Mart as engaging in fair market practices. We all know that Wal-Mart will move into a community, sell products at under-market value until the competition dies, then raise prices to become profitable again. I'm not sure if dollar general does the same, but it wouldn't surprise me.
I went into a Dollar Store once and just like Big Lots I went into once, I realized there is no reason whatsoever to ever go to these stores. I do shop at Dollar Tree, but less since they raised their prices by 25% and added no additional value.
if you think that price hike is outrageous, the .99c store sells half there products now for $4 and above.
I haven't even shopped it Big lots since the late '90s
I buy one thing at my local Dollar (whatever). Redi-Board. It's a foam poster board that has the paper layer that is easy to peel off. This is the only one like that I have found, and is a great material for my TTRPG crafting.
@@seabreezeblank1513 I went to a Big Lots about six years ago. To use the bathroom.
Dollar General is not a "dollar store," that's just their name.
Recently a town here in Michigan blocked a dollar general from opening because they already had one and it was pushing out local business. Dollar General sued and are now allowed to build the second location...
If people of the town really don't like the DGs why are they supporting them?
@@aprilboneski4639voting with your dollar is bullshit. Most people won’t do it. Many people don’t even think about it. People do what is easiest for them.
I find that the politically active make the rules for the rest. It sounds like you are trying to "help" the people who want to do what is easiest because they don't know better. Why would a second DG push out a local business? They don't sell fresh produce that every one wants to buy.@@WaterDrinker011
Jesus loves you! He did die on the cross for us and he did come back to life in 3 days by God! Trust in him + Repent of sins✝️❤️ John 3:16
@@WaryofExtremeshere in the small town of Pecos Texas. There’s a Walmart that the size of a family dollar. Walmart tried to expand to include groceries like any other Walmart nationwide but they were blocked by the mayor. The mayor’s family has a local grocery in the town…I see a conflict of interest with that. Surprisingly Walmart didn’t fight the town. They’re is a Albertsons grocery store that opened recently and its doing very good
I still can’t forgive family dollar, they opened up a store in my hometown in rural michigan, ran the local grocery store out of town, then closed up.
That's also the people's fault for shopping there though
Walmart loves to do that too.
Reopen the local grocery store then?
@@lucydrop8105 You can't blame people who are barely making enough money to survive for trying to save as much money as possible by shopping at a cheaper store. Blame the predators who are willfully taking advantage of people's inability to afford the luxury of choice, and local, state, and federal governments for not stepping in to protect their citizens from the predators.
@@warlordgaming7687When there's a prey, predators will inevitably come and there no governing body who can keep them away
from a person living in the urban center's perspective with plenty of options on all, I can't imagine how bad the health aspect is to live only on dollar stores. My image of dollar stores is cheap, chemically heavy, unhealthy junkfood/snacks combined with cheap toys and bootleg soda. Overall, a great place to get temporary solutions like party supplies, never a place to get long term solutions like your own home furnishings. So to replace say a Ralphs or a Wholefoods with it, I can see myself gaining weight in no time and filling my home with cheap disposable goods.
They have brand name soda, chips, bread, meats, cheeses, and even some produce.
At least the one near us. This video seems to have a lot of misinformation if not outright lies which makes me concerned.
@@Buglin_Burger7878 Do a little actual research, dollar stores are just as big of a problem as they say. Please identify anything untrue in the video.
@Dragoonsoul-ut2sn I live in the rural Midwest and dollar stores near me are similarly stocked, maybe it's just a location thing
@@Buglin_Burger7878only SOME Dollar Generals have fresh produce. Most near me do not. Canned fruits and veggies like green beans is a different story. They all have that.
In my small town they're actually opening a Dollar General Market, which has fresh produce and acts as a small grocery store, which we lack. There are a lot of poor people who can't commute to grocery stores outside of our town and I honestly see this as net positive for our community. I hope Dollar General sees the writing on the wall and starts implementing these fresh produce stores around the country.
If you read the history of the A&P they would often staff their store for the first 50 years of the last century with 1 person. He would run the entire store and the District manager would send in a substitute clerk if he was sick. They didn't sell perishable goods for a very long time. They were also accused of monopolistic practices. I'm old enough to remember stores that were run on this model. They eventually were taken to the court for these labor practices.
I’ve lived in Dayton Ohio my entire life and I love this city. Things are getting much better since the 2008 financial crisis.
I used to work for a security company that tried to stop theft at Dollar General. I worked in those very stores the video refers to. They were perpetually understaffed, difficult to walk around in because there was so much stock, dirty, etc. One of the stores was robbed twice in a week with me inside of it right before it happened. The citizens of Dayton got so fed up with Dollar General taking over the city with literally eight in the city limits, four of which being on Salem Avenue, THE SAME STREET, they opened a co-op grocery store called Gem City Market. It has thrived and has helped bring the community together when companies like Kroger, who are based out of Cincinnati, the nearest largest city, left. Dollar General are a cancer to Dayton and quite a few have been closing around here, with the store in Bellbrook coming to mind.
I lived in Dayton for a few years before moving back to New England where I’m from and 100% agree! It was tragic to see how underserved certain communities were there but encouraging to see the progress being made in a grassroots way! The future is bright in Dayton!
Why did Kroger leave? Too much theft I assume.
😅 19:25 19:25 19:25 19:25
You're leaving out the fact that Gem City Market was funded by private and government grants.
@@tartrazine5 That’s even better!
Late to the party, but about Kodiak: It serves as a "hub" community to the surrounding villages like Old Harbor, Ouzinkie, Port Lions, Afognak Island, Akhiok, etc... Residents from these communities will come to Kodiak by plane or boat every few months for doctor's appointments and to stock up on groceries. Kodiak also hosts a large fishing fleet that will stock up with thousands of dollars worth of groceries before going out.
Alaskan Walmarts also get cruise ship employees, and sometimes cruise passengers, shopping there for basic needs of the sort not readily available in the tourist-oriented waterfront commercial strips. So, seasonally at least, there's an additional draw similar to the CO and WY examples.
I saw the same thing with someone who owns a cabin in Alaska, they stock up at Costco then take a boat back
// Late to the party.....
This phrase implies that you were commenting after conversations in the comments had already died down.
But you showed up around **1 hour** after the video posted. In what world is that "late?" You wouldn't even be considered "late" to an actual party if you showed up 1 hour after it started.
In TH-cam terms, you showed up at peak party, or even a little early to the party.
@@FeebleAntelope Bored?
@@prezadent1 Just YT being YT. But I actually had the exact same thought, I just wasn't going to post it. But now, here I am, posting this.
me and the family love going dollar general when road tripping, this video makes it clear about getting the same junk food in a local grocery store instead. Also the food dessert thing paints a real eye opening picture of the obesity problem, we go there for snack, if you had to use it as a grocery store no wonder people are obese.
Eating healthy has always been expensive
How many bags of chips can you get for the same price as 10 apples
@@AllisterHaffordability has never been an issue for me and i live in a rural area. The issue is there is no option for fresh produce aka a food desert!
