Remember back in 2014, when two different retailers fought for the affections of Family Dollar? Dollar Express, the new retail chain born because federal regulators required the chains to sell off stores to preserve competition, has been acquired by competitor Dollar General. [More]
discount stores
Target Sales Are Down Because Customers Are Fixing Up Their Homes Instead
By 8.17.16
Target’s first comparable stores sales decrease in two years is partly due to the retailer’s problems with actually selling groceries, but the drop also reflects problems with the national retail landscape as a whole. Target expected sales to increase slightly, but instead, Americans are apparently paying for experiences rather than stuff, heading to buy clothes at off-price stores, and buying supplies to remodel our homes. [More]
Prosperous Young Adults Don’t Need To Shop At Dollar Stores, Do Anyway
By 6.16.16
Dollar stores and dollar-ish stores are growing in popularity, with shoppers choosing them over grocery and discount stores for household staples like food, and for fun stuff like party decorations. Young adults grew up with dollar stores, and also had our spending habits shaped by last decade’s recession. That’s why millennials are sticking with dollar stores…even when their income reaches hundreds of thousands of dollars. [More]
Macy’s To Launch Quartet Of “Off-Price” (AKA Discount) Stores This Fall
By 5.5.15
Earlier this year, Macy’s said it was going to dip its toes into the waters of discount retailing by creating some sort of off-price offshoot of its department store chain. Today, the retailer confirmed some details about the first four locations for the store it has dubbed Macy’s Backstage. [More]
Coffee “Price Drop” At Meijer Means You Pay 10 Cents More
By 4.28.14
“Walmart and Target aren’t the only ones with weird ‘value’ pricing,” a reader pointed out to us in an e-mail over the weekend. Indeed, wherever there are price tags, sales, and workers who are not encouraged to use common sense, you will find fuzzy math. [More]
Aldi Hits Kid’s Krunch Cereal With Sugary, Sugary Shrink Ray
By 2.25.13
Matthew was shopping for cereal at Aldi when he noticed something interesting. The boxes of Kid’s Krunch cereal had recently been redesigned, and both versions were on the shelf, side-by-side. That’s a nice opportunity to do some comparisons. Unfortunately for Aldi, what he noticed while comparing the old and new boxes was that the cereal just happened to have lost a few ounces in the process. Oh no––the dreaded Grocery Shrink Ray has come to Aldi! [More]
Meijer Customer Service Saves The Day After Surgery
By 1.14.13
Amanda was exhausted, after dealing with her mother’s post-surgery care and bringing her home from the hospital. Neither of them anticipated that the biggest problem would that day be with getting her post-discharge prescriptions filled. One of the medications was more obscure than she had imagined. They visited three different pharmacies in their rural area and were ready to give up hope when they finally visited the pharmacy at the local Meijer. They had the drugs! For $250! Oh, no. [More]
Target Also Hauls Out Valentine’s Day Stuff In Mid-December
By 12.19.12
In the poll on our post from Monday about a Kmart that has already hauled out the stuffed animals and cards for Valentine’s Day, the wishes of our readership are clear: you don’t want to see Valentine’s Day stuff out until January at the earliest. Unfortunately, our readers don’t run the world, and certainly don’t run big-box discount stores. Reader L. sent along this photo from a Target store in Florida. [More]
This Item Is 20% Off Only Online At Target: Not Available Online
By 7.29.11
Oh, Target. We hadn’t received any stories about your tenuous grip on reality in a while, an thought that perhaps things were getting better. Then you advertised an item as being simultaneously on ale online only, but also available only in stores. What? [More]
Woman Gives Away Free Stuff To 'Mexican Women,' Causes Discount Store Frenzy
By 6.10.11
It’s a scientifically documented fact that the best way to cause a frenzy in a retail store is to give stuff away to everyone in the vicinity. That’s exactly what happened in Oceanside, Calif. recently when a woman shouted in a discount store that she would buy $100 worth of merchandise for each person there. As long as they were Mexican women. The generosity came with a tirade of profanity and a whole lot of questions about the woman’s mental state. [More]
Grocery Same Size Ray Keeps Shaving Cream Same Size, Lies About It
By 6.24.10
We’ve extensively documented the use of the Grocery Shrink Ray to fool humans’ puny brains into thinking that familiar products are the same size they’ve always been. But Jim has discovered something even more devious: the Same Size Ray, which has a similar but more nefarious effect on consumer products. It emblazons packaging with the exciting news that a product is now bigger: but it’s all a cruel lie. Maybe. [More]
Kmart Posts Amazing Coupon On Internet, Then Forgets Internet Exists
By 3.20.10 — Updated: 12.26.13
Here’s a helpful piece of advice for Kmart and Sears Holding Company as a whole: if you’re going to issue a coupon valid only for a few stores and post it on your Web site, don’t put the words “valid at all stores” on it. See, there is this thing called the “internet,” which people like to use to share coupons and deals. Customers printed out what looked like a perfectly valid coupon from Kmart’s site, then were treated like criminals and accused of fraud when they actually tried to use those coupons. [More]
Walmart Customer Traffic And Total Sales Down
By 2.18.10
Is it a good sign or a bad one for the American economy if Walmart’s sales are down nationwide? Does it mean that the affluent are back on their feet and no longer forced to shop downscale, or that none of us has any money at all? [More]
Dollar Store Grand Opening Attracts Hundreds Of Shoppers
By 11.13.09
To promote the opening of a new store, ultra-discount chain 99 Cents Only stocked a few things they don’t normally carry, and sold them for 99 cents. Things like iPods and scooters. When they opened a store in San Jose, Calif., this sale proved popular. Very popular.
Target's New Return Policy Might Be Better: We're Not Sure
By 10.24.09
Target recently changed their return policy. It’s more consumer-friendly. We think. What we can tell you for sure is that it’s more confusing.
Walmart's New Competitor-Crushing Initiative
By 9.12.09
Walmart is looking to grow. Yes, grow. Their latest initiative, “Project Impact,” aims to make stores easier and quicker to navigate, improve customer service, and to move in on competitors’ territory as much as possible.
What Do Sales Data Show About This Recession?
By 8.23.09
People aren’t buying: Large appliances, furniture, and durable household goods
Kmart Launches Christmas Site In July
By 7.7.09
You know “Christmas in July?” Kmart does. They sent a mailing out to customers today about their new site, Christmas Lane. It promises “the best deals for Christmas, 5 months early.” To us, that’s more of a threat than a promise.
