الأربعاء، 3 أكتوبر 2018
60 Major Retailers Have Announced Plans to Be Closed on Thanksgiving Day
You may want to rethink that plan.
Deal-tracking site BestBlackFriday.com reported this week that at least 60 major retailers will be closed on Thanksgiving Day (Thursday, Nov. 22).
The closures range from Barnes & Noble and Home Depot to PetSmart and T.J. Maxx.
Providing time off for employees to spend with their families was a major reason cited by stores who spoke to BestBlackFriday.com. “In addition to taking care of employees, many stores have also told us they do not want to force their customers into thinking they must shop in-store on Thanksgiving Day to get the best deals,” co-founder Phil Dengler wrote on the site.
Stores that the site predicts will be open on Thanksgiving include Target, Walmart, Macy’s and Best Buy, among other large chains.
BestBlackFriday.com recently conducted a survey of 1,069 people to gauge its readers’ holiday shopping plans.
More than 47% of respondents said they would not shop on Thanksgiving Day this year; only about 14% of respondents said they would. When asked how they felt about stores being open on Thanksgiving Day, 29% of respondents said they strongly dislike it. Less than 25% said they favor or strongly favor the shopping option.
Lisa Rowan is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder covering the retail and grocery industries.
The Penny Hoarder Promise: We provide accurate, reliable information. Here’s why you can trust us and how we make money.
This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.
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Our Holiday Budget Planner Will Let You Play Santa Without Going Broke
And before figuring out what you should spend your money on, it’s essential to figure out how much money you can spend.
We promise: If you set aside an hour to review your numbers, you’ll emerge in the new year feeling much better.
Budget Planning for the Holidays
To make this a little easier (and a lot more fun), we’ve created something special just for our Penny Hoarders: A free holiday budgeting worksheet.
Before filling it out, get in the swing of things with these eight tips…
1. Analyze Your Debt
It may not be pleasant, but it’s necessary: Before you do anything else, take a good look at your debt — specifically, your credit card debt.
If you have more on your credit cards than you can pay off this month, we urge you to reconsider participating in the holiday shopping frenzy. A much better use of your hard-earned money would be to pay down your credit card balance.
Skipping the expensive gifts doesn’t mean you can’t shower your friends and family with love. You can make gifts by hand (here are some affordable gift ideas), or you can give them service coupons for favors — like cleaning their house or making them dinner.
After all, a gift from the heart often means more than something that will be out of style next year.
2. Project Your Total Holiday Income
Credit cards in the clear? Time to estimate the total amount you’re going to earn over the holiday season.
If you get the same paycheck every two weeks, this will be easy.
If your pay is irregular, it’ll take a little more effort. One option is to look at your pay stubs or bank accounts from this time last year.
Or, if your job has changed since then, you can average the amount you earned over the last three months. (If you have a particularly high month, throw it out; it’s better to err on the lower side.)
3. Calculate Your Basic Budget
Once you know how much you’ll earn during the holiday season, it’s time to calculate your expenses.
Before determining how much you can spend on holiday extras, you need to create a basic budget for essentials like rent, groceries, car insurance and other expenses. (If you don’t already have a monthly budget, stop what you’re doing and read these tips for how to make a budget that actually works.)
But you’re not done yet — we still have to add the fun stuff.
4. Calculate Your Holiday Spending
So, you’ve figured out your projected income and a basic budget for the holiday season — but what about the extras? How much can you spend on gifts and parties?
To find that magic number, subtract your basic budget from your projected income. Voila! You now know how much you can comfortably spend on fun stuff over the next couple of months.
If you want to know how much you can spend on gifts alone, simply subtract again: The amount of money you plan to spend on things like flights, special foods, party outfits, etc.
5. Fill Out Your Holiday Budgeting Worksheet
Alright, Santa, who’s on your list?
Record your friends and family members in our handy holiday budgeting worksheet and assign a gift budget to each.
The amounts should add up automatically — if the total is less than or equal to your official total budget, then you’re good to go. If not, tweak the numbers until they work. (Remember: A little extra wiggle room never hurts!)
Next, brainstorm gifts for each person that are at or below each price point.
6. Start Tracking Prices
One of the keys to smart holiday shopping is patience. Well, patience and research.
Before making any purchases, check prices at multiple stores. Price-tracking and -comparison tools abound, which makes the process nearly effortless.
