
Dollar General Hits a Gold Mine in Rural America - trevin
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-10-11/dollar-general-hits-a-gold-mine-in-rural-america
======
megaman22
Places like this have always been big in rural areas. I'm from Maine, and
there's two local chain stores, Reny's and Marden's that have been around for
a long time, and have always been stocked with weird brands, consignment
stuff, closeout items, and such, and the whole appeal is that it's cheap(er)
stuff than you'd usually find, and you never quite know what you might find in
stock.

Plus, incredibly terrible local TV commercials

Renys
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMNCjsz9ob8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMNCjsz9ob8)

Marden's
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ_iM2jrLGU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ_iM2jrLGU)

~~~
KGIII
Shh! They don't need to know about Reny's. They're finally gone until skiing
starts up, except for a few hunters.

There's a Dollar General in Farmington and they always have cars in the
parking lot. I've never been in there but they appear busy. There's another
one over in the mall thing, across from Burger King.

Also, Big Al's. I've been in there. They have the strangest of stuff, almost.
Marden's is a bit stranger.

~~~
megaman22
Haha, I never imagined I'd find somebody on HN that knew where Farmington was,
except as the last vestiges of civilization before they hit Sugarloaf...

Also home to the cheapest, and best movie theater I've ever been to. Still has
$4 matinees, the last time I was up to visit my folks.

~~~
KGIII
I know the owner of the theater. I'm up past Rangeley, in unincorporated
township territory.

You're the only other Mainer I've seen on HN and I'm 'from away.' Yes, I live
here by choice. I retired here.

I don't want to derail the thread or meander off topic.if you want,
uninvolved@outlook.com will get seen and replied to.

~~~
JCharante
I'm also in the Portland area (first time I'm able to say that without having
to include the state) and grew up here. Also haven't come across another HNer.

I know it's the second most rural state, but the Portland area seems urban
enough to offer a variety of places to purchase food, so I don't completely
understand how so many Dollar stores seem to thrive here especially with a
Walmart nearby.

I've only been going up to Rangely for the past few years, and I've always
wondered what type of store there was before IGA, because it doesn't seem to
cater to a low income crowd like dollar stores in general.

I've never had an encounter with dang but hopefully dang won't be too harsh,
this is just too special of an occasion.

~~~
KGIII
You live in the big city! My town name consists of a single letter and has six
residencies. I'm out past Rangeley.

Rangeley has a buttload of money. There are some poor, but not many. They only
have 1200 residents, or so. However, they can swell to ten times that size
during tourist season. They love them some tourists.

And, yeah, this is a definite rarity. I've browsed for years, joined almost
two years ago, kept lurking to get the feel if things, and just started
posting a few months ago.

I have no idea what was there before the IGA. I suspect that building has
always been an IGA and has been since the 60s. That's going by the
architecture internally.

There are an insane number of places to eat and the community is doing
something all the time. I can live anywhere in the planet, for the most part.
I live here.

It's a downright Mainah convention! I'm accepted as a native, but I came here
to go to boarding/prep school as a kid. Kents Hill, no apostrophe. I'm quite
partial to the lifestyle and people.

I should be quieter. People will start moving here.

Funniest bumper sticker ever: Welcome to Maine; Now go Home!

~~~
megaman22
It's been an IGA as long as it's been there, I think. I think I remember it
being built, or maybe expanded, but that was way back when I was a kid and my
Dad was cutting wood for DC Mortons - their garage was where Boss Power
Equipment is now.

~~~
KGIII
I bought a substantial (obscene really) amount of land that had been owned by
a paper mill. It hadn't been harvested since the 80s and it's a working forest
(TSI, sustainable) now. I know _how_ it's done, have the gear, and can log
safely - I just can't do it at the speeds they do it at.

These days, there's little logging left. They still have the festivals with
the demonstrations and competitions, though.

The lumber quality wood from my land goes to turning and some specialty mills
- some goes down to Belgrade (Hammond). Over in Vienna, I've got a bunch of
commercial blueberry fields, about 400 acres.

So, I've tried to fit in and the natives accept me as one of their own. I
still call them the Village People, though.

You can tell when they've accepted you. The gossip is no longer about you -
and now they tell you gossip about the new people. I moved here after selling
my business and built a giant house.

The locals would come sit in my future driveway and talk about me. Sometimes,
they'd spend the whole day there. So, I made it a point to hire anyone who
asked. That worked wonders.

I paid people to teach me how to hunt, fish, use a chainsaw, process meat,
preserve things, grow a garden, etc...

It's been VERY different than what I'd expected when I opted to move here.
It's been much better, actually. It's the first place I've ever called home -
which might explain my gushing about it.

------
leggomylibro
> “You rascals!” Tharp remembers telling the executive who called to deliver
> the news. “You come to these small towns, and you build these stores, and
> you cause all the mom and pops to close down, and now you’re the only ones
> left standing, and you want to go home? Why would you do that to our
> community?”

"Rascals." I'm not sure I'd be so polite, if I were mayor. The cycle that Bob
describes is practically rote tradition by this point, but that doesn't make
it any less frustrating or audaciously malicious.

