4.6 • 13.2K Ratings
🗓️ 9 April 2025
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
After 10 years of rapid growth, the dollar stores hit big trouble. Rats, burglars, unhappy workers, online agitators and inflation erode their profits. And a new online dollar store makes inroads. Can they survive these existential threats?
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0:00.0 | Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of business wars, |
0:04.0 | price wars, the fall of dollar stores. |
0:06.6 | Early and ad-free right now. |
0:08.8 | Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. |
0:18.5 | No more. |
0:19.6 | Dollar stores. |
0:39.3 | We're going to grocery stores. No more. store! We want grocery store! No more, dollar store! We want grocery store! No more, dollar store! We want grocery store! No more, dollar store! We want grocery store! No more, dollar store! And in the Titanic fight for market share, Dollar General is going urban. For decades, the market-leading dollar store chain is focused on rural America. |
0:44.3 | Now, it's breaching the city limits. |
0:47.3 | It's intruding on turf long dominated by its closest rival, Family Dollar. |
0:52.3 | And one of the places on Dollar General's expansion list |
0:55.8 | is North Tulsa, Oklahoma. The median income here is around half of that of South Tulsa. Around a |
1:03.4 | third of people living in North Tulsa live below the poverty line, all of which makes it prime |
1:09.0 | territory for dollar stores. Dollar General wants |
1:12.3 | to open on Pine and Peoria, just a few yards from a family dollar. It's an aggressive |
1:17.5 | play to be sure. There's already nine dollar stores in the neighborhood, each competing |
1:22.6 | to be the most convenient destination. But for city councilor Vanessa Hall Harper, the arrival of another dollar |
1:29.4 | store in her district is anything but good news. The district might be awash with dollar stores, |
1:35.2 | but it doesn't have a single supermarket. So she's launched a campaign to keep Dollar General out. |
1:42.5 | I want to say up front, I am not anti-dollar stores. |
1:45.0 | I am not against dollar stores. |
1:46.2 | I've never been. |
1:47.3 | But I am against the proliferation of dollar stores. |
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