BuyHatke is a useful browser extension that compares and tracks prices. When you shop on Amazon, it also displays price-history graphs, so you can see if the current price is really a bargain.
If you’re on the go, scan an item’s bar code with Purchx to read reviews and compare prices. Or try the SlickDeals app, which alerts you when prices drop in certain categories or at your favorite stores.
7. Stick to It!
This step may be last, but it’s one of the most important (and is definitely the hardest to follow).
Sticking to your budget is the only way to avoid a holiday hangover — at least financially.
To help, create a “holiday” expense category with an all-in-one tool like Mint or an app like Santa’s Bag, which will help you manage both your gift list and holiday budget from one platform.
If you prefer something more tactile, withdraw your holiday shopping budget in cash and keep it in a jar.
If you buy anything online or with a credit card, take that amount out of the jar and put it into a separate envelope, which you can later re-deposit into your checking account. Once that jar’s empty, so is your holiday budget.
One bonus of carefully tracking your holiday spending? If you find great deals, you may have a little extra cash for yourself at the end.
You might curse us when you can’t buy every single thing your heart desires, but you’ll thank us when the new year arrives!
Susan Shain is a freelance writer and digital nomad. She covers travel, food and personal finance (basically, how to save money so you can travel more and eat more). Visit her blog at susanshain.com, or say hi on Twitter @susan_shain.
The Penny Hoarder Promise: We provide accurate, reliable information. Here’s why you can trust us and how we make money.
This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.
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Don’t Wait: Here’s Where to Get a Free or Low-Cost Mammogram This Month
And one of the best ways to stop breast cancer in its tracks? Early detection (it works).
Though every woman should do breast self-exams each month, women over 40 should also consider getting a mammogram — an X-ray that examines breast tissue — every one to two years. (Here are specific guidelines.)
If you’re younger than 40 but have risk factors for breast cancer, you might need mammograms, too; ask for your doctor’s recommendation.
Whatever your age, don’t avoid mammograms because of their cost.
Women today have a bounty of ways to get free and low-cost mammograms. Here are six excellent options.
1. Your Doctor
If you’re 40 or older, the Affordable Care Act requires your insurer to cover screening mammograms with no co-payment. More information is available here.
Medicare and Medicaid also cover the cost of mammograms.
2. The National Breast Cancer Foundation
The National Breast Cancer Foundation partners “with medical facilities across the country to provide free mammograms and diagnostic breast care services to underserved women.”
Click here to search for a location near you.
3. The Susan G. Komen Foundation
This organization has affiliates in 120 American cities.
According to its website, its affiliate network “is the nation's largest private funder of community-based breast health education and breast cancer screening and treatment programs.”
To learn what resources are available in your area, search for your local affiliate here. Click on “Understanding Breast Cancer,” and then “Local Resources for You.”
Prefer to speak to someone?
Call the organization’s breast care helpline at 1-877-GO-KOMEN (1-877-465-6636), and the representatives will help you find low-cost options in your area.
4. The National Breast and Cervical Cancer Control Program
The CDC’s National Breast and Cervical Cancer Control Program “provides breast and cervical cancer screenings and diagnostic services to low-income, uninsured and underinsured women across the United States.”
To qualify for this screening, you should be between the ages of 40 and 64, have no insurance or insurance that fails to cover screening exams, and also live at or below 250% of the federal poverty level.
You can find out more information about your state or territory here.
5. The YWCA
Some YWCA chapters provide breast cancer screening and education to women who have no insurance or are underinsured.
Contact your local YWCA to see if it offers affordable mammograms.
6. Your Local Imaging Center
According to the Susan G. Komen Foundation, many imaging centers offer reduced rates during Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
You can search for a local mammography center on the FDA website.
You might be wondering why Planned Parenthood isn’t on the list. These popular clinics provide clinical breast exams, but not mammograms; if an abnormality is detected during your exam, the doctor will refer you to a provider of low- or no-cost mammograms like the ones above.
To learn more about mammograms — including how they work and how to prepare — check out this easy-to-read PDF from the Komen Foundation.
Whatever you do, don’t wait!
Susan Shain is always seeking adventure on a budget. Visit her blog at susanshain.com, or say hi on Twitter @susan_shain. Web Producer Jacquelyn Pica did the research.
The Penny Hoarder Promise: We provide accurate, reliable information. Here’s why you can trust us and how we make money.
This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.