My DG has fresh produce, lettuce, cabbage, fruit, salad mix, etc. It‘s nice to have when you’re in a hurry.
Fun fact, the Walmart in Kodiak supplies almost every USCG family and most CG cutters in Alaska because it is an easy port to pull up to, and you can order huge quantities of items in advance and have the unit pick it up for you.
...wasn't that also the store where Pitbull got sent to perform a concert, thanks to 4chan?
@@TheKeeperofChaosthaaaats news to me lol
It was an ad campaign for walmart and sheets done thru fb over a decade ago but yes this happened lmao
Articles still exist as well as Pitbulls official video on his yt channel.
@Etaripamai47 people got to vote at which store he would perform and so 4chan picked the most remote Walmart in Kodiac
The internet took it as an opportunity to troll but Pitbull seemed to actually love it 🤣🤙🏻
They're serving the function of an old-fashioned general store in a tiny town - you can buy almost all the daily neccessities plus a lot of random odds and ends of living without having to travel. But because they're a large chain, they end up sucking money out of these small communities and sending it back to HQ. And they're not fully replacing the stores that go out of business, especially grocery stores and fresh produce.
Well said, for better or worse or like an old-fashioned general store in the wild west
Yep, in my town there's a thriving farmer's market just across the street from the Dollar General, and the actual supermarket just down the road from it is still successful as well. In this rare case Dollar General has added to our economy without taking anything from it. It's actually a pretty well-maintained location as well, I was surprised the first time I went and saw they were carrying groceries, beer, and the like. I remember when they hardly had any food and mostly sold cheap odds and ends.
Exactly
Their food options are shite, the best option being water. Every other thing comes from China and made to be as cheap as possible.
@@deathlarsen7502No, NOT like the old fashioned general store out in the old west. At least the old fashioned general store guy was a part of the community and the profits stayed in the town.
DG employee here, I've worked at normal/bigger Dollar Generals, but I currently work at a DG Market. So, one thing you didn't mention is that depending on the size of the store will decide what they could have. Big DG's with yellow and black signs, will carry some produce. Not a huge collection, but it depends on the size. If it's small, then it won't, if you see a green sign saying "Dollar General Market", then they carry almost everything. The Markets operate differently than normal DG's, key holders are called managers and they manage certain parts of the store and are always getting 40 hours a week. Where I am living they get paid roughly $16-18, that is less then what an assistant manager would make at a normal DG in my area and we have a lot of them. So, in terms of the isles being crowded with what you see are rolltainers. Think of it as it contains things and rolls, hence the name rolltainer, so the main reason for the huge fire/safety hazard is store managers not hiring the right people and not declining shipments. It's a big issue, cause Dollar General will cut hours VERY badly, even if you are labeled full time, your hours could and will get cut. I don't wanna dox myself, but I had a store manager I was helping out and there happened to be a hostage situation going on in front of my house. They were more concerned about the lack of the work I was able to do(Cause I was by myself for 3 hours), I told her off. I was so close to closing the store down cause I had no clue what was going on and I was scared for my sister, who was at home. She would also bicker with my boss and would try to have me open the store(Which I never did) and I had to close the night before at the store I worked at. DG Store Managers are usually old toddlers, in terms of how they act and treat others, HR is a joke, district managers are also a joke, can't ever get a hold of them to make complaints, don't work for this company.
Been watching your videos for a while and this one really hit. Solid content.
In my experience, you don’t actually save that much money shopping at dollar stores. At least at my local DG growing up, eggs and milk were more expensive than going to Walmart, and as the video showed, the per ounce price is often higher, but everything comes in small quantities to make you feel like you’re saving money.
It's not about saving money so much as it is to provide small towns a location to buy shit without having to drive to a big city.
@@darrelldarrell1447 Dollar stores have created neighborhood convenience stores at a fraction of gas station convenience store prices. Dollar tree will often have good deals due to their inflexible pricing. it is literally cheaper for me to order bulk bang energy to dollar tree than enjoy the "bulk savings" of walmart. when egg prices shot up, dollar tree simply sold what they had at standard price and ran out. instability of supply in exchange for never overspending.
Also, the slightly higher unit price is perfectly justified in exchange for them doing the warehousing for you. The whole premise of cities is to live in smaller, more efficient homes and spend on services instead of square footage/ driving
Not to mention the environmental impact of additional packaging needed for these smaller size products.
Now dollar tree on the other hand you can save a lot as long as you’re selective with what you buy lol
more than tricking people, its also preying on people who are running it so close to not being able to make rent that they can only buy the more-per-ounce one cause that's all they have at the moment
I remember when they tried to open a dollar general in my rural town and the reaction from the community was so negative they just gave up.
There's 2 places that dollar stores open,
Rural communities that don't need them and are better off without,
And Urban S-holes so bad that the dollar store is all they have left.
The former can stop them and be fine off. The latter probably ended up in that position after a long, long self inflicted slide
Good 👍
sounds like a similar story to when Walmart tried to expand to Germany..
Hell yeah
@@alexipestov7002it wasn't self inflicted fool. Did you not watch the video it's literally red lining and racism.
Very well done. Shared. Thank you.
This is my second time watching this one. The quality is so good I fully halucinated in into a Last Week Tonight episode and then was sad when I watched theirs because it wasn't as good. Keep up the great work.
I worked as an engineer in the construction industry for three years. I must have written over a hundred reports for dollar general. It was insane how consistent they were at cranking those fuckers out in every tiny ass Texas town
Structural engineer?
@@rezterralico4369 i bet geotechnical or environmental
😂
My hometown just got one a few years back. When I go in , there is all kinds of shit pulled up like a blue hanger. Great place to buy ungodly amounts of junk food and soda.
I am about a month into my construction engineering technician job. About half of my job sites are testing foundations for DGs for the most ridiculous places. Often just replacing a small grocery stores that have neighboring citizens no more than 20 feet from the new building. Not to mention the horrible soil conditions they are building on with little regard for the many problems I show to them.
As someone who's worked a small convenience store in the UK with around 10 staff and 2-3 of us at most on staff at any one time whilst being paid minimum wage - I can attest that the model works for bosses but not the little guy and it is hell on the floor especially if it gets busy enough for your 2nd/manager to jump on the tills too as all scheduled stuff is thrown out the window and you have to keep working at the same pace after everyone leaves to just maintain the store.
I left in July after being told I'd get disciplined for a bad back they caused by overworking me.
Did you not speak to ACAS about that?
So, basically capitalism as a whole.
@@amanonstilts4555 At least he's not being sent to a gulag for complaining like you would in communism
They definitely overwork the people at my local Dollar General the guys always in back restocking stuff. There’s always a line
@@amanonstilts4555No, nice try though.
Travel almost anywhere in the world and you will quickly see how excessive bigbox/grocery stores are in the US. The insane number of options and all the waste that comes with it is a massive problem very few acknowledge.
