Return engagement to Dollar Tree in Middleton WI

Clean, uncluttered, well-organized, well-stocked.   But understaffed.  (From a conversation I heard while waiting to check out, an employee didn't show up for work.)

 But like Motel 6, where you haven't been able to get a room for $6 since the early 1970s, the dollar stores are moving away from their $1 price point.  The cheapest item I purchased yesterday  was priced to move at $1.29.

Photos by Reitring Guy

Original 8/9/2014 post, "Middleton's Dollar Tree

A Tale of Two Dollar Stores.  (The New York Times, 8/3/2014)

Not after the same dollar.  The problem with this strategy is that the supply for these two stores is wildly different. Dollar Tree offers 

• party supplies (neglected to take a photo of the gift bags and wrapping paper)

• craft kits (the closest thing I could find to anything resembling a craft kit are these baskets and artificial flowers)

• and storage bins,(there's also a smaller section of bins for storage household items and office supplies)

while Family Dollar sells 

boxed food,  (a sample of the store's inventory)

canned food (in abundance)

and detergent.  (A small selection but most of the back wall display is given over to a variety of cleaning products.)

As these inventory differences suggest, despite the word “dollar” in both names, the two stores actually serve different worlds: the suburbs, in the case of Dollar Tree; and the cities, in the case of Family Dollar. 


Viva la difference?  Not in my experience.  In Middleton, they'll take anybody's dollar.

For a follow-up photo investigation, I'll compare the Family Dollar stores in Waunakee and on East Wash in Madison.

What got Louis Hyman's undies in a bundle?

Dollar Tree Bids for Family Dollar to Help Compete With Big Retailers,.  (The New York Times, 7/28/2014)

40 Mead security envelopes (4 1/8 in. x 9 1/2 in.) for a buck -- that's a bargain.  At a time when unemployment benefits claims are falling and the stock market is soaring, one might expect stores selling household goods for $1 to fall out of favor. Yet sales have climbed at such retailers in recent years as lower-income Americans continue to seek out bargains. 

“People are still under pressure,” Bob Sasser, Dollar Tree’s chief executive, said in a telephone interview. “It’s not like things are easy out there. And by the way, everyone likes to save money.”