When Dollar General came to Haven, Kansas, it arrived making demands. The fastest-growing retailer in America wanted the taxpayers of the small, struggling Kansas town to pick up part of the tab for building one of its squat, barebones stores that more often resemble a warehouse than a neighbourhood shop.
Dollar General thought Haven’s council should give the company a $72,000 break on its utility bills, equivalent to the cost of running the town’s library and swimming pool for a year, on the promise of jobs and tax revenues. The council blanched but ended up offering half of that amount to bring the low-price outlet to a town that already had a grocery store. ............................................
Buhler’s council called two public meetings in March to gauge the mood of residents and invited Doug Nech, owner of neighbouring Haven’s only grocery store, the Foodliner, to speak. Dollar General had driven his shop out of business days earlier.
“We lasted three years and three days after Dollar General opened,” he said. “Sales dropped and just kept dropping. We averaged 225 customers a day before and immediately dropped to about 175. A year ago we were down to 125 a day. Basically we lost 35 to 40% of our sales. I lost a thousand dollars a day in sales in three years.”
The arrival of Dollar General cost the Foodliner hundreds of thousands of dollars over that time. The foremost challenge was price. The chain has the power of scale in negotiating with foodmakers. Nech discovered the store had done a deal with Campbell’s Soup to make a 14.5oz can of chicken noodle soup for $1.50, the price he was paying wholesale for an 11oz can of the same soup.
Last edited by KFWA; 09/18/19.
have you paid your dues, can you moan the blues, can you bend them guitar strings
They put in a Dollar General Market[full line of groceries] here in a former Kroger bldg and our one local grocer a bit down the road is all but gone. Of course the fact that Food Lion put a store on either side of the local within a mile or so didn't help either.
The company I work for used to cower to WalMart. Did everything possible to meet Walmart orders, demands, quality. Thoughts were it would keep us in their good graces. It didn’t. They’re still a large customer, but not what they were 15 years ago for us. .
Now we cower to Dollar General for the same things.
I don't understand local tax breaks for businesses that pay minimum wage and expect the .gov to pick up the slack. We spend around 60 billion a years is wellfare, etc to Walmart employee's . DG isn't any different. How about they give the tax breaks to locally owned small businesses ?
"Life is tough, even tougher if your stupid" John Wayne
If the locality doesn’t kiss ass, the one up the street will. It’s a big butt kiss fest.
DG has been growing like a weed....put enough weeds together and it becomes a garden. DG will also show you where the worst neighborhoods in town are too.
It's all competition between towns to attract new business. Personally I wouldn't want to invest in a town that was so lackadaisical they didn't offer even a pretense of benefits to attract my business.
The key elements in human thinking are not numbers but labels of fuzzy sets. -- L. Zadeh
All Hail DG!!! poor ole mom and pop stores.... Time for the nursing home........
For that matter All Hail online firearms related buying !!! Poor ole LGS with nothing in stock except schit gathering dust. And then wanting ta charge ya 5% over msrp on their already discounted registered dealer status with a online distributor.
Some people fall for the "special order" and its "aura" bullschitt....
Its 2019 Adapt and overcome or go the fugg under.......
I don't understand local tax breaks for businesses that pay minimum wage and expect the .gov to pick up the slack. We spend around 60 billion a years is wellfare, etc to Walmart employee's . DG isn't any different. How about they give the tax breaks to locally owned small businesses ?
Shocking idea................but which ones get the breaks?
The tax break to give incentive to a business to open shop in town has always perplexed me. Especially for pro teams and DG/Wally's/RiteAid, type places.
But, if you give a tax break to an established business in town, let's say the local mom and pop market, then why not to the local druggist, the local auto body shop, and so on?
Our town just got a Grocery Outlet store when we already have a long time family owned type grocery and a regional chain grocery. Why does a town of 2800 people need more than two grocery stores? Oh, the Grocery Outlet lot is supposed to anchor a "national" fast food type restaurant. Our local sit down restaurants already have a hard enough time keeping the doors open. Likely when the Burger King/Jacks/ or such comes in we'll lose another locally owned eatery.
We have a DG, and a Rite Aid, and even a Subway...................ain't that enough?
Geno
The desert is a true treasure for him who seeks refuge from men and the evil of men. In it is contentment In it is death and all you seek (Quoted from "The Bleeding of the Stone" Ibrahim Al-Koni)
D-G will be the ones that kick walmart in the balls.
So yall sould be suckin up to D-G, since we're boycotting walmart cause of that voluntary 'please don't wear your AR on a sling into our stores' policy
Walmart is anchored in 1 or 2 hard urban locations and buried within congestion. (4) in our town, not sure how many Billings has. No one I know wants to willing navigate 10-20+ red light intersections to go to a walmart as such around here.
Anyway, we have about 10-12 dollar generals in this county. I can be at DG in 6 minutes and get a gallon of milk. No lines, no shootouts, no panhandlers, and OHHHHHH and they don't have self checkout at DG. Holy Fugg, wabigoon you could shop there
Dollar General was actually great for the town I grew up in. Three Wal-Marts within 20 miles had pretty much killed every business in town except for a 150 year old hardware store and the Co-op. Dollar General came in and put a store in and now you don’t have to drive twenty miles for basic stuff.
Adapt or die is not a new concept. People will shop where they feel they get the best value,and why shouldn't they? The dollar stores are having their moment in the sun right now, in time they too will be eclipsed by something cheaper and more convenient, probably online order/delivery. I've lived near small towns all my life and know the "mom and pop" shops all too well....mostly limited selections of overpriced goods due to being the only game in town. If they are great stores with plenty to offer they will probably survive, if not....well, isn't that what capitalism is all about?
They put in a Dollar General Market[full line of groceries] here in a former Kroger bldg and our one local grocer a bit down the road is all but gone. Of course the fact that Food Lion put a store on either side of the local within a mile or so didn't help either.
Our good local grocers have fared well against Wal Mart, Super One, Dollar General, Family Dollar etc. One of the 24HCF poster's family own local grocery stores that seem to do well. Another local grocer just opened in a completely remodeled KMart building.
The ones that adapt thrive, the ones that do not die.
Adapt or die is not a new concept. People will shop where they feel they get the best value,and why shouldn't they? The dollar stores are having their moment in the sun right now, in time they too will be eclipsed by something cheaper and more convenient, probably online order/delivery. I've lived near small towns all my life and know the "mom and pop" shops all too well....mostly limited selections of overpriced goods due to being the only game in town. If they are great stores with plenty to offer they will probably survive, if not....well, isn't that what capitalism is all about?
well yes. and it's a dynamic process for sure.
we've had local communities howl to the moon that a dollar general type store wanted to move in. well, why not? it'll add value.
but no, in their view it devalues the neighborhood. really? are they working undercover for some other big corporation? i don't know.
i like convenience, no matter what the store front calls itself. it's a distribution machine, nothing else. let it run until something better comes along.
it can be eye-opening to see the differences in prices of bagged corn for the farm in terms of various suppliers. it's competition. and it's all good.