The waste that comes with dollar stores, smaller sizes, and actually paying more per unit of product is worse
This. Combined with ordinances that mandate the size of parking lots and such, it's the reason the US looks the way that it does: miles of run down gas stations, cracked concrete in weedy parking lagoons, universal chain store frontage irrespect of the surroundings, etc. It's the biggest mistake the US made after the industrial revolution and served as the basis for the myriad issues we have today. Many Americans unconsciously believe they live in an area not worth caring about, that isn't special or unique.
This was the most interesting video. I’ve watched in a long long time. Kudos really really great. Back story research done on this too. Very amazing really taught myself something.
This video is a great example of how being broke / poor is expensive.
We'll never be honest about the cultural implications on this whether in South Atlanta or somewhere in Appalachia. I grew up in Chicago and the saying was always "there would be a Nike store, a Chase bank, and a Whole Foods on every MLK Drive if it wasn't a bad bet." A loss leader. And that was before these insane DAs who won't charge shoplifters and the low staffing problems many police departments are experiencing.
@@RJT80same with seattle but replace Nike with Starbucks.
Tbh no one ever goes to Starbucks in Seattle because there are soooooo many good local coffee shops.
If only that would apply to the rest of the country.
@@RJT80what does police and shoplifting have to do with this? Police make the life of poor people worse
Golden comment!
@@eagleleftlet me guess, defund the police is what you want. How’s that going for Chicago 🤣 all their Walmarts closed in Wakanda neighborhoods 🤣🤣🤣
As a Daytonian urban planning and low income housing professional, the coolest thing we've done is work with activists to fund and open a large food co-operative in the West Side (low income and black) that some local housing residents have automatic memberships to: Gem City Market. It's a good model that has massive impact per project.
Good shit. Good on you. I hope we can get something like this going on a broader scale.
Looks like someone over at Last Week Tonight follows your channel. Keep up the great work!!!
They built that Dollar General in Faith in two weeks. I drove from SD to ND twice weekly for work travel, but it was impossible to miss that store going up.
As a Walmart truck driver, I can say another way they can get savings on p&g products (thus cost less to consumer) is by shipping direct from manf to warehouse and then to store. No middle company. I have picked up loads for Walmart from the Alexandra la plant.
major retailers always buy from the producing company, Dollars included.
The small grocery stores need the wholesalers
I've seen Walmart's distribution system up close. It's massive, efficient, and impressive. So is Target's. Consumers don't understand all that goes into getting goods on the shelf (and how much diesel it takes). Direct shipments from factory to retailer distribution centers are a big part of retail price control. Today retail is either boutiques or massively scaled corporations. There's no middle ground.
@@SoloPerICommentiIt's different with Wal-Mart, though. I did Supply Chain Management at Frito-Lay from 2012 to 2016, and only a few companies got semi-truck deliveries straight from the factory - Wal-Mart and Sysco foods are the two I remember. Everything else went to a Frito-Lay distribution center, where smaller box trucks would deliver it to grocery stores and gas stations.
All the vendor backhauls we do cuts the cost just that tiny bit more. Do a store 200 miles away and instead of driving 200 miles empty back to the DC, go 10 miles further out, get a load of bottled water or whatever. They don’t have to pay 3rd party companies to move the freight, and it ‘optimizes’ how much they pay us.
@@PsRohrbaugh I know, but he was mentioning "a middle company", and that's a wholesaler. Of course you can further optimize with direct deliveries, but that's going to impact like 1% of the COGS, in most categories. A wholesaler is eating like 5-10% of them.
In Canada Dollarama drove out all the no-name dollar stores, once they were all out of business the prices went up. Dollarama started with every product at $1, now most things are $4-5.
💀 insane
Truee
You have no idea how true this is. Born and raised in Alberta and dollarama is EVERYWHERE. Everyone flocked to it because yes everything at the start was only $1. Crazy times indeed.
@@shotguunwolf9365where I am there can be as many as 3 dollaramas within the same block. One in a mall, one outside the mall, and one across the street from the mall. It’s insane.
Dollar Tree Canada is up to $2 now.
The coming of a Dollar store closing a rural full service grocery store happened in a way near where I grew up. The grocery store had been in business for decades and carried a full range of items, including fresh fruits and vegetables. A Dollar Store moved in. The grocery store did not close, but kept operating. Then lightning stuck the full service store and burned it down. It did not re-build.
We just moved to the country in rural TN. The nearest grocery store is about 12 minutes away. But there are nice-looking relatively new dollar general stores 5 minutes away in both directions. The town we live in had a small locally owned grocery store that closed about a year after the dollar generals opened. We stop at the local grocery store every week and make a 30 minute trip every other week to go to a larger grocery store and I haven’t stepped foot in either of the dollar generals. It’s such a shame seeing the town now, because it used to have several locally owned stores and now the downtown are is all shuttered up and run down. There is a small locally owned cafe that is still standing because many of the older locals stop there frequently. But the population of the town hasn’t gone down over the years, it’s expanded. Everyone who lives in the town now has to drive 30+ minutes to get essentials and other items or order them on Amazon. Online shopping, dollar stores and large chain stores really have completely changed communities.
The US suburban model is all about driving to big stores with lots of parking. I guess Dollar General has found a way to reach folks who don't have cars and live in lower-income areas. Dollar General is often in walkable locations, which in the US just means it's not on a 5 lane road.
dollar stores bring the bodega neighborhood store experience to the whole nation!
Yeah. I live in Finland and sometimes wonder why Americans put up with that. My city of 22 000 has 8 grocery stores, 3 hypermarkets, 5 hardware stores and a shopping centre + bunch of other stores.
Doesn't look like walkable locations to me. Strip mall type rubbish. I suppose they're "walkable" in the sense that technically they are walking *distance*.
I grew up in a tiny village of about 500 people. The closest "grocery" store was, you guessed it, Dollar General about 15-20 minutes away. Several smaller grocery stores popped up every once in a while much closer, but it didn't matter. Their days were always numbered. They didn't have the comparatively sophisticated supply chain of the DG, they didn't get a location near a major highway, and their prices were just not competitive at all. Even if their quality was much better (which, surprisingly, was always the case), most people in that area didn't have the money to buy anything that wasn't the lowest quality. The problem is multifaceted: bigass, recognizable signs on busy highways with dirt-cheap prices hard-countered mom-and-pop shops only the locals would find or even recognize. Dollar General / Dollar Tree would employ maybe 8 people at a time, themselves barely able to afford the products they sold. What were we supposed to do? Wages stagnated, prices rose, jobs fled, and people were desperate. You bet your bottom Dollar General a sophisticated, nationwide corporation with unlimited shareholder dollars was gonna kick the ass out of the village grocer. When the community is poor, the economic decision-making gets simple: whatever costs the least for what you need.
There is a boatload of misinformation in you wall of text. I live in a area that is dotted with small rural communities. Many citizens from those areas have good local jobs or their own farms/ranches/dairies/livestock, etc. Others commute to where there is higher paying jobs.
...In a rural area, I have no problem finding farmer's market type items. I can buy local produce and use the time honored tradition of jarring/canning. Have a large freezer, buy meat in bulk when on sale, portion and freeze it. Low income families can also buy bulk produce and jar/can items. Bulk beans, bulk rice, bulk flour etc. can go a long ways. Prep and cook in bulk quantities, then portion and freeze.