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How to Improve Your Online Reputation
Things happen. You made a mistake and did something that damaged your reputation.
Maybe you said something that people took as offensive. Or maybe your social media manager tweeted something inappropriate.
The delete button doesn’t erase things from someone’s memory.
Or maybe your company was the victim of a credit card breach that impacted your customers. In this case, it’ll be tough for you to get your customers to recommend your brand to others.
But just because you had a slip-up doesn’t mean your company is doomed forever.
There are steps you can take and changes you can make that will improve your reputation online.
That said, this guide isn’t just for brands with a bad reputation. Those of you who have a new company with no reputation will need help building your reputation from scratch.
Some of you have been in business for a while and don’t even realize your actions aren’t helping your reputation. Regardless of your situation, I’m confident you’ll benefit from this guide.
Research shows that 58% of business executives think they need to manage their reputation online. However, just 15% of these people actually do something about it.
Furthermore, 41% of brands that experienced an event that damaged their reputation said their revenue decreased as a result.
You don’t want to be one of these statistics. It’s time to do something about your online reputation.
Ask your customers to write reviews
Right now, you may have some negative reviews online hurting your reputation.
That’s bound to happen. It’s an unavoidable part of being in business because not everyone will have the best experience with your company.
But if you don’t have lots of reviews online, these negative ones will stand out more.
What about all your current customers happy with your business? You need them to review your brand.
How can you get them to do this? Just ask them.
Check out this email Sleefs sent out to its customers:
The company gives its customers an incentive to write a review.
I know some of you are thinking this might be unethical, but that’s not so.
Look at this message a bit closer. It doesn’t say anywhere you need to write a positive review. It just invites you to write a review.
Its customers also have a couple of different options here. This will appeal to people who have different preferences.
If customers are willing to write a review and share it with their friends, they’ll get a free product. The people who just want to write a review will receive 15% off their next order.
Another great part about this message is the emoji at the bottom. You can learn how to improve your click-through rates with emojis.
If people do write positive reviews after receiving your encouragement, the good reviews will balance out the negative ones.
Plus, a mix of positive and negative reviews will show people your brand is authentic. If every review was positive, it may cause prospective customers think that some of the reviews are fake.
Nobody’s perfect, and people know that. So don’t let a few bad reviews bring you down.
Ask your current customers to write more reviews, and you’ll be just fine.
Expand your presence
Where can people find out more information about your business?
You can’t just rely on one platform for ratings and reviews. Your customers have different preferences for researching brands.
OK, so your business has a Facebook page. That’s great.
But that alone isn’t enough. Take a look at which review sites consumers trust the most:
As you can see, the answers are quite different. No single platform is that far ahead of the others.
- Yelp
- Trip Advisor
- Better Business Bureau
- Yellow Pages
You need to have a profile on all of these.
Here’s something else to consider. Even if you don’t currently have an account on a platform such as Yelp, customers can still leave reviews on those sites about your business.
It’s in your best interest to claim those business pages to make sure all your information is accurate.
I’m referring to information such as your website address, phone number, physical address, and store hours. If you don’t claim your pages and check them for accuracy, it could hurt your reputation even more.
Let’s say someone sees a bad review online but they still want to give you the benefit of the doubt. They call you to find out more information and get a disconnected line because your phone number was inaccurate.
You just lost your chance of getting that person’s business. Don’t let this happen to you, and make sure your business is getting reviews on as many platforms as possible.
Remove ads from your website
You may not realize it, but your website may be hurting your credibility.
There could be certain design choices or elements that are turning people away and making them think your business is untrustworthy. You need to correct this as soon as possible.
Identify the top elements adding credibility to your website, and compare them to those on your own site.
One of the first things you should do is get rid of any ads you’re currently running for other businesses.
Look at how many different types of ads consumers dislike seeing:
Pop-ups and banner ads both ranked high on the list.
I know some of you may be selling ad space on your site as a way to increase your revenue streams, but it’s not worth it.
How much are you generating from these ads?
Compare that to the potential you could be making from selling actual products and services on your website. It just doesn’t make sense to prioritize something like ad space.
Encourage customers to upload their photos
In addition to asking your customers to write reviews for your business online, you also want them to upload photos.
Why?
Well, 77% of consumers say customer photos have a greater impact on their buying decisions than professional photos.
This makes a lot of sense. Photos you take of your business will obviously be great and make your brand look good.
