Rural NorCal "Communities Rally to stop Dollar General"

[storewanderer]

http://www.redding.com/news/local/commu ... 04461.html

Wow. Does this happen anywhere else? Do these people know how little business a Dollar General actually does?

[wnetmacman]

It isn't in the low volume of business. It's that they just appear everywhere.

I live 4 miles north of Lafayette, LA, population 120,000. My town is a suburb of Lafayette. There are 5000 residents. We have, within a 4 mile radius of my home, 5 Dollar General stores and 6 Family Dollar stores, plus one Fred's and a Walgreens. For 5,000 people, that's 13 stores vying for the same share of the pie, where one or two would do fine. Almost in every case, DG and FD are side by side, with a couple of exceptions. They do little business, but take up 8-10,000 sf of space that isn't needed. They are becoming a blight. I believe that's what NorCal is afraid of.

[storewanderer]

I do have to wonder how long this dollar store expansion thing can sustain itself. I know these stores count on very cheap land, very low operating costs, and little staffing... but from what I see the amount of merchandise they are moving is often not much. Every so often I'll come across a fairly busy location, though.

Family Dollar seems to have really "unstocked" its stores since Dollar Tree took over. Inventory levels look very low, there are more items at the $1 price point than before, and the stores seem neater/less cluttered for sure. I did enjoy some of the odd regional brands Family Dollar used to carry on grocery, those are all gone now replaced with more familiar to the west coast brands. I think Dollar Tree is used to much higher foot traffic than these Family Dollars get.

I have also noticed both of these chains have been cutting back store hours. For instance in Sun Valley, NV both FD and DG used to be open until 10 PM. Now both close at 9 PM. The area has a fair bit of traffic in the evening, but CVS also started to close at 9 PM there. There is a 24 hour McDonalds (both dine in and drive through) and a Scolaris that is open until 1 AM. Maybe there are other issues; I also seem to see sheriff activity in that area in the evenings. All of the Dollar Trees scattered around Reno used to be open until 10 PM, now some close as early at 8 PM.

[veteran+]

It isn't in the low volume of business. It's that they just appear everywhere.

I live 4 miles north of Lafayette, LA, population 120,000. My town is a suburb of Lafayette. There are 5000 residents. We have, within a 4 mile radius of my home, 5 Dollar General stores and 6 Family Dollar stores, plus one Fred's and a Walgreens. For 5,000 people, that's 13 stores vying for the same share of the pie, where one or two would do fine. Almost in every case, DG and FD are side by side, with a couple of exceptions. They do little business, but take up 8-10,000 sf of space that isn't needed. They are becoming a blight. I believe that's what NorCal is afraid of.

Well said.

Many neighborhoods engage in this activity with 7-11 for the same reasons.

The quality of employment may be another issue for certain neighborhoods.

[wnetmacman]

Our local government did a full study about 2 years ago about the impact these dollar stores were having. They found in Lafayette Parish (Louisiana's term for counties), there were (at the time) 30 stores between Family Dollar and Dollar General. That doesn't count Fred's (who has two stores), Walgreens (who has 10 stores in the Parish), CVS (who has 11 stores) and Rite Aid (who still has 3 stores hanging on).

All of those stores are fighting for that same dollar.

To put into perspective, there are four Walmart Supercenters, a Super Target and a regular Target competing with this. When I go to Walmart or Target, I have to wait in line, and walk a huge store. DG and FD are much smaller, and have most everything at the same pricing, or at least close to it.

Additionally, the government put a moratorium on these stores, but it did not apply to the outlying suburbs (5 of them). So we're the benefactor in the store jump.

[jamcool]

Basically FD and DG are just the modern version of the smaller variety stores...Ben Franklin, Sprouse-Reitz, TG&Y...but with more grocery items

[storewanderer]

Sprouse Reitz had stores in many of the small rural Nevada towns that DG/FD have entered after a 25 year period of no variety store in these little towns; towns such as Lovelock, Hawthorne, Tonopah... but DG/FD also enter places that don't really look like towns at all such as Silver Springs, NV.

I do know they have had a noticeable impact on a couple of already not so well performing Safeways in Lovelock and Hawthorne... doesn't look like they've impacted Smiths in Dayton at all, and doesn't look like they've impacted Rite Aid as much in rural NorCal as I'd have expected. The pie is only so big in these little towns with declining populations.