...Someone does not have to buy unhealthy junk food at a Family Dollar/Dollar General to survive.
...If you are in a pinch, a can of soup or a frozen meal from Family Dollar/Dollar General will get you by.
...People from rural areas can make a good living. They can afford to drive to one of the bigger cities and shop the ads/coupon deals at the bigger stores. People living in these small rural areas work good jobs. Done it long before a Family Dollar/Dollar General showed up.
...A local mom 'n pop store/general store don't pay significantly better than a Family Dollar/Dollar General. But for them to survive and compete, they would have to form a co-op. And buy wholesale in larger quantities and spread the goods out to the area's rural stores.
...I shop several different stores. I shop the ads/digital coupons. I go to certain stores for certain items. Each store has their 'specials'.
@@do_notknow_much Man from small town has no idea that small towns outside his are not like his.
(Rural areas have, by far, the highest levels of poverty and can rarely support any of the local stores in competition with DG. Your one (1) town notwithstanding).
More at 11.
A family Dollar drove our local grocery store out of business. Our local gas stations now sell vegetables to fill demand. The rural South is a dystopia
Within the last 10 or so years, my home town of Westcliffe, CO opened a Family Dollar. VERY soon after that a Dollar General popped up a literal stones throw away from the Family Dollar. Arguably, I've always preferred Family Dollar to Dollar General but Dollar General has more variety and longer operating hours. I honestly think that Dollar General wanted to have beat out Family Dollar by now but the two continue to persist and attract their own loyal patrons. They're both positioned between the high school and the lower income part of town, so they know their audiences
I worked at Dollar General for five years and I don't miss working there. My first supervisor constantly got on me for every minute transgression and threatened me with writeups over them. I've had other supervisors who didn't know my name and treated me like I didn't exist. I've also had to deal with customers who picked and pulled at me. I also felt miserable at Dollar General since the work culture was highly unstable. By the time I became a turnover rate at Dollar General I was burned out and had no desires to work there anymore.
Yes, I was a dollar general manager at a store in my town. The job was great for about 5 years. Then we got a district manager who was a autocratic ****. I tried to make it work, but I refused to kiss up to him so on my last day I told all my employees I wanted to choke him till he turned blue and I resigned.
I was actually paid LESS than minimum wage at the DG I worked at as a teenager. Of course, the owner did their best to hide that information from me. The expectations of employees is ridiculous there. Bad memories of people down on their luck, trying to combine coupons that don't combine just to afford laundry. I've never been in a DG that didn't make me feel really rough inside.
They want your soul..and pay nothing for it..
being a crap manager is a choice. it’s a shame that some people end up managing people who are not good with people
Dollar General treated me like shit too. I will never miss working there. I’m glad so many are shuttering.
I've always been a small town kid and hated big chains, but this really taught me things I didn't know. I used to work at a local grocery store in rural southern Maryland, which owned 4 stores, and my store was the original one from the early 1950s. As much personality as they have, and how good it felt to support and be involved in local businesses (especially grocers), myself and most employees left around the same time due to horrible management and lack of care for the workers. Not long after that, the store closed, and I've since moved away. However, due to the rise in population in that area, therefore the presence of Walmart and Target 15 years ago, and within the last 5 years, a bunch of chains like Aldi and Harris Teeter, I fully expect the last remaining 3 stores to close very soon. As much as it turned out to be a bad place to work, I still find myself frustrated and saddened by its slow death.
I love going into small grocery stores. They have a smell that a supermarket doesn't. You can smell the deli, etc.
I worked for a small grocery chain with 8 or so locations in the early 2000's. They no longer exist, bought up by Albertsons
I worked there too 💛
When did Aldi make it to the US? I didn't know that they existed outside of Germany (or maybe Britain)...
VERY GOOD RESEARCH AND REPORTING.
The irony of that ordinance passed in tulsa was exasperating the problem, further perpetuating the problem with getting food. Especially in North tulsa. Even in the area I lived in, now there's only more plight because the dollar stores are abandoned. Walmart refuses to build a store in North tulsa and has closed my home store 3 times in past 40 years due to crime.
The fact that they’re clearly targeting places with surviving, local grocery stores is unforgivable to me. Sad how many are dying, ‘coincidentally’ with Dollar General sitting nearby.
People have spoken. With their wallet.
That's literally what every brand/chain does, allied with governmental increasal of taxes and bureaucracy
All of them prey on the poor. Look at the banks.
@@user-wl7bw5hq6l The country has probably gotten poorer over time :/
People like cheap and better selection. Unfortunately small grocers need to focus on fresh produce and such to stay afloat. It's the peoples choice. Many tiny towns only have a dollar general. Doesn't make it bad. They'd otherwise need to drive 30 minutes to get anywhere else.
I'm glad I found this video. I currently work at a Family Dollar in rural Texas, and everything in this video made total sense. I always wondered why certain store policies were the way they were.
They pay me $9 per hour, and -- despite how much I plead for extra hours -- they remain extremely stingy with what they give me, or anyone else there. It was getting so bad, even though I had SSDI and lived as frugal a lifestyle as possible, that I was needing to force starvation on myself during the final week of last month. I restricted myself to one moderately-sized meal per day, and chewed gum constantly in an attempt to trick my brain into thinking it was eating.
Likewise, this town tends to run deep in poverty. Local politicians and government officials constantly cut corners to extract as much profit with the least amount of effort. They slap band-aids on the problem, and never address the source.
There are few options for employment, and a lack of diversity in occupational choice, in such a poor small town. Similarly, after the recent spikes in inflation, theft in my store has become much more frequent and blatant. The employees are held accountable for falling sales by a cut in their already limited hours. The technology and equipment in the store is also seriously degraded, and the company refuses to replace it.
The ONLY upside to this job is that, for the most part, I do, at least somewhat, genuinely respect my co-workers. However, anyone in the company above my store manager sucks. It all makes sense!...
Edit:
P.S. I should also mention that we don't even receive a Christmas bonus, nor any sort of real benefits. What do we get instead? In-store coupons specifically for use during the holiday. Remember those companies from isolated wild-west towns in the late-nineteenth century that paid their employees in company scrip, usable only within their store, instead of USD? Yeah, well, this is much worse. At least the scrip didn't expire (I believe), and could be used on anything in the store. Don't work in dollar stores, folks!
hang in there
What’s holding you back from moving to where the opportunities are better?
@@seanwieland9763 Two things, actually; abysmal access to transportation, and a toxic family situation. I am almost totally confined to the distance I can walk, meaning it's near impossible for me to travel beyond this county. I have tried leaving several times, but good friends are exceedingly difficult to come by.
The first attempt, I stayed with a former friend and his girlfriend. Now, his girlfriend was even MORE narcissistic than my own mother (which is still hard for me to believe).
I made a second attempt, trying to get an editing job, but those supposed friends were actually running a scam.
