How Dollar Tree Conquered Low Income America (15 Minutes)

From the outside, Dollar Tree is a fun, harmless store to buy random, gimmicky, short-lived products for a buck. But go inside, and Dollar Tree is a ruthless business empire who knows that its best customers are low income Americans. The company will do everything it can to suffocate the competition and be the only store physically available in low income communities, small towns, and rural America. So poor Americans keep buying Dollar Tree no matter how flimsy or low quality its products are, because there’s no other store that they can afford or is available in their neighborhood. Retail, at the most abstract, is the heartbeat that fuels daily domestic consumption which in turn drives the American economy. But what happens when that consumption, spending, and money printing finally catches up? 15% inflation. The highest increase in prices since the 1980s. $8 a gallon for gas. Shipping delays. Supply chain problems. Labor shortages. There’s enough sticker shock just going to the grocery store these days. And prices are just getting higher and higher. Throw in the stock market crashing back to pre-COVID levels and consumers, myself included, are now looking for discounts and deals in a world that seems to no longer offer any. There is one Fortune 500 corporation that despite the supply chain issues, labor shortages, inflation, gas costs, is so committed to giving you a discount that it puts it in their name. That company is the Dollar Tree. Dollar Tree doesn’t rely on any of the traditional retail playbooks. No flashy white lighting or minimalism decor, no modern sans-serif branding, and no marketing to millennials. Dollar Tree’s vicious conquest of low-income and rural America has been so successful that the company has found itself in hot water. Cities, small towns, and rural communities in New Orleans, Kansas City, and Birmingham have united to ban Dollar Tree from opening more stores in their neighborhoods