How the Dollar-Store Industry Overcharges Cash-Strapped Customers While Promising Low Prices (theguardian.com)
- Reference: 0180332837
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/25/12/08/1858239/how-the-dollar-store-industry-overcharges-cash-strapped-customers-while-promising-low-prices
- Source link: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/03/customers-pay-more-rising-dollar-store-costs
Industry watchers, employees and lawsuits attribute the discrepancies to minimal staffing. Registers update automatically when prices change, but shelf labels require manual replacement, and workers often lack the time. State attorneys general have pursued settlements -- Arizona reached a $600,000 deal with Family Dollar in May, Colorado settled with Dollar General for $400,000 in October and Ohio secured $1 million from Dollar General after finding error rates as high as 88%. Both companies declined interview requests but said they remain committed to pricing accuracy.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/03/customers-pay-more-rising-dollar-store-costs
So pay the government their cut and it is (Score:2)
continue business as usual with no changes! "Arizona reached a $600,000 deal with Family Dollar in May, Colorado settled with Dollar General for $400,000 in October and Ohio secured $1 million from Dollar General"
Re:So pay the government their cut and it is (Score:5, Insightful)
hows that again? AC
Lack of regulation - Nope they are getting fined because there are regulations.
Lack of enforcement - Nope they got audited thousands of times and fined!
Now you could argue they were not fined enough, I guess but clearly there is a regulation and clearly the regulators are checking up!
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The fines do not help the people who were charged more than they expected. If they cannot keep the tags up to date, they could always just eliminate them. Have an electronic board with the current prices in the store.
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That will be solved when e-ink shelf labels finally reach them. It's a sizeable investment, so this make take some time to reach these low-cost stores.
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There was a story here not that long ago about exactly this (electronic tags) and some people lost their shit. The outrage was over the premise this would make changing prices too easy .
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My issue with e-ink price tags is that they make it possible for stores to set different prices for different customers. Numerous stores already track you via your phone's Bluetooth signal. It's theoretically possible that they somehow tie that data to a digital profile with your income and spending habits and dynamically change the price on the e-ink tags in your immediate vicinity. At checkout, they can generate those same prices for any products you're purchasing based on your proximity to the registe
Re:So pay the government their cut and it is (Score:4, Insightful)
It is far fetched because multiple persons can and will look at the same price at the same time.
Re:So pay the government their cut and it is (Score:4, Insightful)
What they can do is to change the price dynamically depending on external factors e.g. it's hot outside, let's increase the price of ice cream for the next 2 hours.
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> My issue with e-ink price tags is that they make it possible for stores to set different prices for different customers
For retail stores like Dollar General, this is easy enough to legislate against: Require that the price change no more often than once every day and that the store charge the lowest price listed in the last 3 hours at the checkout.
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Or just do what customers have done in that situation since time immemorial. Say, "that's not what it said on the shelf".
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And be confronted with the new mantra, "OK. But do you want it? It rings up at..."
Re:So pay the government their cut and it is (Score:5, Informative)
> Nope they are getting fined because there are regulations.
> Lack of enforcement - Nope they got audited thousands of times and fined!
> Now you could argue they were not fined enough, I guess but clearly there is a regulation and clearly the regulators are checking up!
Their fines amount to a quarterly rounding error. [1]https://www.businesswire.com/n... [businesswire.com]
[1] https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251204155133/en/Dollar-General-Corporation-Reports-Third-Quarter-2025-Results
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> Their fines amount to a quarterly rounding error.
so was my last speeding ticket.
The fines should be set high enough to so that the activity that results in them isn't more profitable than doing whatever the law says is the right thing. 400k is probably enough that it would have been better for the company to have given existing part time works a handful of additional hours a week to update price labels across the state.
Fines are not suppose to be excessively punitive or ruinous. If someone was really behaving outrageously or with real criminal intent we
So no they're not getting regulated or fined (Score:2)
It seems that way because you see headlines that they had such and such multimillion dollar fine levied but they appeal and don't pay the fine or it gets reduced to a tiny fraction of the profits from the illegal behavior. But funny thing the news media never seems to cover that...
I know of companies that literally have a classification system where they figure out which laws they can break. You will be shocked to find that the laws that affect rich people are generally in the list of ones they can't br
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The fines are so small that it's no deterrent.
the understaffing is riddiculous. (Score:4, Insightful)
I live 'out in the county', that is dollar store country.