~~~
ars
> I'm not sure I'd be so polite, if I were mayor.

He was that polite because all the shops closed down before Walmart got there.
The article glosses over the timeline (since it doesn't fit the narrative),
but that's how it seemed to me reading between the lines.

The heyday of this place was 100 years ago, by 1962 there was only 1 store
left - it has not gotten better since then.

As best as I can tell the Walmart opened at the location of the closed
"Decatur Discount", they did not cause it (or the other stores) to close.

~~~
Lambdanaut
I'm not sure where you're getting your information from, but the town has seen
linear(albeit slow) consistent growth from 1900 to today, and has seen most of
it's growth within the last 30 years.

~~~
jessaustin
TFA itself refers to the fact that like every other agricultural community in
the central and mountain timezones, the portion of the community outside city
limits (i.e. most of it) has been shrinking since 1900. Don't imagine that
finding town populations on wiki is some sort of revelation.

------
Atlas
Two Dollar General stores separated by a mile popped up in my hometown in
northern California, a place that can barely support two of any stores even
grocery stores. Dollar General stores are expensive and nearly always empty.
When I lived in the south eight years ago, Dollar General stores were
expensive and empty too. I would not be surprised at some point if the
economics of their expansion didn't make sense.

As someone else mentioned, Dollar Tree is different. There is a Dollar Tree
that is always packed next to an empty Dollar General in my hometown. Dollar
Tree is a deep discount store. Dollar General is a convenience store without
gas.

~~~
Spooky23
Dollar General is like Krispy Kreme was year ago. They are in hyper growth
building stores everywhere. Stores like what you describe get lost in the
growth.

If the company is successful, it will know that and it will purge the lousy
stores. Otherwise, they’ll implode when the interest rates go up and they
can’t borrow money anymore.

~~~
adventured
Interest rates are the last thing Dollar General needs to worry about at this
point.

$1.2 billion in profit on $22 billion in sales. They have $2.6 billion in
long-term debt, paying ~$100m in annual interest on their total debt.

They could afford a 15% interest rate on their debt.

With their income, they have no need to borrow to build out stores. Their
dividend is modest, so that's also no concern vs their need to spend to build.

~~~
Spooky23
Dollar General is a refinement of Ray Kroc’s McDonalds model for passive
investors. Their magic is net leasing in shitty areas with barebones stores,
so they don’t hold many obligations on their balance sheet, and don’t spend a
lot on building upkeep and taxes. It is basically a ground lease and a bond
alternative.

That works because it’s an investment that lets passive investors yield 5-7%,
which is a good yield from a company with a good credit rating.

As rates rise, it gets less and less attractive, especially as leases start
maturing, growth slows, and you need to put capital dollars into cheap
buildings that you don’t own. It’s not a bad company, but it’s no Walmart.

------
pwinnski
Dollar General has amazing logistics end-to-end, possibly better than Walmart.
Clearly the difference is enough to make them profitable, if barely, in
circumstances Walmart isn't.

What's new information for me is that DG can make things work in tiny towns
that only support a single store. A lot of what I've read about their
strengths in the past had to do with how well they manage multiple stores in
one city.

~~~
deadmetheny
Another strength is that the stores just simply aren't that big. I've been to
Wal-Marts in rural parts of the lower Midwest that are simply too huge for the
population density. Somehow they manage to stay open, but I am never entirely
sure how. DG, on the other hand, tends to be half to a third of the size and
does very well on the basis that they pretty much only sell stuff that people
are actually gonna need on a regular basis. Combine that with the logistics
you mentioned, and it's bound to be able to at least sustain itself.

~~~
throwawayjava
Enormous TIF subsidies, mostly.