But customer photos are much more authentic.
They won’t be taken on a professional camera and be positioned in perfect lighting.
Customer photos are likely to be taken quickly on their smartphones. But those images are enough to improve your reputation, especially if they’re uploaded with a favorable review.
Here’s an example of how JCPenney encouraged its customers to upload photos with this email campaign:
As in a previous example, this message is designed to encourage the store’s customers to write reviews. By writing a review, they’ll be entered into a contest to win a $1,000 gift card.
This is a great strategy for running a profitable giveaway.
But customers have a chance to get additional entries. If they upload a photo with their review, they’ll get a second entry to increase their chances of winning.
Use a similar tactic when trying to get your customers to write reviews. Ask them to upload photos as well.
Publicly respond to customer complaints
When users write unfavorable reviews about your business online, it can be a tricky situation.
Obviously, you want to defend yourself. But at the same time, you don’t want to start an argument with anyone.
Ignoring complaints isn’t the best option either. Other people will want to see how you’re able to handle a negative situation.
Remember the first rule of business? The customer is always right.
Even when they’re wrong, you need to treat them properly. Rather than being defensive and trying to make yourself look better, focus on making them happy.
Here’s an example of how Best Buy responded to a customer complaint on its Facebook page:
This customer had a problem with her experience at a specific store location.
Rather than trying to defend the situation, the company politely replied, empathizing with the customer and trying to get more information to help come up with a resolution.
Furthermore, this customer continued having problems when it came to reaching customer support on Facebook.
Best Buy responded to that comment as well by replying again and making sure her personal information and privacy were protected. This is a great example of how to publically handle customer complaints in the digital world.
Share user-generated content
As previously discussed, customer photos attached to a review are a great way to improve a brand’s reputation.
However, not everyone who writes a review will upload a photo.
Fortunately, that’s not the only way for you to get customer photos in the public eye. Start sharing user-generated content on your social media platforms.
Now you can control which types of customer photos make your brand look the most appealing.
Check out this example on Instagram from Vuori Clothing:
This photo shows a real person wearing the company’s product as opposed to one of its employees modeling the gear.
User-generated content creates social proof of concept and is beneficial to your reputation.
Prospective customers will be more inclined to support your business if they see social proof on your platforms.
Take advantage of tools that monitor your reputation
How is your online reputation?
Unless you had a damaging event, some of you might not even know whether you have a positive or negative reputation online.
Sure, you might monitor some of your comments and review websites, but that alone isn’t enough to get the full picture of how people really feel about you.
You need to start using online tools to notify you when someone mentions your business. For example, a third-party review website could write an unfavorable blog post about one of your products.
If you were monitoring reviews only on Yelp and Google, you wouldn’t know about this at all.
But if you use a tool such as Google Alerts, you’ll be notified every time you get mentioned.
You can even take this one step further and use Rankur that has more specific software for online reputation management:
I definitely recommend trying options like these.
After all, how can you improve your online reputation if you don’t know where it stands to begin with?
Start prioritizing your blog
A great way to get a better online reputation is by improving your domain authority.
Blogging is one of my favorite ways to accomplish this.
If you’re one of my faithful readers, you know how much I believe in this strategy. You can start scaling your lead generation through blogging as well.
Publishing posts on your website on a regular basis will improve your SEO. You’ll be able to get both inbound and outbound links through this strategy.
Posting images and enhancing your content by building infographics will increase the chances that other websites will repurpose your content.
As a result, your authority ranking will also improve.
Partner with social influencers
Social influencers are another way to help you create social proof, which I discussed earlier when talking about user-generated content.
Studies show 90% of consumers trust recommendations from their peers. And 71% of consumers are more likely to buy something based on a social media referral.
That’s what makes social influencers so appealing.
Take a look at how CALIA used this strategy by partnering with Anastasia Ashley as an influencer on Instagram:
Instead of sharing this image on its own page, the company posted it on the influencer’s account.
As a result, the content got seen by a much wider audience.
Leveraging your relationships with social influencers exposes your brand to a group of people who may not even know your company exists.
Plus, if people are following that influencer, they must value their opinions. So they’re already primed for you to target them.
Showcase customer testimonials
Customer reviews on third-party sites are an important aspect of improving your reputation.
But you can showcase the top reviews in the form of a testimonial on your website. Ask your best customers to take the time to write a testimonial for you.