The typical Dollar General is a 60k foot store - sometimes bigger, and there are NEVER more than two employees working. Which means one person on the register and one other person to do any re-shelving, stock keeping, pricing, etc.
No way they are getting all that done.
Everywhere (Score:2)
The Kroger by us, in a fairly densely populated suburb, has over 25 positions open. The nearby Wal-Mart can't stay open 24-hours because they can't get enough people to work the night shift. Two nearby restaurants closed because they couldn't keep enough staff to stay open during lunch and dinner rushes.
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> The nearby Wal-Mart can't stay open 24-hours because they can't get enough people to work the night shift.
My nearby wally-world isn't open 24 hours either, but it wouldn't make economic sense for them to be open 24/7 even if they did have staffing. There are simply not enough customers during the hours they are closed. There is a 24-hour wally-world within a 30 minute drive if you REALLY need something, and plenty of 24-hour overpriced convenience stores nearby (I assume they are open 24/7 for brandin
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Those restaurants deserved to fail, then. Pay people a decent wage, and they'll work for you. This is a fundamental axiom in business.
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> everything used to be a dollar thats where their name came from now its price-gouge general and family-ripoff
Translation: They used to sell things that costs a lot less than a dollar elsewhere.
It's OK for corparations to lie ... (Score:2)
"Both companies ... said they remain committed to pricing accuracy."
Why do they even bother issuing obviously false statements like that?
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Because the price at the register is "Accurate", there is an error on the pricing label ?
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You read the shelf statement; the register has been updated to the correct statement: "we'll continue to scam every cent we can from our customers".
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They can be committed to it without being committed to putting forth much effort.
It's intentional mispricing. (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you think they care about $600k? Dollar stores fit an odd segment, either you need something random you know your dollar store has, which is the only time I go, or, you're poor and need single use small format things to get by. In either case, their best option for making money, is to steal it, and the best way to steal it, is to show you one price, and charge you another, that's higher. They will always use the excuses that staff are overworked, or, staff are expensive, or, it was an accident, but none of that is true.
If they cared, they could force price compliance automatically using e-paper tags. The fact they don't deploy modern solutions to a known issue, means they don't want to solve it. The real solution for consumers, you need to pay attention to what price shows up when a product is scanned. That sounds obvious, but almost no one pays attention.
They'll gladly pay $600k, to steal millions, and no government or regulatory board is ever going to make a fine high enough to be a deterrent. Imagine hitting Dollar X with a $250 million fine, plus, 10-years of independent oversight through a fully isolated third-party monitor. That's a deterrent, $600k is the government giving the wink, "awful, you shouldn't have done this, I hope a cheque doesn't fall out of your coat as you leave *wink *wink".
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> Do you think they care about $600k?
They will if the inspectors come every week until the practice stops.
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> Do you think they care about $600k?
To some extent, probably, and I'm guessing they'll find a way to pass it along to their customers, after writing the fine off on their taxes. Rich people and corporations care about every penny. For example: [1]Elon Musk calls for abolition of European Union after X fined $140 million [cnbc.com] -- which is literally pocket change for him.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/08/elon-musk-eu-should-be-abolished-after-x-fined-140-million.html
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Agreed.
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No, the staffing argument makes much more sense. They cut every corner they can (which is why I don't buy milk there) to keep prices low, and that means a small and unenthusiastic staff. And that means a lot of basic housekeeping doesn't get done on time, like updating the price tags.
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Right, but that's not an excuse, since you could automate the tag changing automatically. How many times do you call into a customer service line and hear: "We're experiencing higher than normal call volume!", so often that if I said every time, the very rare exception is in the noise. You can't always have "higher than normal", that's not how averages work, in the same context: "We understaffed, slashed hours, misclassified employees, and stole labour, so it's their problem." doesn't work either. You he
Re: It's intentional mispricing. (Score:2)
They are understaffing on purpose not only despite the requirements, but because of their desire to not meet them.
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either you need something random you know your dollar store has,
Years ago I was with my parents in a Dollar Store. We weren't looking for anything in particular, just seeing what's there. We went through the condiment aisle and they had these tiny bottles of ketchup and mustard from name brand companies.
