At first you think, Hey, this only costs a dollar, what a deal! But what you should be thinking is, Hey, wait a sec, I used to get a lot more for my money.
In a story about today’s hot competition between Walmart and dollar stores to attract shoppers with extremely limited funds to spend, the NY Times highlights age-old trick marketing tricks involving shrinkage and/or the subbing of inferior goods:
The dollar stores have found creative ways to keep their prices low. When commodity costs rose for suppliers, for example, the dollar stores asked them to decrease the number of sandwich bags in a box or pushed them to come up with a cheaper version of the products.
It’s great that stores are thinking about shoppers with flat, limited incomes who are living paycheck to paycheck. What’s not so great is that these stores are arguably taking advantage of shoppers with flat, limited incomes who are living paycheck to paycheck.
You can’t really blame the stores, though. Buyer beware.