Here’s an example of how BuildFire uses this tactic on its homepage:
The company highlighted testimonials from three very different businesses.
Having a well-respected insurance company such as Travelers write a testimonial for its business automatically improves BuildFire’s reputation.
Try to get testimonials from authority figures in a specific industry.
For example, let’s say your business makes musical instruments. A testimonial from a guitar player in a well-known band would help your reputation more than a review from a kid who plays drums in his parent’s garage.
Conclusion
If your company’s reputation got damaged, you can still correct it.
Even if you’re just trying improve your reputation or build credibility from scratch, you should follow the advice I’ve outlined in this guide.
Encourage your customers to write reviews. Set up a profile on as many review platforms as possible.
Reviews with pictures are even more impactful.
Get rid of ads on your website. Learn how to respond to customer complaints in the public eye.
Use tools that help you manage your reputation online. This will help you stay informed anytime someone mentions your business.
Share user-generated content. Start blogging more frequently. Work with social influencers.
In addition to reviews, use your website to highlight customer testimonials.
If you follow these tips, you shouldn’t have much trouble improving or repairing your online reputation.
What steps are you taking to improve the online reputation of your business?
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How Being Involved in the Community Can Help Your Finances
One of my most frequent pieces of advice, which comes up for numerous reasons, is to get involved in your local community. I regularly recommend getting involved in local civic groups (like the Lions Club), local Meetups, local churches and other religious organizations, local charities, local parks and recreation activities, and even local politics. You can usually find such groups by checking your city’s website, visiting the local library, or stopping by city hall.
I offer such suggestions because there are several key reasons for doing so, each of which is helpful to your financial state. Let’s walk through them.
The activities themselves are usually free and provide a great source of entertainment. The vast majority of things going on in your community are free to attend, so, on a surface level, they provide a free source of entertainment. In just the past year, I’ve attended several concerts, a few lectures and presentations, and a ton of group meetings of various kinds, and none of them have cost me a dime. Almost universally, I’ve enjoyed and been entertained by the experiences, even if they didn’t turn out to be something that I continued to be involved with.
Even living in a small town, it would not be hard for me to fill out my calendar with free events in my town and in nearby towns. Civic groups, free concerts, free sporting events, Meetups, and countless other things can easily fill every night of the week, even if I’m being selective.
They provide a powerful opportunity to learn of more things going on in the local community. Although you can get a pretty list of events and activities going on in your local community via the above strategies and have more free entertainment than you can imagine, there’s often another “layer” of activities going on that isn’t as easy to find, whether it’s due to poor advertising or due to such events being under the umbrella of a particular organization or some other factor.
Often, such events are made known via word of mouth at other community events. For example, you might find out about a community potluck dinner only by going to a Lion’s Club meeting, or you might discover that there’s an ultimate frisbee league only because you happened to show up at a 5K walk/run.
In other words, not only are the events themselves a free form of entertainment, they also often reveal more activities that you’re not even aware of and likely would have never heard about if you stuck to just looking at the listings online.
They provide a great opportunity to meet people and build friendships. A community event is a perfect time to meet people and build acquaintances and even friendships. You have people congregating in a single place with which you already have two things in common: you live near each other (meaning you have shared interest in the local community) and you have an interest in that particular event. That alone provides more than enough material with which to get to know lots of people.
The value of having personal friendships and acquaintances in the local community cannot be overstated. They can become people you barter with or hand off unused items or borrow things, which can save you money directly. They can become people with whom you share information and local bargains, which can often save money.
As friendships grow, you can start doing things like swapping child care, helping each other with projects, keeping an eye on each other’s homes while you’re traveling, and so on. The savings of having a good local friendship is quite large, and it only gets better if you have lots of local friends.
In terms of opportunity, having local friends can help when you’re looking for work or need a reference. Friends often serve as a point of reference or introduction to new people in the community as well, which further grows these benefits.
They provide a great opportunity to discover a new low-cost passion in your life. Most of the time, when I go to a community event or a meetup or a lecture, it’s good enough for an afternoon or an evening of entertainment. Every once in a while, however, it sparks a new interest in me, giving me something to learn more about and practice and dig into in my own time.
I discovered ultimate Frisbee and disc golf at a community meetup several years ago, both of which have provided many hours of entertainment for me and my friends over the years. My passion for hiking was spurred on by an outdoor club I discovered in a town that I lived in many years ago. My passion for board games was strongly aided and encouraged by a local board gaming group.