My dad wondered about why they would do this and I told him to think of it this way. You're on vacation or a business trip or whatever. You need ketchup or mustard, but you don't want to buy an e
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Exactly! If I need kitchen stuff, like sponges, a strainer, drain plugs, that's where I go, and maybe for the odd Island Bar, which is a Bounty Bar knock off. I don't buy food, food there, but all the surrounding ones do have several isles of groceries, and you could buy a pantry full of items if you wanted. I'm not sure if they have milk, never noticed, but I don't buy food food. Maybe the odd bag of chips if I'm with my daughter, but again, it's for one-off things, at least for me.
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Grandparent: A/C#1 wrote: "A while ago, I went to Dollar General with a friend -- we saw labels on Hershey's Chocolate Syrup peeling off, below it was a similar label in Chinese! I wonder about safety standards and where they're getting product from to resell."
Parent: A/C#2 replied "What standard is questionable? Do you need some kind of special snowflake adhesive on your price tags?"
I see what A/C#1 is getting at: If a store isn't paying attention to its Hershey's Syrup sourcing and packaging-quality, wh
Most of the products are actually over priced (Score:2)
This is the US, the land of less is more, and it definitely applies to the greater part of the stuff at the `dollar` stores. Many of the products are just smaller and effectively more expensive or worse versions of what you can buy at Walmart at a better overall value. For example, at the dollar store you'll pay $1.25 for a single ball point pen and at Walmart it will be 5 of the same basic pen for $5. People don't really do math or shop around as they think that they can get what they need at the dollar
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Boots theory of economics. If people had economic literacy they'd throw a fit, but they do not. Also, buying in bulk is fine and dandy, but it's rough when a trip to costco runs $300 at the register and a trip to dollar general runs $30, even if you're paying more per/lb/item
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Some good reasons to buy single items vs. quantity:
1) You can't afford to buy in quantity, meaning the choice is to buy single items or go without.
2) You only need one in the foreseeable future. For example, most people don't buy more than one Christmas tree.
3) The cost to store the items you aren't using immediately is too much. Sure, I may buy 10 frozen chickens in the next year, but if I buy them all at once, I'll need a spare freezer to store them in, and a place to put the freezer.
I'm sure there are
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I don't know which one you're shopping at, but my local DG is generally cheaper than Walmart. Walmart's milk won't be pre-spoiled though.
Never know what I'm suppose to be charged anyway (Score:3)
My local dollar general (about the only general merch store in my town), is so disorganized that I can never match up products to shelf tags anyway....
helping the poor customers (Score:1)
So the various state attorneys general got huge settlement for these.
As long as we are bitching about harming the poor... Shall we ask what % of those settlement ended up in, say, the actual hands of poor customers?
Just wondering.
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> Shall we ask what % of those settlement ended up in, say, the actual hands of poor customers?
Assuming the fine went into the state's general revenue fund, your answer is approximately "the number of poor customers that live in that state divided by the state's population."
If the fines went somewhere else, like "to fund law enforcement," then the answer is much more complicated. You'll have to figure out how much money the lawmakers did NOT allocate to law enforcement knowing that law enforcement would
They were never "Dollar Stores" (Score:3)
Dollar General and Family Dollar were never "Dollar Stores" of the likes of Dollar Tree up until recently. All 3 operate in similar ways of over charging people when it comes to per oz prices. You might get something for 10 cents an oz at one of these stores while the same product costs 3 cents an oz at walmart but you'll be buying a significantly larger package of the product that costs in total more than the one at the dollar stores. These stores prey on people too stupid to budget. That bottle of dawn dish soap cost $1 at these dollar stores, but the one at walmart costs $5. But you're going to need to buy 8 of the dollar store ones to equal whats in the walmart one.
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For consumables you're right, but you can often get great deals on "durable" goods where quality isn't an issue. Paper plates: bad idea, but cheapo dishes? Fantastic. Sunglasses that you just want to block the sun and don't care what they look like? $1.25 last time I was there. With many things, it makes sense to buy a more expensive but higher quality version, but some things the rock-bottom cheapest piece of crap is just fine, and the only places that will come close to dollar stores are Temu and AliExpre
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> Sunglasses that you just want to block the sun and don't care what they look like? $1.25 last time I was there.
Beware of cheap sunglasses (and some not-so-cheap ones too):
Make sure they actually block the UV rays and aren't just a neutral-density filter for visible light without offering any UV protection. Those actually harm the eyes because it deceives your pupils into not constricting like they would without sunglasses.