~~~
jessaustin
TIFs are so evil. I avoid stores so sited (and their ~25% "tax") when I can,
but their very existence harms the credit of every county and most
municipalities I know. They don't even perform their supposed role of
restoring "depressed" areas, because a third of them are out in the country
and another third just replace one profitable business with another (with a ~3
year interim of nothing at all on the site while the lawyers and lobbyists do
their evil shit). The whole phenomenon is just a scheme for zoning boards etc.
to enjoy corruption.

------
blizkreeg
As an aside, it both saddens and surprises me that we don't hesitate twice
when buying the cheap stuff (made abroad, of course) but also complain that
all the jobs have left.

It's certainly not a small town, blue-collar occupation issue but it does
affect them disproportionately.

This recent NYTimes piece was an eye-opening read for me in that regard.
[[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/14/us/union-jobs-mexico-
rexn...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/14/us/union-jobs-mexico-
rexnord.html?_r=1\]\(https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/14/us/union-jobs-mexico-
rexnord.html?_r=1\)). Not that I didn't know this but to have it be made so
vivid, it was hard to digest stuff.

I'm not even sure if there's a good solution in sight. Basic income and all
that is fine but people still need to be and feel productive and busy for us
to stay a sane society.

~~~
Consultant32452
There's been a good solution in sight for years. Barak Obama campaigned in the
primaries on a platform of renegotiating NAFTA. Then he dropped that issue
during the general. Trump sang that tune all the way to the White House.

Here's the long story about what's wrong with NAFTA and it's mostly about tax
structure. In Mexico they have a VAT sales tax. This is a huge chunk of their
federal budget. Most of the taxes are on the consumption side (point of sale),
not the production side. Goods produced in Mexico but sold abroad avoid the
VAT tax. However, goods produced outside Mexico but sold in Mexico get the
same VAT tax as every other good sold. Now let's look at the US. We have no
federal sales tax, all of our taxes are on the production side. Every good
that leaves a factory has its price loaded up with basically all of our tax
costs. It's the production side that's taxed, not the consumption. That means
a product manufactured in the US already is loaded up with US taxes, and then
gets shipped to Mexico where the VAT is added on top. Double-taxation. Goods
produced in Mexico have no VAT, come to the US tariff free, and sold to US
consumers where no federal tax is collected on the consumption end. No-tax.
You don't need a Ph.D. in Economics to understand what the result of this will
be over time.

The way I see it there's two potential solutions to this. One is to
renegotiate NAFTA just like we elected Obama and Trump to do. Another would be
to restructure our taxes to be more like Mexico and load the taxes on
consumption rather than production. This was the signature campaign idea by
Herman Cain during the 2012 election with his 9-9-9 plan, though he was
laughed at at the time.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9%E2%80%939%E2%80%939_Plan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9%E2%80%939%E2%80%939_Plan).
I'm not suggesting that the 9-9-9 plan exactly is good, but only use it to
point out that these solutions have been discussed in the mainstream. I
remember Ross Perot's entire campaign against Bill Clinton in 1992 was about
how much NAFTA would suck all our jobs to Mexico. But we elected Clinton
anyways and look what happened.

~~~
endorphone
The US has a trade imbalance with Mexico of about -$6B per month. It has a
trade imbalance with China of about -$35B per month. The trade deficit with
Canada is often below $1B and has flicked to a trade surplus a number of
times.

The trade deficit with Mexico is a _fluctuation amount_ in the trade deficit
with China.

So it's somewhat incredible that people can continue this "just renegotiate
NAFTA" farce. Mexico isn't "the problem", if you believe that balanced trade
is a problem.

Jobs didn't go to Mexico. They went to China and automation, and when you were
_lucky_ the small remainder went to Mexico.

~~~
Consultant32452
The article and post I was responding to was specifically about jobs leaving
the US for Mexico. A discussion about tax and trade policy which led to so
many jobs going to China is also worthwhile, it just wasn't relevant to the
article posted by the GP.

~~~
endorphone
It was entirely relevant. In that case the story was about a bearing
manufacturer being squeezed by competitors, and then trying to reduce costs by
moving to Mexico. Those competitors are almost universally Chinese
manufacturers. China has become dominant in steel and ores (raw and processed)
of all sorts, and just about every manufactured good. For this submission --
dollar stores -- Chinese goods are the overwhelming bulk of the products.