Both times, I lost a devastating amount of money moving back. It seems I must live alone, because I can trust NOBODY now. It's far too risky.
@@seanwieland9763 Poverty. Moving is an expensive affair.
@@seanwieland9763did you miss the part where they're making 9 bucks an hour? 💀
Watched this on President Sunday's channel. I'm here to drop a like and a comment. Really good video. I did not know about this. You earned yourself a sub
Tremendous work yet again
Exhibit A: My educated, yet oblivious grandmother. Grew up in rural and small town America. Thinks of Wal-Mart as "high end fancy shopping", and visits walmart with as much excitement as one would have when visiting Paris, France. LOVES Dollar General and has a compulsion to go there if she sees one even while traveling, even when she doesnt even need something from there. Shrugs her shoulders when all the small businesses and the single grocery store in her small town close down. (read on to hear the whole story)
The irony is that the walmart grocery moved into the town, put the local grocery out of business, determined they werent making enough profit, so the walmart grocery itself closed. Hence, leaving this town with NO GROCERY whatsoever. So now you have to get your food from Dollar General or the gas station.
I am convinced that her generation gives zero shits about anyone younger than them. (WW2 generation and boomers) I remember how nice that small town was to go to and visit all of the local shops. They had a candle maker, a very nice boot and hat shop, the grocery was standard (but better than shopping at walmart), lots of arts and antiques, an electronics shop, etc. There was also a nice park with a public outdoor pool we used to swim at in the summers.
Now the town is dead and covered in dust. You can feel the poverty as you drive through. No stores, nowhere to work unless its in the field, no reason to visit, and the public pool is gone too. Dollar General and Wal Mart are a cancer on the American economy.
I could not agree with you more!! X’er over here who lives in a town run by old retired farmers who sold their farm land to developers and sit on boards that refuse to allow anything other than a dollar store, car wash, fast food restaurant, or auto parts store. No Walmart, no public pool, no movie theater, no department stores, few banks. . . If
you want decent shopping you have to travel 20-30 miles.
I went to college in a small town where the university was around half of the town by landmass, and lo and behold, there was a dollar general within walking distance of campus. But what was alarming to me is that, on the 60-minute drive from my home to college, there were three other dollar generals on the same road, all within 10 or 15 minutes of each other, on top of another two in different directions, one of which was built during my time at college just out of nowhere. I thought the huge number of Dollar Generals in such close proximity was just a weird quirk. The more you know
Same exact scenario for my college lol
Same here as well. There is a small grocery store (it’s called community market, I don’t know if it’s a chain, a do it best type of situation, or locally owned) but it’s more expensive than a Walmart or even a kroger
The college town grocery stores I know all exploit their captive shoppers with outrageous prices. A lot of us would have preferred to have a dollar store in walking distance.
When in such close proximity do they make enough revenue to run the store. I can see a small store in such places survive but a store as dollar general close to each other is terrible. I'm not from US so kind of curious to know.
Fascinating, good documentary thanks!
I live 2 hours away from faith sd, and i found this video super informative. Always did have sneaky feeling about these stores.
Similar thing happened few years ago in Indonesia when Indomaret and alfamart expanded rapidly into small towns and sent many local grocery stores bankrupt. But now local groceries are returning, at least in my city, because they managed to adapt by opening their stores 24 hours (indomaret operational cost will skyrockets if they do this) and selling things that indomaret can't sell, mainly motorbike fuel (this is actually illegal but so what?) and alcohol 😂
I worked briefly on a rural farm and the only place to get any kind of groceries less than 45 minutes away was the dollar general.
We had barely any money, but with the price of gas it unfortunately made more sense to buy something small that was overpriced than go all the way into town.
The only things I've ever bought at a Dollar Store (or other Dollar retailer) is a specific type of foam posterboard that has paper that easily peels off, and some plastic toy animals.
I use the foam board for crafting for table-top RPG games, and the plastic animals as gaming miniatures for the same games.
I buy the foam board there because they are the only one carrying the type that has easy-peel paper.
@@MonkeyJedi99Dollar General isn’t a “dollar store” its just a place that has a dollar section and is a slightly more general store CVS/Walgreens
@@natsuccubus I used the phrase dollar store because there are Dollar Tree, Dollar General Dollar Plus, Dollar-rama, and so many others.
Yeah with today's gas prices yyou try to combine your trips and go closer. The gas costs can't justify driving so far.
Fantastic video!! I always did wonder how they were able to be literally everywhere
I am going on a ski trip to Crested Butte this winter and had already planned to go to that exact walmart in Gunninson, weird.
But Walmart doesn't have to turn a profit in every location. It has the size that, when it enters a new market it can operate the store at a loss for as long as it takes to run every other retailer in the area out of business, and only then does it raise its prices for the story location to finally make a profit. And as there is no other competition in the area, it can operate at a substantial profit, which is needed to support the newer stores that has not yet run the competition out of business.
Yep. And here's another thing about Walmarts. When a Walmart moves into a distressed town/city. That town/city will give Walmart tax break's and free utilities to entice them to stay.
Rockefeller's Standard Oil did that with oil, but he never got all market (it was over 90% share but never 100%). Why? Because his competitors found what is he doing and were buying stuff from him for lower prices in areas where he was destroying competition with lower prices and then they sold it in places he set higher prices after competition left. So competition was actually emerging thanks to his policies (wup wup). Some competitors made money for selling their companies to him. And doing that again :D It lead to lower consumer prices for customers.
And that's when another store pops up with cheaper prices, because walmart can operate at a loss forever.
This has happened before ... when a local Kmart store closed then ChinaMart (Walmart) RAISED all of their prices 😑
In the 90s, they would build "small" Walmarts in small towns. When all the small businesses in those towns shuttered, they built a "super Walmart" in a central location and shut all those other small stores, leaving those people no choice but to travel to that super Walmart. Those smaller towns without a Walmart are where you will find these dollar generals now.
I appreciate the balanced approach that doesn't paint DG as the sole problem. Food deserts deserve more national recognition as an issue.
Kinda now I appreciate grocery stores in Finland even more - we have them here as a monopoly of two companies - K-Group and S-Group, and they have small and large shops, and they are also placed in rural areas. There are a few smaller companies (like Aleppo) - they don't dominate that much, but rather are in a balance with these giants
One thing this video doesn't mention is that while Dollar General might exacerbate the issue, they're not the only thing causing the loss of small town grocery stores. They've got a lot of the same problems as a lot of other small businesses--the owner. Even if the town's lucky and the store's got a good owner that doesn't mind running a business that'll never be particularly profitable (the one's near me that went under was not), if they can't find someone to take over when they retire the store still ends up closing. To make things worse, this is the sort of place where the people who can escape, do. So that's even more likely. The truth is, a lot of these places are already in a death spiral.
=AND THE ALTERNATIVE IS,ABOUT.......TO JUST LET ALL THOSE PEOPLE DIE FROM HUNGER,Y KNOW????....
