How the dollar-store industry overcharges cash-strapped customers while promising low prices

[TBoneTX 48,619]

If this is from the same outfit as the UK Guardian, it's the first that I've ever quoted/cited.  Really interesting article.

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How the dollar-store industry overcharges cash-strapped customers while promising low prices

 

On a cloudy winter day, a state government inspector named Ryan Coffield walked into a Family Dollar store in Windsor, North Carolina, carrying a scanner gun and a laptop.

Inside the store, which sits along a three-lane road in a county of peanut growers and poultry workers, Coffield scanned 300 items and recorded their shelf prices.  He carried the scanned bar codes to the cashier and watched as item after item rang up at a higher price.

Red Baron frozen pizzas, listed on the shelf at $5, rang up at $7.65.  Bounty paper towels, shelf price $10.99, rang up at $15.50.  Kellogg's Frosted Flakes, Stouffer's frozen meatloaf, Sprite and Pepsi, ibuprofen, Klondike Minis – shoppers were overpaying for all of them.  Pedigree puppy food, listed at $12.25, rang up at $14.75.

 

All told, 69 of the 300 items came up higher at the register: a 23% error rate that exceeded the state's limit by more than tenfold.  Some of the price tags were months out of date.

The January 2023 inspection produced the store's fourth consecutive failure, and [...]

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/03/customers-pay-more-rising-dollar-store-costs

[Nature Boy 2.0 8,488]

18 hours ago, TBoneTX said:

If this is from the same outfit as the UK Guardian, it's the first that I've ever quoted/cited.  Really interesting article.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How the dollar-store industry overcharges cash-strapped customers while promising low prices

 

On a cloudy winter day, a state government inspector named Ryan Coffield walked into a Family Dollar store in Windsor, North Carolina, carrying a scanner gun and a laptop.

Inside the store, which sits along a three-lane road in a county of peanut growers and poultry workers, Coffield scanned 300 items and recorded their shelf prices.  He carried the scanned bar codes to the cashier and watched as item after item rang up at a higher price.

Red Baron frozen pizzas, listed on the shelf at $5, rang up at $7.65.  Bounty paper towels, shelf price $10.99, rang up at $15.50.  Kellogg's Frosted Flakes, Stouffer's frozen meatloaf, Sprite and Pepsi, ibuprofen, Klondike Minis – shoppers were overpaying for all of them.  Pedigree puppy food, listed at $12.25, rang up at $14.75.

 

All told, 69 of the 300 items came up higher at the register: a 23% error rate that exceeded the state's limit by more than tenfold.  Some of the price tags were months out of date.

The January 2023 inspection produced the store's fourth consecutive failure, and [...]

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/03/customers-pay-more-rising-dollar-store-costs

I dont frequent such pedestrian establishments, but thank for heads up.

[Ban Hammer 14,774]

2 minutes ago, Nature Boy 2.0 said:

I dont frequent such pedestrian establishments, but thank for heads up.

too broke?   

[TBoneTX 48,619]

1 hour ago, Nature Boy 2.0 said:

I dont frequent such pedestrian establishments

You only drive there?

1 hour ago, Ban Hammer said:

too broke?   

He thinks that Doler Stores are where they dole out stuff for the indigent.

[Ontarkie 15,084]

Some things are ok at the dollar store. With them jacking the prices. The dollar stores are no longer 1$ everything is 1.25 and up. Walmart tends to be cheaper.

[Boiler 48,300]

I buy pop there as much cheaper than say Kroger.

 

Might have bought eggs but not usually food.

 

i was congratulated once as they tell you how much you have saved?, cashier had not seen that high.

 

 

Supermarkets have had the same issue btw.

 

 

[TBoneTX 48,619]

Saw today (Fri. 12/5) that Dollar General beat analysts' estimates, up 14% in sales.  Correlation isn't automatically causation, but they're the one outfit that still publishes printed ad flyers in the newspapers.  I'm not cluttering my phone with apps (= spam ads) or going to go out of my way to search online for deals or sales.  Bring it to ME.