To put it another way, manufacturers move to Mexico to compete with China, so
enjoy those few remaining sales and white collar jobs because the alternative
was the company disappearing. If that isn't enough they automate. And now
China is automating to ensure they can't be out-automated.

~~~
pm90
This is actually a great point. And its something that's not exclusive to the
US. Western European companies use low-cost labor provided in Eastern Europe
to get many of the same advantages and compete with China (I was very
surprised that the Nivea shaving cream I use is actually made in Poland!).

The US should embrace Mexico: the Mexican govt. is a close ally, its a source
of low cost labor. US companies can continue their ownership/expertise and
control over products manufactured in Mexico, while protecting their IP and
such. Whereas with China it is a different story....

~~~
Consultant32452
This is the whole point of the argument from the people in the rust belt. They
don't _want_ low cost labor. They want to be high cost labor. They were told
that there would be a temporary adjustment period and that all those jobs
would come back and it'd be great for them. Well, they've been waiting 30
years of free trade and globalism and they're still suffering. Everyone seems
to be responding with all of these arguments about maximizing GDP or whatever,
but that's not the only purpose of economic and trade policy.

~~~
pm90
> This is the whole point of the argument from the people in the rust belt.
> They don't want low cost labor. They want to be high cost labor.

I'm sorry, its just not a question of what someone _wants_. Of course they
_want_ to have their low-skilled, highly-paid jobs. But labor doesn't
automatically go from low to high skilled: you have to proactively engage in
training programs, you have to learn the skills that are relevant to the high
skilled jobs. Which most of these people, it turns out, have not. And
therefore they are left behind.

Those that have embraced the new reality and economy are flourishing like
never before. So the promises were _true_. The quality of life has increased,
cost of commodities has decreased. Its just that these people have not managed
to participate. Whose fault is that?

And please don't argue for tariffs and such. Trade must go on if only for the
security of the current world order. When trade stops, war begins, as Jack Ma
has put so astutely.

~~~
Consultant32452
That's an awfully generous way of describing what happened. Here's another way
of looking at it. Wall Street took Main Street's good union jobs where workers
had a stake in the value of production and sent them to desperate people in
poorer countries with basically no worker or environmental protections.

>And please don't argue for tariffs and such. Trade must go on if only for the
security of the current world order. When trade stops, war begins, as Jack Ma
has put so astutely.

I don't support tariffs, but there's no need to extend to the level of
ridiculousness. Trade with Mexico was happening before NAFTA and it would have
continued without it. But that's irrelevant because that's not what I was
proposing. Worker and environmental protections could be added and enforced
without ending free trade. And changing our tax structure to be more weighed
towards consumption than production couldn't even possibly be twisted to sound
like it was referring to a tariff.

~~~
pm90
> Wall Street took Main Street's good union jobs where workers had a stake in
> the value of production and sent them to desperate people in poorer
> countries with basically no worker or environmental protections.

You cannot force other countries to enforce environmental and worker
protections against their will. The US didn't have these before it became a
developed economy. So its mighty rich of you to expect other countries to do
so right away. OTOH, China, long a country without environmental protection,
has started enforcing more and more rules now that it has capital and knowhow
and is rapidly moving into renewables. Your argument using these points is a
weird strawman.

> I don't support tariffs, but there's no need to extend to the level of
> ridiculousness. Trade with Mexico was happening before NAFTA and it would
> have continued without it. But that's irrelevant because that's not what I
> was proposing. Worker and environmental protections could be added and
> enforced without ending free trade. And changing our tax structure to be
> more weighed towards consumption than production couldn't even possibly be
> twisted to sound like it was referring to a tariff.

Your argument for this has already been debunked by Lazare. Please stop
spreading your dangerous misinformation.

~~~
Consultant32452
Of course you can't force another country to enact environmental and worker
protections against their will. But our country also has its own free will.

>Your argument for this has already been debunked by Lazare.

No, Lazare did the same thing you did which is to play a game of bait and
switch by arguing against a point I didn't make. I don't support tariffs,
which you falsely accused me of, nor do I believe that putting economic
pressure on Mexico to enforce worker and environmental protections would
increase US GDP or other silly notions.