Each of those experiences has brought a ton of value into my life. They’ve turned into hobbies that I’ve followed on my own beyond the community event itself and, in most cases, the community event showed me how to do it at a minimal cost.
They provide resume building and leadership experiences. If you begin to get involved in a community group, you’ll eventually find that there are ample opportunities for leadership and taking on projects for yourself. Not only are these projects often enriching for their own sake, they tend to make wonderful material for resumes under the “Other Interests” section.
Not only that, your efforts in such an activity are likely to be noticed by others in the community, which can open up professional doors for you. I have personally witnessed someone’s performance in a civic organization directly lead to a new job for that person and, in another situation, witnessed a person get a job thanks to “help” from another leader of that organization.
Even if you never gain any direct career value from such connections, the leadership and organizational skills you can learn from stepping up in a civic organization can have a direct positive impact on your work performance, as well as giving you the courage to step up for leadership positions in the workplace, both of which can lead to an increase in income.
They regularly drop unexpected opportunities in your lap. A few weeks ago, I showed up at a free community event where there was a raffle going on. I dropped my name in the hat and won a gift certificate to a local restaurant.
About a year ago, I went with my kids to a free community event that also had a raffle. My kids put their names in the raffle and they won a movie and book bundle.
I served on a community board a few years ago where one of the members cooked dinner for us before every meeting, simply out of kindness and an effort to team build, and she was a marvelous cook. Another member of the board started bringing along a dessert every month. One month, when the usual cook wasn’t available, I stepped up and made chili for everyone – yes, it cost me as much as $10 there – but I had free meals once a month for a year.
I’ve been at community events and meetings where the organization provided free pizza or beverages for everyone. I’ve been at meetings where everyone in the room got a free book.
That’s just the freebies. Through community events, I’ve found out about unadvertised estate sales. I’ve been given furniture. I’ve had someone loan me a car when ours was in the shop. One time, a person gave me several thousand Magic: the Gathering cards because she heard that I used to play and listened to her talk about her son who had passed away unexpectedly; she actually went home, dug them out of her closet, and brought them back to give to me. I’ve received countless coupons and snacks and, on at least one occasion, an Entertainment Book for the community that was loaded with certificates for various free and highly discounted activities.
What’s the common thread? I showed up at free community events and got involved in a few organizations. My cost was next to nothing beyond my time.
I consider getting involved in one’s community one of the best little financial moves a person can make. It’s a subtle thing that rarely shows up on a balance sheet, but it’s time well spent at no cost (or occasional low cost) that adds up to far, far more over time.
Get involved. You won’t regret it.
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15 Ways to Turn Your Trash into Cash
As a youngster, I was extremely money motivated. In fact, my friend and I would come up with new money making schemes all the time. Besides making and selling arts and crafts, perfume, and lemonade, we would also dig through the nearby office park’s dumpers in search of soda cans and other treasures. Most of […]
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Costco vs. Dollar Tree: When Does Bulk Beat the Buck?
The dollar store is only a great deal if what you’re buying is worth a dollar.
In our neck of the woods in Washington County, Ore., the nearest dollar store sits in a darkened corner of a strip-mall parking lot, sparsely populated on all but the highest-traffic holiday weekends. The nearby Costco, however, is packed to near-capacity every weekend it’s open.
The latter requires a minimum $60 membership and relies on bigger-ticket bulk purchases for its savings. The former charges just a dollar for every item it sells – as Dollar Tree and 99 Cents Only do, but Dollar General and Dollar Tree-owned Family Dollar often don’t – but is expected to grow to more than 34,000 locations by 2020.
The two biggest dollar-store chains, Dollar Tree and Dollar General, have more stores combined than the six biggest U.S. retailers — Walmart, Kroger, Costco, Home Depot, CVS, and Walgreens – put together. If you put all the Macy’s, Kohl’s, Nordstrom, JCPenney, Dillard’s, Saks/Lord & Taylor, Neiman Marcus, and Belk locations together, they’d amount to less than 15 percent of the total number of dollar stores.
But here’s the thing: Dollar stores aren’t always a better deal than the average bulk store. Even compared to a store like Walmart, items often cost more at dollar stores than they would somewhere else. That’s especially true with name-brand products. As Clark Howard points out, dollar stores shrink the size of shaving cream, toothpaste, and other supplies to keep up with inflation, giving you less for your dollar.