=TRY TO LOOK FROM OTHER PERSPECTIVE...ABOUT *IF* THE PLACE HAVING WHATEVER GROCERY STORE,IT'LL HAVE MORE VALUE SO IT'LL BRING MORE PEOPLE TO THAT AREA WHICH'LL GENERATE MORE REVENUE,SO WALMART CAN APPEAR
=LOOK AT THOSE DOLLAR STORES AS PLANTS THAT GROW FIRST AFTER A FOREDT FIRE OR KIND OF VOLCANIC ERUPTION,MMMKAY??????SO THEY'RE READYING THE SOIL FOR OTHERS TO COME AND THEN THEY'RE BEEN LEFT NO SUCH A PLACE AND THEY'RE DIEING AWAY
.................OF *COURSE* THAT'S NOTHING GOOD FOR LOCAL STORES,THOUGH.........BUT THEY WERE NOT!!!!!!.......ABOUT TO SUSTAIN ANY GROWTH AT ALL,THEY ARE THINGS AT THEMSELVES,RIGHT?????.......SO OF COURSE THEY'RE DIEING OUT AND THAT'S NOT ACTUALLY A BAD THING,Y KNOW
=LIKE THERE'S MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.........LIKE I WAS LIVING AT 1 PLACE SOME TIME..........WHERE WASNT ANY STORE NEARBY EXCEPT ONE WITH VERY POOR QUALITY AND PRICES LIKE A HELL........SO I WENT THERE ONCE AND NEVER AGAIN......LIKE 2 LITER FANTA BOTTLE FOR $5 ,LIKE *WHAT* ???????!!!!...........WOULD'VE U *EVER* ????......BUT I _DID_ .......NEVER AGAIN VISITED SUCH A HELLISH PLACE.................BUT,A BIT LATER,A HUGE 24 HOUR STORE HAS OPENED JUST ACROSS THE ROAD........AND THIS HELLISH STORE DIED SOON AFTER FOR GOOD...............AND FROM *_YOUR_* PERSPECTIVE THIS WAS A _REALLY_ BAD THING TO HAPPEN
=IF GOVERNMENT TO ACTUALLY INTERVENE,THEN ABOUT HOW'S ABOUT REDUCE TAXES FOR EVERYONE,THEN............SO PEOPLE WILL HAVE MORE TO SPEND,ETC ETC..........AND *_IF_* GOVERNMENT .......LOCAL/STATE/FEDERAL,DOESNT MATTER......WILL ENFORCE ABOUT LIKE A LITTLE KIND OF ABOUT MAKING IT WAY EASIER TO GET A OWN WHEELS FOR THOSE WHO CURRENTLY CANNOT AFFORD...............LIKE WAY LIBERAL ABOUT HAVING A DRIVER LICENSE TO DRIVE,KIND OF............ LIKE......TO ABOUT EVERYONE TO HAVE OWN WHEELS EVEN IF THAT'D BE A PERSONAL E SCOOTER SO THEY COULD'VE FIND AT LEAST SOME JOB AND ABOUT TO GETTING TOWARDS ........BETTER STORE ......... AT *_LEAST_* THIS WILL WASH AWAY THESE 1 DOLLAR STORES FROM HUGE TOWNSHIPS..........
=BUT 1 DOLLAR STORES IN RURAL AREAS ARENT BAD!!!!!!!!!.....QUIT THAT PLEASE............
=SO.....................I THINK I'VE GOTTEN TO THE POINT
Villages have been in a constant death spiral since their inception after humanity researched farming. Yet still villagers persist, somehow.
@@titusbaum9690 Well as it turns out, the most efficient farm design creates a village. So there will always be villages but eventually only one village per farm.
I traveled for work, often in very remote cities. I CANNOT imagine actually living in these places. I was losing my mind for the short stints I lived their. They will not survive the new world. Adapt or die.
He literally talked about exactly that at the end of this video.
Watching this video from outside the US, but from country of comparable size and problems (Russia), it is fascinating how *high* the competition raises the bar of "lowest acceptable service". Here, the closest competitor for rural and undeveloped areas, not counting small stores, would be "Svetophor" ("Traffic light" in translation) chain. Any it is basically... A warehouse with cash registers. Literally. It is usually just a cheapest metal shed where trucks unload overnight and stuff is being sold directly from pallets throughout day, and nothing else. In some places, it could even be literally thousands of square meters of pallets without a single assistant: the only employees are cashiers and a few guards watching CCTV. That's it.
On the other hand, this kind of approach makes them competitive even in large cities: when price of goods is only 2/3 of a "proper" supermarket with "proper" staff, that makes a difference. And for some, that difference overcomes a need to go to a rural ass of a world full of drunks and homeless (yep, cheapest land) and be afraid of stacks of pallets falling on your head every time there (and yes, there were _incidents_ )...
So, very interesting to see a few different approaches to a problem of rural "last mile". Thanks!
We have something almost like that in the US. Costco and BJs is literally warehouses with goods on pallets. They basically sell bulk goods and or factory rate goods(what people think).
But its also just better in that, they have very cheap name brands, cheap food in the cafe and some have a tire shop and other stuff.
Its also pretty hard to find an employee who will help you who is not at a cash register.
I like this idea of "Russian Costco" if the savings are passed to the consumer.
Situation with Svetophor is a bit tricky because it's still a somewhat large (but absolutely low cost stores) resided pretty much in a large towns.
Svetophor is never the first one to open in a small village. It's "the ultimate low-coster" for the people who have grocery stores already.
So the "dollar general" place is usually occupied by "usual" Russian convinience store chains - Dixie (diksi), Pyatyerochka, Magnit (magnet)
And, by the looks of it, dollar generals and rural Pyatyerochkas are almost exactly the same breed - their condition solely depends on the owner. I've actually seen the absolute pristine condition Pyatyerochkas in villages - cause they're the largest employer (and most modern establishment, lol) in town. They actually look much better (clean, actually cared for) than in my convinience-store-filled Moscow suburbia.
To up on my previous comment - all Russian most popular retail chains already somewhat like dollar general - they have only 5-6 people in stuff responsible for everything (being cashiers/janitors/
But the goods selection and variety isn't specifically "optimized" for low income customers to be honest. It's more like "the slice of a local Auchan". Also the rent varies greatly
@@voliker Well, more like a gradation. Local Dixie, Magnit or Pyatyerochka is a luxury for large-ish cities, starting from, like, few thousands of local population. Lower that bar to hundreds or even dozens of population (like mentioned in the video) in a depressive region, and the only remaining choice would be to either buy stuff in local unbranded "basement store" for twice the price (if it even exists), or use a car. And if you're using a car, you're going straight to the nearest-and-cheapest place. And it so happens (usually) that Svetophor (or similar "turbolowcoster"), being located in the most rural ass of the region you can imagine and afford to hire _relatively_ sober workers, fits the description perfectly, being both nearest and cheapest.
Although your point is also entirely correct for not-so-depressive regions, and definitely is another viewpoint for this... Issue? Thanks for correction/clarification/opinion.
