This is a well known bad employer with poor working and safety conditions, understaffing that leads to robberies and even homicides. They lead an industry that has had significant gun crime. And what is worse is that the Wall Street "monkey see, monkey do" philosophy is bolstered by their apparent survival on such horrible understaffing levels and overworked managers, causing the Fat Cats to try to foist the same concept into other retailers because "Dollar General can survive with zero payroll so you should be able to as well." There has to be a better answer than Dollar General.
The industry is a problem because it runs on such a loose string from a profit per store perspective.
The next best (notice I avoided use of the phrase "better") answer was Wal Mart Express and even with tight expense controls that was a complete bath for Wal Mart.
Dollar General has figured out the model that works in these very rural communities. I do not think their format or formula is appropriate in urban areas/tough neighborhoods for the reasons you point out. But I suspect if we spent a day in a Dollar General in a tough neighborhood in some larger city and noticed the only other retail within a 10 minute walk was liquor stores, observed the number of customers coming in on foot, talked to them and asked how they get to the store, do they have a car, etc., and watched what they were buying and saw how many of them were buying necessities like milk, personal care items, pet food, boxed and canned food, we may have a different opinion about the appropriateness of the format in those locations as well if the alternative was no store at all.
veteran+ wrote: ↑December 12th, 2023, 9:34 am
Yep, I totally get it and your view is totally valid but I lean to a Macro view of this and the implications.
Lack of choice forces people to support companies that are rotten to the core and by defacto exacerbates the decline of the retail experience (quality, service, price, health & safety, shopping environment, etc.) and the greater socio-economic-cultural landscape.
Why do shoppers have to "work" to spend money in a store? Why do shoppers have to dig through an orgy of junk and also check for expiration issues? Let's not even cover sanitation, health, safety, labor and customer relations. That a customer has to settle for this and support a company that is constantly hauled into court for a myriad of legal transgressions is frankly incredible
These folks had no retail experience available. They had dirt, sagebrush, pine trees, and crickets for 50 years. Dollar General shows up and puts up its metal building and gets a merchandise mix that has surprising depth (I think you'd be impressed with the amount of items they pack into their space) and a well developed private label program throughout their store that is present but does not suffocate space from normal brands either.
I would agree it would be better if they could get a retailer in who had better staffing, more pay, and higher store standards but for 50 years that just didn't happen.
The locations that are neat/orderly to shop in are actually not bad places to shop given the convenience factor. There are some of those around. But these stores have a lot of ups and downs.
I look at them as a cheaper, much more merchandised convenience store.
And frankly my interactions with their employees are mostly positive. I don't find their service to be especially worse than most other retailers. In some cases these employees are happy to actually have a job close to where they live.
I know your solution may be suggesting everyone "move out" of these remote areas so they have more choices of stores/employers but for whatever reasons some people want to be in these remote areas and if the stores can operate profitably and meet their needs I don't see a huge issue. I'd like them to do some things better and maybe over time they will get some control over inventory which will help the safety issues of too much freight, etc.
Long term I am not sure what will happen with these stores- the profit per store is so low there is not much room for "error."
"I know your solution may be suggesting everyone "move out" of these remote areas so they have more choices of stores/employers but for whatever reasons some people want to be in these remote areas.........."
I would NEVER advocate for the above, NEVER.
I just despise the type of companies that show up in these areas, like Dollar General.
storewanderer wrote: ↑December 12th, 2023, 10:11 pm
The next best (notice I avoided use of the phrase "better") answer was Wal Mart Express and even with tight expense controls that was a complete bath for Wal Mart.
Walmart Express would have been a great competitor for the likes of Dollar General and Family Dollar, but they were run by the same bean counters at Walmart who ran the 200,000 sq. ft. Supercenters. When you can make your livelihood out of that profit, the meager profits that the Express format made were unfathomable for them. Problem is that this is not unprecedented in the retail world. Woolworth had the same problem on the opposite scale with Woolco - they couldn't see the "sell 4 times as much for the same profit" mantra. Plus, Walmart tried to put everything fathomable in those stores - produce, meat, pharmacy, etc. There was just too much product on the line to be fully successful. They also put deed restrictions on the buyers of those stores (DG, Brookshire and Harps) where they could not run a pharmacy out of them. Fortunately, none of the three run pharmacies any longer.
I have been in Express stores converted to Spring Market (Brookshire) and DG. DG has done a good job converting them over to their format. But the same stated problem exists - you cannot run a store with that much stuff with so few employees and make a profit worth mentioning.
So a couple changes at Dollar General have occurred this month.
1. In Store pick up program has been discontinued. They no longer offer the service of online order and pick up in store. This removes the order picking task from the employees.
2. Self checkout now has a 5 item limit and this message scrolls across the screen after a software update. However you can still scan more than 5 items on self checkout.
I do see both of the above as prudent decisions to help address their shrink problems.
Next up needs to be accountability for the warehouses as the stores get shorted products and basically have no recourse.
Dollar General is expanding across the Treasure Valley with locations recently opening in Payette, Weiser, Nyssa, and Ontario — now the chain continues to move east with a new store planned for Nampa.
The project calls for a 10,640-square-foot store at 11041 Moss Lane near a bubble tea shop and tow company.
There are 43 parking stalls planned. Two would be ADA.
It's easy to romanticize small town, local businesses, but they keep money in the community and recirculate it whereas Dollar general not so much. Some tweaks that target "shrink" don't really address the basic problem that these stores are not safe places to work. I wouldn't get too misty eyed about small towns and safety--they seem far from immune to mass shootings.
buckguy wrote: ↑December 14th, 2023, 8:36 am
It's easy to romanticize small town, local businesses, but they keep money in the community and recirculate it whereas Dollar general not so much. Some tweaks that target "shrink" don't really address the basic problem that these stores are not safe places to work. I wouldn't get too misty eyed about small towns and safety--they seem far from immune to mass shootings.
Dollar General is siphoning significant sales from Wal Mart and keeping some revenue in these towns that would otherwise go out of town though.
In these places where Dollar General is the only retail in 50 years they are absolutely helping the county (most of these rural places seem to not charge much extra sales tax beyond the minimum required by the state, no extra tax tacked on by the town) by generating more sales tax revenue for it vs. having everyone drive 30 miles away to a different county or town for Wal Mart.
I don't see the safety issues of a rural Dollar General to be much different from those of a rural gas station. You have a low traffic business with low staffing levels.
storewanderer wrote: ↑December 14th, 2023, 10:27 pm
Dollar General is siphoning significant sales from Wal Mart and keeping some revenue in these towns that would otherwise go out of town though.
In these places where Dollar General is the only retail in 50 years they are absolutely helping the county (most of these rural places seem to not charge much extra sales tax beyond the minimum required by the state, no extra tax tacked on by the town) by generating more sales tax revenue for it vs. having everyone drive 30 miles away to a different county or town for Wal Mart.
I don't see the safety issues of a rural Dollar General to be much different from those of a rural gas station. You have a low traffic business with low staffing levels.
Sales tax is a factor where some do their shopping. Some areas in Washington as you get closer to Seattle have a 10% or higher sales tax. This wouldn't work so well in the southern part of the state on the Oregon border.