------
gervase
_“Essentially what the dollar stores are betting on in a large way is that we
are going to have a permanent underclass in America. It’s based on the concept
that the jobs went away, and the jobs are never coming back, and that things
aren’t going to get better in any of these places.”_

That's a pretty strong quote to bury halfway through the article.

~~~
kcorbitt
I disagree with the assertion that discount stores are dependent on economic
stagnation. I live in a dense urban area well served by traditional retailers,
and have a great job that allows me to shop wherever I want. And yet, half my
shopping trips for household goods seem to be to Dollar Tree. They've got
equivalent products to other stores, except that almost everything is 50%+
cheaper. You don't have to be part of a "permanent underclass" to appreciate
cheap.

~~~
code_duck
Anecdotally... I have a close friend who is a PhD, has tens of thousands in
the bank, a great job, and absolutely loves the dollar store.

~~~
samstave
I love daiso - the Japanese dollar store.

It's amazing.

~~~
coffeevradar
Except that they charge $1.50 for everything.

Which is only annoying because similar stores in Japan (which for me are a
highlight of any trip to Japan) only charge ¥100.

I don't know if it's because of proximity to China or because Daiso knows
they're offering better stuff than their literally $1 competitors here in the
U.S.

------
Skylled
There's just something off about products from DG, especially the ones in
specially marked DG packaging.

It's the same products I usually buy, but at a subtly lower quality. I always
know, by taste, when cookies come from a dollar store.

Duracell batteries just don't seem to last as long.

Things like that.

~~~
fpgaminer
It's common for Walmart to convince brand name manufacturers to make "special"
(aka cheaper) versions of their normal SKUs for sale at Walmart. Usually this
means the product's packaging, contents, and specs stay more-or-less the same,
but the general quality of the item is lower in various hard to discern
dimensions (cheaper plastics, less metal parts, etc). The idea, I imagine, is
to trick comparison shoppers into thinking they got a deal, when really they
got exactly what they paid for.

I imagine DG and other stores are doing the same thing, or at least taking
advantage of the alternative SKUs.

Side note: Contrast this with Costco, which does the opposite. They get
manufacturers to release better versions of their normal SKUs, either higher
quality, extra features, extra doodads. My last company sold an electronic
product and for a brief time struck a deal with Costco to sell in a few of
their stores. Normally our package just includes the product and power supply,
but they asked us to also include an HDMI cable for the Costco version of the
packaging, just to make things easier for customers (most customers needed an
extra HDMI cable to use our product any way, but we never included one usually
because our margins tended to be quite thin).

So I've experienced Costco's reverse-Walmart tactic both as a customer and a
supplier. It was a neat thing to learn!

~~~
tomcam
Best Buy and Wal-Mart love to hit their customers with the HDMI cables, which
clearly make up for lost margins on the printers. I often see them priced in
$20 territory.

------
bluedino
They are rated 2.8, which is below the 3.2 rating that Walmart has on
Glassdoor. Low pay, long hours, everyone is a 'manager'...

I go there often as they have much lower prices on snacks/drinks than
convenience stores or Walgreens, and there's one very close to my apartment if
I need anything else from cleaning supplies to a can of chicken broth and
don't feel like making a trip to Walmart or Kroger.

And there are stores in each of the small towns up north I vacation at.
They're often the only store in town and there's always a line on the
weekends, people buying snacks and coolers and beach supplies.

The stores are bare minimum, no flooring other than concrete, merchandise all
over the place, and usually 1 employee working.

~~~
lazerpants
Given the low employee ratings on Glassdoor, and the low pay mentioned in the
article, how do you feel about supporting them as a business?

~~~
bluedino
The other two options I have are Speedway (gas station) and RiteAid
(drugstore), who are rated 2.7 and 3.0 respectively.

------
brianbreslin
I had a friend who sold software to run generic dollar stores. It was fully
integrated POS -> inventory, etc. He was making a ton of money traveling to
tiny towns across America.

~~~
thomas_howland
How is "software to run dollar stores" different from generic retailing
software?

~~~
mywittyname
I used to work in POS and you'd be surprised at how difficult it is to produce
uniform POS software. It seems like all retailers have slightly different ways
they want things done and were willing to pay, what to me is, a surprisingly
large amount of money for their differentiations.

