Yes, though I was just a kid. Around here they were called five-and-ten-cent stores. I definitely remember Woolworths.
I’m surprised they had as good a run as they did. I’m amazed any of these types of places every made it past the planning stage.
Somebody spent a lot of money to send me to a real fancy business school, and after seeing Dollar Stores and my wife’s eBay Empire, realized that was all money wasted.
They defied most of what I thought I understood about business. 
Really? I’d have thought that “make something cheaper and more people will buy it” would be, like, day 1 of business school.
I just learned of a new offshoot of the Dollar Tree/Family Dollar family, called pOpshelf. It seems to be like Five Below but for adults. All the stuff that Dollar Tree was putting in their $3-8 section, now in one store. Watch out, TJ Maxx!
When our local dollar store (whatever it’s brand) started upping the prices on some things I was glad. (unlike all the other customers the clerk I was talking to had encountered). I figured they could carry more items, etc.
There’s a Five Below in the Death Mall* near us. I went to it. Good grief what a pathetic place. Surprisingly few items for sale, none of which were really worth it one way or another (too crappy or too overpriced), etc.
* You’ve been there. Used to have a Bed Bath and Beyond. Now the only “name” store is a Kohl’s circling the drain.
I was gonna mention TJ and others like that. We’ve had a couple run thru a death mall in a bigger town over. I’ll watch for pOpshop
Sounds like a place to see.
My favorite location is a outta the box place in an old car dealership. They buy out on attrition(I think that’s how they call it) kinda thing by bidding. They get lots of Amazon stuff. Books books and more books. On the really cheap. Love that.
I was sure that I had seen one, somewhere in the northern part of Sacramento, in an area that I have seldom had occasion to go. Checking their web site, just now, I see that there are five claimed locations in and around Sacramento.
About the experience that I would expect of a dollar store, except that the actual dollar stores in the area, at least the two main chains (of which one is now dying) have always managed to do much better. And Family Dollar's prices, as far as I have ever seen, are too high for it to qualify in my mind as having been a dollar store like Dollar Tree or 99 Cents Only.
It’s been a long time since I’ve actually been in a dollar store. I was only slightly startled when, on a day labor assignment from a few weeks ago, clearing out the ruins of a Dollar Tree that had a collapsed roof, to see tags all over the place proclaiming the actual price of everything in the store to be $1.25. I guess it shouldn’t have been surprising, but last time I was in a Dollar Tree, everything was still an even dollar.
At the time I was doing that Dollar Tree job, it was still up in the air whether the location would reopen as such after the building was repaired, or whether it was down for good. I guess we know, now, don’t we? The building will surely be repaired, and put back into use, but not as a Dollar Tree.
I did know, some years ago, that 99 Cents Only had been forced to raise it’s prices to 99.99¢. I bet they’re now over a dollar for everything.
Come to think of it, that’s one of two recent jobs I’ve been on, that involved clearing out a building that had been occupied by one business that was part of a chain that had gone or was going out of business, that will have a different business take its place. The other was a former Buy Buy Baby, at a much later stage of being cleared out, and supposedly a Macy’s is going to take its place.
That seemed to be specific to that on store, not to the chain as a whole. It seems that store has always been understaffed, by employees that didn’t seem to care much about doing their job well. Back when we shopped at such stores much more often than we seem to do recently, I nearly always found it worthwhile to go to a more distant Dollar Tree for much better service than we could ever get at the one nearest us.
I found a new one on my eclipse trip to Waco. “Ollie’s: Good stuff cheap.” Or maybe “cheap stuff - good”
It’s sort of a warehouse discount. Like a cross between Dollar General and @ Home.
I needed some Soft Soap for the trip. They had every leftover seasonal version - from Halloween. But…it was all 99 cents. So what if it smells like pumpkins or raspberry ghosts. It cleans the same.
I’ve been in Dollar Trees that are neat and well-maintained, and Dollar Trees that are kinda shabby and sketchy.
As of last time I ventured into the Dollar Tree nearest my apartment, “shabby and sketchy” would have been an improvement.
Heh, I know what you mean. They’re pretty tough places around here, too.
There’s a particular coffee flavorant the Lil’wrekker likes. She begs us all to go in there, to get it for her.
The last time she bribed her brother to do it. I mentioned she wasn’t really saving money that way. I got a snarl for a reply.
Perhaps I’m dense, but why is Lil’wrekker unwilling to go in there? Is there a Princess in the family?
The 99-cent stores are all over SoCal. A quick search shows at least 50 locations, out of 370 nationwide. Their most valuable asset is going to be the real estate the stores are sitting on, assuming they own the land.
Good bet substantially zero modern chain retail stores own the land they’re sitting on. If it’s in a strip center they almost certainly don’t. Freestanding stores in small towns, it’s much more likely the land and building are owned by the same folks as the retail operation inside the buildng.
You got it. Her Imperial person cannot be soiled by these menial tasks or caught in such places.
La-dee-da!
Princesses can only be princesses in the presence of enablers. Just sayin’.
Nailed it again.
I’m guilty.
You would too, if you were around her.
She sucks all the oxygen out of a room when she enters.
She’s a glorious person to be around and the sunshine I bask in.
Sounds horrifically off-putting to me, but I’m a jerk.
You do you and I’m genuinely glad it brings you joy. Plus no small measure of Momly pride.
I remember when TG&Y closed its store.
It was a Classic 5 and Dime store.
It was the first time I’d seen a major chain go under. They once had 900 stores in 29 states.
The store in my hometown had been there 25 years.
They tried rebranding as Dollar-T but that didn’t save the company.