Dollar Store: The Booming Business of Being Cheap

English: Family Dollar 50th Anniversary Flagship Store, Charlotte, NC (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There's a reason Christmas as become so crassly commercial. Retailers ring up as much as 40 percent of the entire year's sales between Black Friday and Christmas day. But there is one segment of stores that skips the holiday hoopla. In fact, they seem to fly under the retail radar all year long: Dollar stores.

The three top players, Family Dollar, Dollar Tree and Dollar General, have quietly become a $56 billion industry and they are opening new locations faster than Starbucks. By one estimate, there are more dollar stores in the United States than drug stores.

"Believe it or not, we can still open a lot of stores," said Family Dollar CEO Howard Levine. "Particularly in California where we just opened a store a year ago… this is probably a 1,000-store state."

Right now, Levine overseas an empire of 7,550 stores nationwide -- and counting. Family Dollar opened 500 new stores this year – more than one per day.

"If somebody told me I was cheap, I would take that as a compliment," he said. "That means we are looking for value. That means we don't overpay for stuff."

When asked what his answer was to the stereotype that dollar stores only sell junk, Levine said, "I say you haven't been in a Family Dollar, maybe ever, to make that kind of comment." Read more >>

Starbucks Opens First Store in India as U.S. Growth Slows

The world’s largest coffee chain will need options that are priced as much as 33 percent lower than its U.S. offerings to succeed in the Indian market, said Saloni Nangia, president at Gurgaon-based consultancy Technopak Advisors Pvt. The company opens its first outlet in the country today with partner Tata Global Beverages Ltd. in an upscale south Mumbai neighborhood that also boasts a Hermes store.

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Starbucks is entering the world’s second-most populous nation as part of a plan to counter slowing growth in the U.S. and a recession in Europe. The U.S. accounted for less than 70 percent of its sales last fiscal, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. In India, where consumption of the drink has almost doubled in the decade through 2010 to 108,000 metric tons, the chain will compete with Barista Coffee Co., a unit of Italy’s Lavazza SpA, and Cafe Coffee Day, run by Amalgamated Bean Coffee Trading Co.

“It’s a great time for Starbucks to come in because some of the base is already here, in terms of cafes, in terms of people using them as socializing hotspots,” said Nangia. “The average Indian consumer, or the current cafe consumer, is happy to upgrade to a Starbucks environment.” Read more >>

Education After the Collapse – School When There Is No Classroom

For those of us paying attention to what’s happening in the world around us, the coming collapse is a foregone conclusion. All signs point to the inevitable: that an event, or series of events, will soon lead the world into what can be described as a modern period of the Dark Ages. Food will become scarce, violence will thrive, disease will spread, governments will turn on their people, and the fragile social fabric that has maintained relative peace throughout the Western world will  unravel.

As Todd Sepulveda writes in his latest e-book, Education After the Collapse:

It’s not too hard to make the jump from our nice manicured lawns, suburban neighborhoods, Starbucks, 401K lives. On any given day TEOTWAWKI (The end of the world as we know it) can happen. Yes, this happens frequently on an individual or family level: losing a loved one, major medical situation, loss of a job, etc. However, it is not in the scope of this book to talk about those specific situations, or on a small level. The focus of this book is on “the big one.”

The big one could be a great number of things. A quick search on the internet will bring you a wide variety of scenarios. Or, just take a look at Matthew Stein’s article “Six Trends Converging on Collapse.” (Stein)

Even if we don’t ever have the “big one,” we are living unsustainable lives in which at some point, it will all come to a head. Read more >>