How Dollar Tree Conquered Low Income America

From the outside, Dollar Tree is a fun, harmless store to buy random, gimmicky, short-lived products for a buck. But go inside, and Dollar Tree is a ruthless business empire who knows that its best customers are low income Americans. The company will do everything it can to suffocate the competition and be the only store physically available in low income communities, small towns, and rural America. So poor Americans keep buying Dollar Tree no matter how flimsy or low quality its products are, because there’s no other store that they can afford or is available in their neighborhood.

Retail, at the most abstract, is the heartbeat that fuels daily domestic consumption which in turn drives the American economy. But what happens when that consumption, spending, and money printing finally catches up? 15% inflation. The highest increase in prices since the 1980s. $8 a gallon for gas. Shipping delays. Supply chain problems. Labor shortages.

There is one Fortune 500 corporation that despite the supply chain issues, labor shortages, inflation, gas costs, is so committed to giving you a discount that it puts it in their name. That company is the Dollar Tree.

Dollar Tree doesn’t rely on any of the traditional retail playbooks. No flashy white lighting or minimalism decor, no modern sans-serif branding, and no marketing to millennials. Dollar Tree’s vicious conquest of low-income and rural America has been so successful that the company has found itself in hot water. Cities, small towns, and rural communities in New Orleans, Kansas City, and Birmingham have united to ban Dollar Tree from opening more stores in their neighborhoods.

🎧 Audio Editing & Mixing: Sonalf

0:00 Deceiving Appearances
3:42 Store Design & Pricing Strategy
6:16 Shopping Experience
7:23 Conservative Nature
9:06 Family Dollar
10:57 Comparison to Walmart & Target
11:40 Advantage Over Heavyweights
13:41 Speed with Scale

[longtermgains]

Not to mention the cost of labor! When I walk into dollar tree, I'm hard pressed to find more than 3 employees for the entire store. Walmart has quite a bit more employees per square foot!

[camille]

Shopping at Dollar Tree was always a boon when I was at my lowest. Not only could I feed myself for next to nothing but the cashiers were always so lovely because at the end of it you're shopping at Dollar Tree for pasta and milk and processed cheese and they know how bad you're doing. It was a good lesson in community.

[_Painted]

What I love about dollar stores is that you can take a little kid there and let them pick 5-10 items themselves and they’ll be much happier than if you take them to a toy store and get them one $25-40 toy. In either case, they’ll grow out of whatever you buy them within a year, but the cheaper option actually makes them happier at the time. This works for little kids until they get brainwashed by advertising to only want branded products. Haha…

[LowellMorgan]

Something it’s important to remember is that poor people need to spend their paycheck right away. They do not have the luxury of investing, saving, or even buying in bulk sometimes. Dollar Tree food products may not actually be a savings per pound, but it’s usually the food that’s available today, when people need it.

[HoopleBogart]

I work at the Dollar Tree at the moment. The amount of items that have gotten slightly smaller while also going up 25% in price is astounding, and honestly a little scary.

[miketackabery]

I'm grateful for Dollar Tree for feeding my son and daughter-in-law when I couldn't. I was stunned by how little they had to live on, but Dollar Tree made it possible.

They're doing very well now. Left Los Angeles for Georgia. Real jobs, MUCH lower cost-of-living, and nice people. Whew!

[Zales]

Who is this guy? He has almost 90k views and only a handful of videos, but they're among the best quality out there. I'm a undergraduate student of economics, and these types of videos are exactly what I'm looking for to help me understand movements of power and capital in the world.

10/10, keep it up. I'm excited to be in before this blows up.

[cassiescott]

the best thing to get at dollar tree is definitely greeting cards!! They can get expensive at the regular store ($2-10) but you get 2 for $1.25 at dollar tree. There is also a great selection

[javianjohnson]

Looking back thinking about my childhood, I'm grateful for Dollar Tree and Family Dollar. Definitely came in handy for common supplies and foods when you needed it the most. Even though I didn't necessarily grow up "poor" or "low-income", being able to get a bunch of stuff off of a single $10 or $20 bill was such a great feeling. Thats something Walmarts and Targets can never provide as everything is continuously getting more and more expensive.