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> These stores prey on people too stupid to budget
The stores would say they provide a service for those who can't afford to buy larger sizes.
Like predatory lending, which makes a similar "we provide a service to ..." claim, "prey on" and "provide a service to" can be the same thing depending on who is talking and what side of their mouth they are talking out of (bitter sarcasm intended).
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If these people stopped buying smokes and lotto tickets for a week or two they could budget enough to afford to get some of the larger cheaper per oz sizes, then in the long run they are saving more money they can put towards their smokes and lotto tickets.
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Maybe we should rename them "Wallet Stores" as they take your entire wallet like Jane Jetson did.
Michigan (USA) has a "customer bounty" on pricing (Score:3, Informative)
If a customer catches you cheating, you have to pay the difference plus a penalty of 10x the difference (minimum $1, maximum $5). It's been this way since the 1970s.
[1]Michigan's pricing laws [michigan.gov]. [2]More info, including government enforcement examples [freep.com].
[1] https://www.michigan.gov/mdard/lab/weights/item-pricing-and-scanning-accuracy-questions-and-answers
[2] https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2025/05/20/michigan-has-a-scanner-law-heres-how-it-works/83728024007/
I'd buy that for a dollar (Score:2)
Why don't they just print a rack-end price or a price list for an entire section of the shelving every 20 feet or so ?
They could update the prices more quickly then. Or is there a requirement that the price label be immediately adjacent to the item ?
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> Or is there a requirement that the price label be immediately adjacent to the item ?
I don't know about a legal requirement, but there is a customer expectation.
I for one will pass on an item if I can't quickly find its price. If the store generally makes it hard to find a price for a given item ("go to the end of the rack, search for item...") then I'll find someplace else to shop.
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Well back when Dollar Tree was actually a dollar store there was no need to update any pricing cause everything in the store was the same price. They should just call themselves Tree Dollar Tree and price everything at $3 They might loose a little on some products but makes it up on other and probably on average break even
Don't shop dollar stores (Score:2)
Here are some reasons:
1. Lower quality goods.
2. Smaller quantities. (Your per-unit costs will be higher, and the unit size will be smaller then what you will find at a grocer, or general goods stor, and there will be less units in the package)
3. Their stores are messy. Merchandise strewn about on the floors instead of in bins or on shelves. Maybe their customer base doesn't care and the lack of staffing means that its an intractable task.
4. Sometimes they are the only store in a rural area, or the only stor
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I noticed years ago that things like cards (birthday cards, thank you cards, anniversary cards, those kind) were $1 - and often USA made rather than glitter filled $4 things from China that Hallmark sold. That was nice. And they were $1. But I haven't been in one of those stores for years...it's gotten more disorganized and it's not in a convenient place for me to visit when I go to town. But some things were bargains there.
could it be intentionally like that? (Score:1)
> Registers update automatically when prices change, but shelf labels require manual replacement, and workers often lack the time.
maybe this is their business model?
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They make wireless e-paper price tags that can solve this issue.
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Unlikely. It makes more sense for it to be an unwanted consequence of their "as cheap as possible" model. There are easier ways to find ways to increase the margins that won't involve fines and bad PR.
Same for me at Walmart (Score:2)
This is exactly my experience at Walmart. If I'm buying more then a couple things it's a question of how many items are priced incorrectly not if any are. The errors are, not surprisingly, never in my favor.
Who Needs Price Tags (Score:2)
I thought everything was a dollar!
Dollar General is not a Dollar Store (Score:3)
Dollar General is more of a "General Store" - that is, it includes a variety mix of things from hardware to groceries to OTC drug store stuff and housewares. It's _everywhere_ in rural America.
It does not promise a $1 price for everything, and the headline is misleading.
Dollar Tree and Family Dollar have operated on the "single price" model, though I'm not vouching for their current operations.
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The headline is insultingly misleading! I thought they were going to reveal some terrible secret in the pricing model, not tell the customers something they already know - the shelves are messy, the tags are all over the place, the employees are high, and mistakes are made.
Whoop-de-f-k.
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Family dollar is also not a single price model nor has it ever been, it's more like dollar general. And quite a bit more expensive than other discount stores. I think dollar tree is $1.25 for most things now? I dunno.
Re: Dollar General is not a Dollar Store (Score:2)
They are $1.25 for most things but they do often have sections with things that cost more.