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DOLLAR Tree items may soon see another price hike as some locations make room for more expensive items.
One customer posted on Facebook about his local Dollar Tree’s recent remodel that came with “multiple price points.”
Dollar Tree has been under fire from customers after price increases[/caption]
Customers joked on Facebook that the chain should rename itself to Twenty-dollar Tree after the increases[/caption]
Over the last four years, Dollar Tree’s profits have grown by roughly 35%[/caption]
“This store already has Dollar Tree Plus,” wrote customer Shawn Reisinger.
“This is the 2nd remodel to add more higher priced Merchandise to the store,” Reisinger continued.
Another customer, Steven Schendler, commented with a photo of a price scanner used for checking price tags.
“Ours features this,” he said about his local Dollar Tree.
“Mine has items up to $19.99 now,” wrote another.
“Need to change the name to Twenty Dollar Tree,” responded someone else.
Dollars Tree was once a lifeline to some who were struggling financially, establishing a place where people could get much-needed food and supplies for low prices.
But now, low-income and even middle-class customers are struggling to keep up with the high increases from chains around the country.
In fact, the vast majority of Americans are financially worse off now than they were compared to before the start of the pandemic, according to research by Yahoo! Finance.
The average prices of food and beverages are roughly 22 to 25 percent higher now than they were four years ago, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and economic data from the Federal Reserve.
But while more Americans are struggling in the past four years, retailers, like Dollar Tree, have seen their profits skyrocket, recording record profits.
Corporate profits boomed so high that they now account for the largest share of national income in the last decade, according to the National Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Some major brands have even reduced the size of their packaging, and the amount of food contained therein, by over 20 percent over the past year without reducing prices, according to research by Capital One.
Capital One’s research found that this practice, dubbed shrinkflation has “effectively increased the cost per unit,” and is responsible for driving up “grocery price inflation” by over 10 percent.
In 2019, before the pandemic, Dollar Tree recorded gross profits of just under $7 billion, according to company records.
For 2024, Dollar Tree has so far recorded $9.3 billion in gross profit, also according to company records.
At least 1,000 dollar stores to close, CEO says
Dollar Tree, the parent company of Family Dollar, revealed it would close around 1,000 stores in the coming years.
The company announced in March that it will shutter the stores after the discount retailer it acquired nearly a decade ago plummeted in value.
Dollar Tree plans to close about 600 Family Dollar stores in the first half of this year.
This will be followed by the shuttering of 370 Family Dollar and 30 Dollar Tree stores over the next several years.
The chain of discount variety stores has also indicated that sales are being affected by the cost-of-living crisis and inflation.
But USA Today added that Dollar Tree has also been rocked by reduced government benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
This has left families struggling to juggle finances, with as much as $250 less per month.
This represents a nearly 35% increase in profits over the four years since the pandemic.
“The prices keep going up, but my salary doesn’t,” Mary Jane Santos, a mother in New York told The Long Island Herald.
“I’m spending double the money on groceries to feed my family, but I’m not making double the salary,” she complained.
Santos told the outlet she makes decent money, but it’s hard to stay afloat when most of it is spent on rent and the rising price of food – which she pointed out is costing her nearly double what it used to feed her family.
“I’m not getting an extra $300 to buy food,” she said.