[Marsandback]

Worked at dollar tree for around 10 months getting 10$ and hour. It was the worst job I've ever had the displeasure of working. From customers screaming at you for things you can't control, to people bringing in 4-8 kids and letting them destroy the store... it's the worst.

I mean it's just me and the manager on shift, we have to make sure the whole store looks clean and good by the time we close but it's nearly impossible because I'm always swamped at the register and he was always busy doing "go backs" (go backs are items that people just...put on the register or decide they don't want so we have to put back) so when some mom brings in her kids and they break a bunch of stuff, we can't do much to clean it cause we're already stretched thin.

And don't get me started on people who get mad cause we don't do returns. Like no ma'am, for the 8th time, we do exchanges, not returns... God I hated working there, the customer base is horrible, so rude and disrespectful and it didn't help that we closed super late, 10pm, every other dollar tree around us closed at 8:30 or 9 but we were the most popular store in the region (from what I remember, average sales would be about 6-7k a day) so we kept our doors open longer.


Anyway, I feel sorry for any poor unfortunate souls who work there now.

[boredoms]

Whenever I would go to the movies I would always load up on candy at Dollar Tree and stuff it into my cargo pockets.

[ghostein.stereo]

I used to work at a Dollar Tree as a manager. Never again. I understand it’s good for low income households but they overworked us to the point where I had white hairs and heart problems (because of my caffeine dependency trying to keep up.) Terrible company.

[antoinewilly]

I personally really love both Dollar Tree and Family Dollar. Being somebody who grew up very poor with the water and lights being shut off for weeks on end, and finally slowly working my way up out of that position and into a more middle class position. Growing up they provided everything my family needed. Really cheap meals that just took creativity to actually piece something together that surprised others that it came from a dollar store. Cleaning supplies, drinks, random household items/necessities. All for no more than 10 bucks each?! Sure some of the items you get from those stores are nowhere near the best quality, there's no argument there. But It did well enough to get me through the roughest patch of my life. So big ups for that

[wizardandwisdom]

I remember clearly this event like yesterday. In 2016, I bought a $25 scientific calculator from our university book store. I went to the lab telling my classmate how expensive things are. Then the next day, he brought not one but 2 calculators identical to the one I purchased the day before, with packages showing that they were 4 dollars each. To this day, I have no idea how they got the calculators so cheap.

[blin]

honestly i love them. i live in a pretty bad situation and im only in highschool but i go there for essentials like cleaning, clothes, household stuff etc. i’m lucky enough to be able to afford food from places like aldi/trader joes where it’s not too pricey but dollar tree has came in clutch so many times

[nfullenwider]

Hi! I'm the guy who puts stuff back at your local supermarket. Thanks for confirming what I already knew about confusing supermarket layouts. It drives me nuts.

[syscruncher]

Dollar Tree usually has very little value if you look below the surface. Yeah, you may be able to get a package of “x” for $1 when a similar package of “x” sells for $2 at Walmart, but when you examine the per unit or per ounce, then it’s often cheaper to shop at Walmart for the same brand or the “great value” brand.

[TacetTheTerror]

I remember in my teens I was basically legally homeless, as my dad just filed bankruptcy and we didn't have a consistent place to stay. For a few months we eventually stayed at a small house in the middle of nowhere next to a bunch of farm land. Literally the only grocery store within a 5 mile walking distance were dollar trees, despite walking past miles of farm land to even get to one.

[Vorance]

Fun fact: I'm not sure if they still do it but at one point, dollar tree tried charging their employees $10 for their W2 tax forms, y'know the thing they legally aren't allowed to charge you for.

[summerdowlig]

As some who has worked for Kroger, I agree our store layout changes every few days.