It's extremely common for these companies to consider their POS/supply chain
software is a core competency. So Major Dollar Store A would want to make
absolutely sure that none of their code changes would be made available to
Major Dollar Store 1, even if it were mundane stuff like tax code changes.

On one hand, it's good money, because it is such an integral part of their
business. On the other hand, it can be tedious to redo the same thing after
the sales staff sells the same customizations with minor differences.

------
brianbreslin
There is a Japanese competitor growing in the US recently. I have seen a few
of them in San Francisco. Interesting to see their take on this concept vs
American version. [http://www.daisojapan.com/](http://www.daisojapan.com/)

~~~
smelendez
[https://flyingtiger.com/](https://flyingtiger.com/) \-- And this is a Danish
competitor, also popping up in the US. Has a vibe similar to the non-furniture
section in Ikea.

~~~
coreymaass
I love Flying Tiger. Since it's still novel in America, it's the perfect place
to get holiday gifts.

------
hasbot
A Dollar General store opened this spring in my small rural town. Before it
opened there was only a Ray's grocery store with a huge markup. I, and
everybody with time and a car, used to drive 45+ minutes into town. I'm very
price conscious and I've seen some items at DG cheaper than at Winco. Most
items are about the same or only slightly higher. So now I buy perishable
items (bread, ice cream, etc) at Dollar General and don't need to drive into
town as often.

------
rconti
A few thoughts:

* I'm surprised you only have to be 10 miles from a Supermarket to be considered a food desert. I would get this in a populated area, but in a rural town of barely over 1000, it seems expected that you might drive a ways. Hell, in many rural areas you might drive a mile or two to even be on a main road! They do specifically mention "a rural area 10 miles.." which probably means in a city the distance to qualify as a food desert would be much smaller, which makes sense.

* I wonder why they didn't bother verifying pay at the chicken plant. If the workers say they make $8.50 an hour and the employer says the minimum pay is $11.50, it seems like a quick glance at a paystub is all it would take to validate the story rather than just throw up your arms and say "well, some people disagree". Though I imagine the most likely cause is the latinos are undocumented and hence being paid under the table.

* Sounds like the 20-30mi roundtrip drive to Bentonville is costly in terms of gas money (not to mention time!), but I was stunned that the employee talked about how many of the customers were in the Dollar General store 3-4 times a day (!!)

~~~
Raidion
I know (based on a NY times article I can't quite find atm), that a lot of the
labor at the factories is "contractor" style labor that's not paid as well as
the full time positions. These full time positions are obviously harder to
get, but do allow the company to say "minimum pay is $11.50) while in reality,
they're probably paying less to a significant portion of their workforce.

------
warrenm
convenience + not outrageous prices (more than Walmart ... but way closer and
faster) + and [generally] friendly staff == solid business results

~~~
burger_moon
Same thing with Harbor Freight. It's fast to go in and grab a tool, they're
cheap, and they have everything.

~~~
samstave
While I never buy anything there, I have been impressed with their ads for how
cheap good tools are from HB

~~~
duskwuff
Harbor Freight doesn't sell "good tools". They sell cheap tools. Often it's
good enough to work with, but nothing they sell is anything you'd want to rely
on for daily use.

~~~
bbarn
As a big fan of quality tools, I find they are useful for certain things you
really can't justify the cost of. i.e., I need this stupid security torx
screwdriver. Need a new air compressor hose or connectors, bulk shop rags,
bungee cords, etc.

------
mywittyname
Looking at the numbers:

A typical Dollar General costs $250,000 to open.

The average sales per square foot is $229.

The store in the article is 17,000 sq ft.

Dollar Generals overall profit margins are 30%.

That store should have earned ~$3,900,000 in sales its first year, which is
roughly $1.2 million in profits.

No wonder they are expanding so fast, the profits cover the initial investment
costs in as little as 3 months. That's incredible.

------
taivare
when I worked for one ; top three drugstore chain, I shook my head during a
loss prevention meeting when one of our managers said over 90% of the stores
profits came from the cosmetics isle. It was after the 08' crash and there was
a concern over theft !

------
xen2xen1
Interesting article. Left my house in the middle of reading the article to go
to Dollar General and get cookies. That Dollar General has been there my whole
life, but only recently did we start going there regularly. It was mostly
after they started selling some food, and esp. after they started selling milk
and eggs at a loss. I was there 4 times in one day this weekend. We would
never have done that a few years ago. They also went from one grimy store to
three stores in the last five years in our small Midwestern town.

------
kcorbitt
There's a Dollar Tree (competitor to Dollar General with a similar business
model) in South San Francisco that I shop at sometimes for cleaning
supplies/paper goods/party items. I wouldn't trust most of their food
offerings, but for the sort of thing I buy there they generally charge 30-50%
of what a traditional grocery store in the area does. I have no idea how they
can make this business model work with the cost of rent in the area, but I
love it.