They are trying to build a DG in Wallowa Oregon (pop~500) with the closest chain store being a Safeway in Enterprise Oregon 12 miles away (pop~2000) that has already bought up every pharmacy in the Wallowa County region. If you want service from a pharmacy outside of Safeway, you have to go to La Grande Oregon (pop~13,000) which is about 69 miles away. Otherwise, you have to order online. Other than that, we have one Subway and an Ace hardware and that's it for national chains. We do have local grocery stores in Wallowa, Enterprise and Joseph so it will be interesting if they can hang on when DG gets here.
My parents live in a small town north of Phoenix. There's truck stops, a free standing Mc Donald's, a couple of mom and pop owned convenient stores, a small pharmacy, and a dollar general and family dollar across the street from each other.
I drove from Denver to San Antonio last year and saw dozens of these tiny towns in the panhandle where the first or last thing you see along the highway is a Dollar Store. Strangely enough, on the other end of the highway was, more often than you'd expect, a cemetery. Kind of a morbid metaphor for life in these towns.
The Panhandle sure is depressing. It's like it never fully recovered from the Dust Bowl era.
@@abelreyna8781Borger😢
I think a look behind how Aldi operates would be really cool. They're bigger stores than Dollar General but still typically only staff about 10-15 people with only 3 or 4 in at the same time. They're also on EVERY corner where I'm at.
They seem to have a fairly DG-like model here in the UK too as they offer much less product choice within a category keeping costs lower. They also do a much bigger proportion of own brand products.
@tramcrazy theres only one or two name brand things per aisle here, the rest is Aldi brand. They pay their employees pretty well too, which is really nice compared to a dollar store
Yes but I've also never seem an Aldi outside of a major Urban area and they are mostly in wealthy urban areas so this might be "something I read on the internet" but an issue with Aldi on poorer markets is the lack of name brands poorer people want tide and Coca-Cola if they don't see there name brands which the equate with luxury they don't want to shop there even if they do only buy the Xtra Landry detergent and Shasta cola they want to go to a place that sales the" luxury" items
If you're going to do Aldi, it's also worth looking at its connection to Trader Joe's.
There's a long story behind this, but there is a connection between Aldi and Trader Joe's. Note that Trader Joe's also sells mostly its own products.
The Aldis here has a beautiful produce department.
“Haven Kansas has no grocery store” 7:52 shot of an Aldi grocery store right behind the dollar general sign 😂
Another example of late-stage Capitalism and how it makes the rich money and the people suffer.
They have 100 YEN stores in Japan. They operate completely differently than Dollar Generals. They aren't trying to sell all basics you might possibly need. But simply are a quick way to get something small without having to peruse through aisles of a mall or larger store. Say you just need a pack of 15 nails. Easy they got it. A few basic kids toys, a small roll of tape, lots of little bits and bobbles you can use innovatively around the house. They aren't trying to be a mini grocery store. And the experience for me as a kid was always great because they always had interesting stuff and for cheap enough that my parents wouldn't mind throwing some change at it.
Folks tend to call places like Dollar General and Family Dollar Dollar stores still. That's how they both started out, as places that sold all kinds of odds and ends for a buck. Today people still call them dollar stores when they are really more of a general store. They sell all the basic stuff you need to get by in a small community.
This is the way convenience stores built in gas stations in the US often work.
thats what dollar tree (another dollar store) used to be like, selling bits and bobbles for a dollar, but they've changed to chase after the success that dollar general and family dollar have achieved
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@@mechanomics2649 some of the bigger ones, I'd agree. But for the general gas station convenience stores it's more about house/home goods and a few snacks/candies here and there. Not like gallons of milk or booze or pharmacy stuff.
That's very similar to pound shops in the UK, you don't have much in the way of foodstuffs, maybe some cereals and chocolate bars but it's mostly non food items.
In our tiny town, we just got a DG this past June. We have nothing else, the downtown is dead and the closest Walmart is an hour round trip drive. Since the DG opened, we are easily able to get bread, milk, school lunch supplies etc. for a reasonable price with just a one minute drive. I realize a lot of their business model drives away some small town businesses, but our shopping difficulties here in my small town have greatly improved since it opened. There was 0 chance of any other chain opening up here, and the couple stores that did open failed years ago without any competition.
Just asking - can't you just walk the "one minute drive" distance?
@@BigCrowsVideos (My thoughts also ! (Obviously with reference to those able bodied folks who can walk without difficulty vs actually disabled people that need to use a car or mobility scooter machine). Of course some other TH-cam videos have made the point about many US streets and communities being so utterly designed for cars only, that often safe footpaths/sidewalks simply do not exist.
Same here. Its a 20 minute drive to Walmart of a 5 minute drive to 3 DGs. I keep saying I wish all the local farmers would set up a farmers market to sell produce locally, but my DG sells produce too so I can get fruit, salad stuff, fresh corn, onions, garlic, and other basics along with anything I need quick. Its really nice if i just need 1 thing for dinner like we forgot to get chips for nacho night. There is definitely a positive influence on certain communities. While a bunch of this is true in the video, the whole "Its not the healthiest option so it hurts locals" is kind of like complaining that the food bank isnt giving out free food that you like. The option went from nothing to DG and that is all of a sudden a bad thing, except people traveling to Walmart from these poor areas were still getting bad food because it is still cheaper at Walmart. Just because it is offered there doesnt mean it is purchased. I also would love to see what the average labor cost of local groceries was. I highly doubt local groceries were paying above $15 to employees.
@@BigCrowsVideos brother they said one hour drive, not one minute.
@@itsafeaturenotabug6773 read it again
Yup. I live in a rural southern town with about 1500 people. We have a dollar general, aaaand right across the street from said dollar general they're building a dollar tree/family dollar combo store. There are four more dollar generals within 20 minutes from my house and that number goes up exponentially about 30 minutes away
I live in Northwestern PA, small town with a 3-way stoplight, of course we the only grocery store we have in a 7 mile radius is dollar general, 2 of them. We used to have an old supermarket that sold fresh meat & produce, some rich guy bought it to store his classic cars.
As a small independent shop owner in the uk, in a village, i found this really interesting, thank you for producing it.
Sadly the big box stores as you called them have made life very hard for the local community shops. Take the pandemic as a prime example, our footfall increased 400/500% with people never having come into the store since we moved there (about 8 years ago). Soon as the restrictions were taken away, they all went back to shopping in the bigger supermarkets, comments like "It's cheaper" and "they have more varity" floating around. They might be cheaper, but the petrol to get there is never taken into account, coupled with as you said in the video, the money goes to investors, rather than say a gift voucher to the local school, or paying for the car to be repaired at the local garage etc.
Sadly the trade isn't as 'good' of a life as it was 20 years ago, it's still there just about. There always used to be a gentlemans agreement so to speak, with the big supermarkets staying in their lane and leaving the smaller areas but with the big boys buying up smaller stores or now franchising other brands without people realising (and slowly plastering their logo on them), it's very much a case of use them or lose them. I really hope the push backs in the US work and people understand that while a tomato might be 10% more expensive at a local shop, it's fresh, not been shipped half way across the country and the $£€ stays within the community, sadly though I can't see that happening.
