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Dollar Stores: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
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View Reddit by BoogsterSU2 – View Source
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Dollar Stores: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
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View Reddit by BoogsterSU2 – View Source
Everybody please bow down to the Pūteketeke for winning Bird of the Century!
Good segment. Wish I hadn’t seen the same argument 3 times before from different youtubers rehashing the same data but that’s the strike’s fault not the show.
Sometimes it’s almost exciting when I start the show not knowing what John is going to ruin/expose that night. Definitely didn’t see “dollar tree”.
It’s no wonder Aldi is expanding rapidly in the US.
They have the same or even lower prices than the dollar stores. The Aldis are clean and tidy. Everything in their operation is designed for efficiency and maximizing value for the customer. Working for them is tough but at least they pay their workers reasonably well and don’t overwhelm them with tasks.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Aldi had a 10x growth over the next decade in the US.
The only advantage Dollar Stores have is that they go into really small towns and underserved neighborhoods. An Aldi usually only opens when there are at least a few thousand potential customers in the area. Over the last few years Aldi has been experimenting with tiny stores only a third of the size of their traditional stores, which aren’t very big to begin with. They have been going into urban centers with these stores but I don’t see why they couldn’t use the same concept in small towns.
I live in a rural town in Arkansas and often wondered if all the DG’s in country were like ours, too scared to ever stop at one because ours is scary enough.
Haven’t watched it, but… Last Wendover Tonight?
Looking at the investor portfolios for [Dollar General](https://stockcircle.com/stocks/dg) and [Dollar Tree](https://stockcircle.com/stocks/dltr) will give you a sense of the major investors who profit from these companies. One name even looks somewhat familiar…
not above going to Dollar General, but I’ve always felt the stores are fire hazards. But hey, I need cheap wrapping paper really quick.
In my experience, Dollar Tree stores don’t ever look nearly as trashed as Dollar General stores. DT stores are sometimes messy, but DG stores take it to a whole new level. I don’t think I’ve seen a DG that *doesn’t* have stocking carts as a permanent fixture on the store floor.
I see the LWT writers watch Wendover
I can’t believe they actually pulled off the win.
I just wish there was a solution. As he mentioned, many of the places they set up are food deserts. We have one grocery store, a locally owned one that’s been here nearly 100 years now. They are expensive, and I think recently they’ve become poorly managed because they’re on like the third generation of owners in the family, and this generation just doesn’t care and are all focused on other things. It’s one thing when you’re a “family-owned” business and Dad is running the operation because he wanted to own a grocery store. Now it’s a bunch of grandchildren sharing ownership with no interest in doing the work, and that shows. But also it’s expensive, and people here just can’t afford to pay $2 extra for a gallon of milk every week.
So we have about four dollar stores in town and a Dollar General Market coming in soon. The only other option is a Walmart in the next town over.
Bottom line is it’s impossible to compete on prices. We’re in the process of opening a cafe and if we use a food distributor like Sysco, it’s actually more expensive than if we just bought stuff directly from Walmart or Sams Club. So if local businesses can’t even get supplies at a cheaper cost than these big chains can afford to sell retail, how would any local business compete? People like to say “shop local”, but the reality is the playing field has to be leveled somehow. The national chains have unfair market advantages, and people aren’t going to “vote with their dollars” because they need their dollars to live. Virtue shopping is a premium working people can’t afford. So I’d like to have some real solutions proposed.
This video is not available in your country.
Anyone got a working link?
Are most things at American dollar stores still $1?
The videos blew my mind.
Mind dollar general looks great. And dollar tree looks good too.
DG is far more disastrous than Dollar Tree. They’re always unpacking crap, only have 1 or 2 ppl working. I live in small rural town. Everyone at our DG quit and they had to close the store for a week to hire new ppl. I hate going there but my options are limited and that’s what they’re counting on.
Dark.
Buying something this cheap and only for immediate junk consumption is not “Efficiency”
It’s immoral.
I was hired to be an overnight stocker at a Brooklyn dollar tree in September. First day was hard work but I liked the coworkers around me. The manager then was my trainer night two and kept calling me slow and said I was “weak” so I took a lunch break and went home to sleep and never went back
Dollar General isn’t even an actual dollar store. It’s just a general store.
I dunno. I think this is disingenuous for laughs.
That thing that people were doing like eight years ago, taking the amount a person gets for food stamps a week and trying to survive on it. Gwyneth Paltrow did it and failed. Pretty much everyone did it and failed.
I took the amount, $29, and made it last a week for two people. Dollar store. Pretty much the only way I could have done it.
Took planning, forced me to bring lunch from home, cook large meals, generally soups or stews and eat leftovers for a day or two, but my wife and I made it on half the budget. Did not go without and probably ate healthier because we agreed there would be no leeway for coffeeshop and pastries for convenience, no budget for dessert and snacks.
[Wendover just did a video on this, too.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQpUV–2Jao)
Keep in mind that your experience may vary depending on location of the dollar store. When have high competition both in staffing and retail, probably have the staff to keep things mostly organized.
When have low or no competition like in rural areas or urban areas with nothing but failing businesses due to crime, that is when corporate squeezes those hours and workers until they scream.
People are always the highest expense of any company and companies always resent spending on them. Unless the C-suite of course and then can’t spend enough.
Mirror for poor non Americans?
I was in a dollar store in Pennsylvania about 1 1/2 years ago and it was the most messy, disgusting store of its type I’ve ever seen.
Since the names of these stores are very similar I can’t recall the exact name but I’ll never forget it as the worst place I ever shopped.
John Oliver’s story explained why it was probably in the condition it was in.
There are two Dollar Tree stores near me. Although a bit disorganized, my area is solidly middle class and they may be a bit more careful to not lose business.
I assume they’re at their worst in poor areas where people don’t have many options on where to shop.