~~~
huehehue
The stuff Dollar Tree sells is _reeeeally_ low quality. Take a cheap,
dishwasher-safe, plastic cup for example. I can get those in bulk from Alibaba
for $0.10 / cup. Dollar Tree might sell something like that for $1.00 --
there's a bunch of additional overhead, of course, but I think it makes
perfect sense that they'd profit on stuff like that.

Also would not be surprised if they shrugged those losses off as marketing
(brand recognition / visibility) costs.

------
swendoog
"Essentially what the dollar stores are betting on in a large way is that we
are going to have a permanent underclass in America"

I would phrase that differently.

"Essentially what the dollar stores are betting on in a large way is that we
are going to see an increase in the underclass in America".

We've always had an underclass, it's just increasing at an unprecedented rate.

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losteverything
"If we don't have it, you don't need it." manager or w. Paris ME DG told me.

DG was closest anything 17 minutes from vacation home

------
gt_
I moved to my parent's lakehouse in rural Kentucky this Fall to study and
build a software project.

One of the first things I noticed is exclaimed succinctly in this headline,
and they can milk this cow dry for a long time.

I submit regular complaints on their websites, to help the sweet ladies who
keep my local one afloat. The management would not let them use AC until mid-
July.

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paulpauper
Dollar Stores are a terrible deal. The products not only tend to be inferior
but they skimp on the quantity, so you end up paying a much higher per-unit
price than had you shopped at Walmart or anywhere else.

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dogcow
Living in the rural mid-Atlantic U.S., I've definitely seen a lot of Dollar
Generals popping up all over the place. Never knew they carried groceries like
meat and produce, though.

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zodPod
This is cool I was just wondering why they have opened 3 different Dollar
General stores in my area! I can drive to all 3 in less than 10 minutes it's
insane.

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candles12345
"Where even Wal-Mart failed"

I wonder how the new info that Wal-Mart is now outpricing (cheaper) that dg
will affect this?

~~~
war1025
The two have completely different business models.

Where I grew up there is a WalMart 45 minutes away in the "city", along with
Target, Best Buy, etc. etc. You go there on the weekend for your afternoon
shopping trip. It's a basically weekly event, and most everyone does it.

Dollar General is in town and you can go there after work if you need
something.

Most people I know frequent both. The difference is that WalMart requires a
much larger population to support, whereas Dollar General can get by with a
few (1 - 5) thousand people.

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forapurpose
I've also seen dollar stores (not Dollar General, but others) in underserved
areas of major cities.

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btown
Referral link for paywall:
[https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwic64KH0PrWAhVB0oMKHUkbBmgQFggoMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bloomberg.com%2Fnews%2Ffeatures%2F2017-10-11%2Fdollar-
general-hits-a-gold-mine-in-rural-america&usg=AOvVaw3wyjgi-k7q_xhUqXnVi2xz)

------
drraid0
Who ever made that Who Shops Where in Arkansas graph needs to be castrated.

~~~
samfriedman
I hope your severity doesn't get your comment downvoted, because I was hoping
there'd be some discussion on that chart.

It's trying to do a lot of things with ranking within a metric and comparing
across metrics. A big problem I see is that the intervals aren't equal even
for metrics with the same units. If I want to compare how far apart Family
Dollar and Dollar General are in terms of customer unemployment or bachelors'
percentage, well graphically it's pretty much useless. There's more spatial
difference across the entire Unemployed line than there is between a
(presumably) equal distance in the Bachelor's line.

Even if it's only designed to allow me to rank these stores across numerous
metrics, the alignment of the legend with the first row of colored points
confused me for a minute: I was reading the legend not as referring to color,
but to column.

I'd be curious to see what Kaiser Fung at Junk Charts [0] has to say about it.

[0] [http://junkcharts.typepad.com/](http://junkcharts.typepad.com/)