They pick up items in bulk and benefit from the economics of scale, but dollar stores don’t pass on the deals they get from wholesalers or inexpensive importers to consumers. They’ll break up cases and sell items for $1 in stores whether or not that’s their until price in bulk.
As a result, AOL noticed that dollar stores maintain huge gross margins – larger than discount or supermarket chains – and actually make more money on every item they sell than their competitors. By selling smaller sizes and cheaper goods for a higher unit price, dollar stores disguise their windfall as deals.
Last year, Dollar Tree and Dollar General alone made nearly $50 billion in revenue. That’s twice as much as Macy’s, but only about half that of Kroger. However, by keeping wages low, making stores smaller to prevent shoplifting, using anti-theft tags on all items, managing and expanding their own truck fleets, expanding generic product lines, sourcing from places cheaper than China, and keeping the buy-in price low, dollar stores are keeping their profit margins above 30 percent.
So what is a consumer to do? Consider an up-front investment and then shop for deals. I’ve gone shopping before to prove a point, but this time I’m taking a $60 Costco membership with me, trolling the aisles and comparing unit prices to those at the dollar store. On the following 10 items, even $1 per item is a bad deal.
PAPER TOWELS
That’s right, $18.99 for 12 rolls comes out to $1.58 per roll. However, a Costco roll comes out to 85.5 square feet of paper per roll, compared to just 38.1 square feet for the Dollar Tree brand. That’s 1,026 square feet per 12-pack at Costco vs. 457.2 square feet at Dollar Tree. Basically, you could spend $24 on 24 rolls at the Dollar Store and still fall short of the amount of paper you’d get buying in bulk.
BATTERIES
The dollar store charges considerably less here — just $8 for the same quantity of batteries. But, as Consumer Reports has noted, dollar-store batteries contain less stored energy than brand-name batteries. That may work out just fine if you’re using them in low-energy devices like remote controls, but could have unintended consequences if used in items like smoke detectors.
PLASTIC WRAP
This one really just comes down to simple math. To get 1,300 square feet at the dollar store, you’d have to pay $13. Meanwhile, Costco’s cling wrap comes out to less than $1 per 100 square feet. It pays to break down the unit pricing every so often.
SPICES
- Costco: 31 ounces for $12.99 (oregano), 16 ounces for $10.99 (parsley), 12.3 ounces for $5.29 (black pepper)
- Dollar Tree: 1.3 ounces for $1 (oregano), 0.49 ounces for $1 (parsley), 2 ounces for $1 (black pepper)
Yet another area where it pays to peruse the unit prices. While the dollar store comes up cheaper for some spices (cinnamon costs almost double per ounce at Costco), Costco’s bulk spices are one of their best bets for deals — at least, for those spices you cook with the most.
DOG FOOD
Prices vary by variety, but Costco still offers a slightly better deal in bulk. This doesn’t hold true for cat food, though, so be grateful, dog owners.
COFFEE FILTERS
Dollar Tree comes close to Costco on some paper products, but not here. At Costco, you get 25 more filters than you would at Dollar Tree for each dollar you spend.
MICROWAVE POPCORN
You’re getting nearly an extra bag for every dollar you spend, and nearly a dozen extra bags total. For a decidedly cheap product, that’s a steep price differential.
MINCED GARLIC
It’s one of Costco’s key specialty items, but it’s always a worthwhile spend. It’s also a reminder of just how inexpensive Costco’s house Kirkland brand can be.
PEANUTS
Costco’s big tin of peanuts gives you five ounces for every dollar you spend. Meanwhile, the Dollar Tree’s closest offering has to split up the peanuts into single-serve bags.
Costco vs. Dollar Tree: Which Is the Better Deal?
As nominally cheap as the dollar store is, Costco offers better per-unit pricing on most items. The only catch is that you need both an annual membership and the means to buy in bulk upfront to take advantage of those prices; if your grocery budget is a tight $100 a week, you’re not going to want to spend $19 of that on paper towels in one trip.
More by Jason Notte:
- Bulk or Bunk? We Compare Prices at Walmart vs. Sam’s Club
- Goodwill vs. Old Navy: Which Is the Better Option for ‘Cheap’ Clothes?
- Our House Came With Two Goats, and They’re Heartbreaking Helpers
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