Sorry for the long ramble,
TLDR : Thanks for the video! It was very insightful!
I really wish it was something more heavily taught yeah. That $2 invested in the local community will end up being "cheaper" than $1 invested in a big box store, since a great part of those $2 will end up coming back your way.
Indirect benefits are not really taught about well, even in countries that use it profusely. Like France, where "cotisations" taken on salary end up feeding what used to be an extremely profitable social security system, retirement fund, and way more? For those 300-500 you 'lose' per month, you'll EASILY gain those back over time (and probably way more, if something happens to you). But... they're described as "charges" burdening workers, so people think this money disappears.
It's a similar difficulty with investing in local shops and such. It might be more expensive, but in the short-mid term the money comes back in some way or form. Sadly... most people don't know about it well. And when you're in a situation of extreme poverty? Even if you KNOW about this, you still may not be able to really afford it :(
@@Thalanna It is not only that those big stores are cheaper.
Many of those smaller stores don't even have what you want / need.
It is already some years ago, as internet shopping wasn't that omnipresent. Was looking at TVs at the local tech Store.
The TV there were the older models and even though those models were older, they were still 30% more expensive than the newer moldes at Media Markt....
And later on it was the same with the internet. You just get better stuff for much less.
Erm unless the Tomato is grown locally the local show is still shipping it across the country.
Nah, blaming the consumer is not it.
I can't speak to your community today, but it's not how I experienced shops in a village 10-20 years ago.
From my experience: It wasn't 10% more expensive, it was 40%-80% more expensive. Then the produce itself would be a gamble - local farmers don't have the scale for quality control (while industrial farms can recycle less nice produce into goods like sauces or tinned tomatoes), nor the scientists to engineer the most optimised fruit. Sometimes you'll get the most delicious tomatoes you've ever had, and other times they'll be smaller and bitter-tasting. You're paying extra to gamble. And all the "fresh" food is a week older than the stuff in Tesco because there's no quick turnover.
Tesco are The Bad Guys because they exploit workers and treat animals badly and extract money from a community. On the other hand, the "big brand" Co-Op ships goods across the country with fairly standardised products, at a lower cost, while giving customers a say where their money goes. Somehow, I find that more valuable than the several shop owners I knew that put their profits towards house flipping and had the gall to blame their neighbours when the credit crunch hit and they couldn't afford expensive, rubbery "fresh" food.
You should specialise. The successful small grocery shops in London aren't competing with the likes of ASDA, because they sell different things. We have Middle Eastern shops selling Arabic and Pakistani spices plus all kinds of halal meat (they have a butcher in the shop), and they have Turkish delight and Persian nuts and spices, etc.
There also are Indian shops selling things like sugarcane.
It might be best to pick up a book about whatever seems to be the most fashionable foreign culture in your area so you can carve your own niche and avoid being destroyed by the big box stores.
As a Brazilian, it's surreal to see this scenario. Here in the big cities there is no shortage of large and small markets, as well as grocery stores and fruit and vegetable shops. One thing I found strange in the US was the lack of bakeries, there's no easily accessible place in the suburbs where you can buy bread or things like that in the morning. I also found it curious that there are only two large pharmacy chains in the country, while here in Brazil we have large national chains, but also regional and local ones.
We used to have all those things. I remember locally owned pharmacies when I was a kid back in the 80s.
@@Fizzyphukofflol we still have local owned pharmacies here. Our DG is right next to our grocery store and grocery store is thriving. There's also a ton of places that do bread daily 😆
Brazil is a total shit hole where hundreds of people are murdered whenever the police go on strike again
The reason pharma and biotech is so limited to a couple monopolies in the US is because of the insane conflicts of interest the federal government has with those companies. Subsidies, tax breaks, anti-competitive laws... all things that really make you question the United States "free market."
Also, American stores basically don't get foot traffic. Many of our towns and cities are zoned to as to literally prevent people from, say, opening a grocery store in a residential neighborhood, and our cities are oriented around car travel--some streets even lack sidewalks entirely. This means that a car is basically necessary to get groceries, except for convenience stores like a pharmacy or Dollar General... There is no quickly walking to a store to get fresh produce in America for a lot (most?) of us. Without this foot traffic, smaller businesses that don't get the same bulk order deals that large businesses get, starve.
amazing documentary
Doller Generals where I live in North Charleston SC are absolutely terrible! Literally 80-90% of shelves are empty. Items never get reordered and there's always one worker and they often smoke pot on the job. Stores often smell like pot. Many are often closed during open hours.
Well, you know those SC people. 😂
DG's strategy for basically competing with the Giant Wal-Mart was pure genius. Place stores in small towns to keep people driving 15-30min down the road to the local Wal-Mart. It was smart.....
In my little small rural TX town, we have a DG that exists just fine with the small local grocery store, the only business it drove out was the Family Dollar that came in slightly before it.
never though about that.. but the "illusion" of saving at a dollar store is really a big factor in our downfall..
I really like this video because it is an analogy than can compare to how the Star Wars Galaxy worked with how some planets prospered and others didn't based on location alone and access to routes for potential foot traffic.
1:09 it’s actually on the fastest route from Bismarck to Rapid City, those trips are the only times I’ve been to Faith
I lived in a remote town in southern illinois that had all nearby grocery stores shut down in the 90s by the two Walmarts within 15 miles, Dollar General was the first gasp of a local place to buy goods after a long while. It was sadly welcome. Nobody else wanted to do it, not even the locals.
At least you admit it was welcome. So many people (I think, usually highly educated, wealthy or middle-class liberals in big cities) want to pretend it's some evil conspiracy. I live in Ukraine, in a small provincial city, but even here people want organic, fresh food. Heck, if you buy ketchup or mustard it will be labelled "no GMO" (nobody would accept it if it was GMO). Farmers markets and bazaars are thriving, because people spend what little food budget they have there, rather than on processed factory crap. Sad for the Americans who want something better and are stuck in those situations, though.
I don't want to defend a big corporation or anything, but you make a good point. When it comes to finding basics within a 5 mile radius, the alternative isn't a local grocery store, the alternative is nothing. No one, not even locals will build near rural communities. Grocery stores are usually on the far side of town. Big box stores are even further away catering to the richer suburbs. Especially when it comes to making places more walkable, some manner of groceries within a short trip distance are absolutely vital. Is Dollar General the best solution? No, not by a long shot. Will I shop there rather than drive 20 mile? You're damn right I will.
Southern Illinois is so damn depressing to drive through, I can't even imagine living down there. Not that mid Illinois where I grew up was particularly uplifting, mind you. But it seems like a lot of modern infrastructure still hasn't made it's way to southern Illinois even in the 21st century. Driving past shacks that clearly aren't hooked up with electric or running water and passing town after town without seeing so much as a gas station or general store. It's wild.
Dollar General and Walmart saved my local small community ... people were starving they couldn't afford to shop at the local stores two to three times more overpriced.... shopping local you might be able to only afford two weeks worth of food
It appears that the locals preferred Walmart.