I’ve always wondered if certain items are better (in quality) if they’re bought from the mall, instead of Walmart?
Now, I’ve bought clothing & items from Walmart in the past, and they’ve lasted to this day. I just don’t see why buying a $100 pair of jeans is necessary, unless if you have the money to do so.
On an extra note, what things do you buy or avoid at Dollar Stores? For me, I stay away from the socks & shoes, along with certain body washes/shampoos & detergents/fabric softeners, (except for dryer sheets) due to the harsher chemicals used in cheaply made products. However, some of the shirts and pants are actually good.
They have clothes at dollartree?
I’m kinda creeped out by the food in dollar stores. I have seen a few branded products and I guess I would expect them to be up to par. IMO, malls are way overpriced, anyway.
Do you mean dollar stores where everything costs a dollar? Or stores like Family Dollar and Dollar General? I’ve seen socks at Dollar Tree (where everything costs a dollar) but never pants & shirts.
There was an expose a while back where they tested things like soaps and lotions and, especially, makeup that was being sold at the discount stores. Turned out most were being made in China and had either dubious or outright dangerous ingredients.
I buy candy at dollar stores all the time. Other than smaller packaging to accommodate price they are identical.
I also buy reading glasses at the dollar store all the time. They are practically disposable to me so I don’t mind if I lose or break them, which I have a tendency to do. They haven’t wrecked my sight yet.
I’d be afraid to buy hair dye at the dollar store that wasn’t a brand name.
I won’t buy food unless it’s a brand I’ve heard of.
I’ve never been to the dollar stores that aren’t really dollar stores, where items are more than $1. So I’ve never had experience with clothing.
But just about everything else I’ve purchased at Dollar Tree has been just fine. I buy wrapping paper, gift bags, cleaning supplies, kitchen utensils, toothbrushes, etc. They have THE BEST popcorn - Brim’s. It’s delicious!
WalMart clothing has always been great. I can’t imagine their t-shirts are made any differently than a t-shirt being sold at Penney’s or anywhere else in the mall for at least 3X the price. The clothing I’ve purchased at WalMart has lasted forever. I just found a really cute outfit last week at WalMart on the clearance rack. A pair of flower print capris for $5 and a really cute top - it’s a longer t-shirt style in a really soft fabric with kind of 60’s vibe sleeves -elbow length with 2 tiers of flouncy ruffles for $5. That will be my Mother’s Day outfit!
The same goes for WalMart’s store brands - Equate and Great Value. I’ve never had anything that wasn’t just as good as the name brand.
If you examine per-unit prices at the dollar store, in many cases you’ll find the dollar store items are actually more expensive than the same item at Target or Walmart, and even the items that appear to be a better deal are often a smaller quantity and/or vastly inferior products.
Dial, Dove and Soft Soap liquid soaps leave my skin feeling rough and slightly irritated after only a few days of use. I never have this problem with what dollar stores offer. However, there’s only so many little plastic pump bottles one needs, so I buy big bottles at Safeway or Fred Meyer and use my own pump bottle over and over. The store brands look like Dial but are cheaper. And my skin stays smooth and unirritated.
Dollar Tree and 99 Cents Only Store sell many of the same products that other stores sell–they just sell them cheaper. I’ve heard that they take advantage of shipping discrepancies, or something like that. In any case, just because a soap product is more expensive doesn’t mean the chemicals are any less “harsh.” Often it’s the exact same chemicals, and you’re really just paying for the label.
Shampoos are one of the biggest marking scams ever. For anything over $5 or $6 you’re just wasting your money.
Always check the labels and origin of anything you buy in $ stores, especially mom and pop ones. The brand name may be the same, but it’s made in a foreign country which may have different ingredients and standards from the U.S.
This is especially true for things like non-edible items like toothpaste, shaving cream and soap. But even name brand candies can be manufactured overseas.
This isn’t to say it’s a bad thing, but be aware before you buy. I prefer to buy locally bottled water when possible, but if that’s not available, I’ll buy a national name brand rather than an unknown brand.
also dollar tree/family dollar “licenses” brand names for some of their stuff so you see “3m scotch tape” than mfd by "Greenbriar intl for 3m " " who owns the stores and makes most of the stuff sold in dollar tree family dollar has the same setup under a diff name tho
and yes some companies won’t sell full-size products to dollar stores … in fact i think Kroger has in their contracts with suppliers that cant sell the same sizes to dollar/closeout stores like big lots that they sell in Kroger owned stores
sometimes it just doesn’t work like when coke tried to sell a 10 oz bottle for a dollar instead of the 20 oz ones they were selling in closeouts … iit didnt go well at all …
Not in the same country, but my mother worked for a while in a shampoo factory in the UK, a factory which made multiple brand name products, and a bunch of cheapy knock-offs. The difference was almost wholly limited to what thickener, scent and colourant they used (and that went for the dog shampoo as well). One of the £ shop specials, according to her, actually insisted on higher product testing standards than may of the well known premium brands.
Oh, and the ‘herbal extracts’ were the comedy token gesture of one pipette full per vat, regardless.
In my experience, liquid dish detergents in generic and/or dollar store brands seem to be more watered down than brand names. One squirt of the good stuff was the same as 3 or 4 squirts of the cheap stuff, so no real savings as far as I could see.
WallyWorld has some stuff that even Dollar Tree wouldn’t be able to beat. You can get a 6-for-$1 pack of toothbrushes at Wal-Mart, for instance. Since I tend to brush my teeth twice a day, and pretty vigorously, each toothbrush only lasts four or five days, but still, one of those packs gets me through a couple of two-week trips.
But on the whole, Dollar Tree is great for traveling. Whatever small items you forgot, you can buy them there for a buck each, and they’ll last you a week or two. Those off-off-brand batteries won’t last nearly as long as Duracell or even Ray-O-Vac, but they’ll last the week. Need some cheap snacks for your hotel room? They’ve got 'em. You forgot to pack earbuds? They’ve got those too - not the greatest, but good enough for a week.
They also have a decent collection of greeting cards - kinda hit-or-miss, of course, but enough of them are good that I always stock up for future occasions when I’m there, because instead of costing five or six bucks each (it’s crazy what greeting cards cost these days, most places), they’re only a buck.
What’s really cool about shopping at Dollar Tree are the times you don’t stop to think, “do I really need that?” and you just grab whatever strikes your fancy at the moment. And you get to the register with a basket full of stuff, and you find you’ve only spent $27 plus tax.
FWIW, I consider Dollar Tree to be a true ‘dollar store’ because everything’s $1, while Dollar General and Family Dollar aren’t, because most of their stuff costs a good deal more. Just having ‘Dollar’ in the store name doesn’t make it a dollar store.
