DOLLAR Tree items may soon see another price increase as some locations make room for more expensive items.
A customer posted on Facebook about their local Dollar Tree’s recent remodel, which came with “multiple prices.”
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“This store already has Dollar Tree Plus,” he wrote client Shawn Reisinger.
“This is the second 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 to check price tags.
“Ours features that,” he said of his local Dollar Tree.
“Mine now has items up to $19.99,” wrote another.
“I need to change the name to Twenty Dollar Tree,” someone else responded.
Dollars Tree was once a lifeline for 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 high markups at chains across the country.
In fact, the vast majority of Americans are worse off financially now than they were before the pandemic began, according to a survey by Yahoo! Finance.
Average food and drink prices are about 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 as more Americans have struggled over the past four years, retailers like Dollar Tree have seen their profits soar, posting record profits.
Corporate profits have grown so much that they now represent the majority of national income over the past decade, according to the National Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Some big brands have even reduced the size of their packages and the amount of food contained in them by more than 20% over the past year without reducing prices, according to research from Capital One.
Capital One’s investigation found that this practice, dubbed “shrinkflation,” “effectively increased the cost per unit” and is responsible for increasing “food price inflation” by more than 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 reported $9.3 billion in gross profit, also according to company filings.
Stores selling at least $1,000 will close, says CEO
Dollar Tree, the parent company of Family Dollar, revealed that it would close about 1,000 stores over the next few years.
The company announced in March that it would close stores after the value of the discount retailer it acquired nearly a decade ago plummeted.
Dollar Tree plans to close about 600 Family Dollar stores in the first half of this year.
This will be followed by the closure of 370 Family Dollar and 30 Dollar Tree stores in the coming years.
The discount store chain 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 hit by reduced government benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
This has left families struggling to balance their finances, with up to $250 less per month.
This represents a nearly 35% increase in profits over the four years since the pandemic.
“Prices keep going up, but my pay doesn’t,” said Mary Jane Santos, a New York mother. The Long Island Herald.
“I’m spending twice the money on groceries to feed my family, but I’m not making twice the salary,” she complained.
Santos told the channel that she makes decent money, but it’s difficult to stay afloat when most of it is spent on rent and the rising price of food – which she highlighted is costing almost double what was used to feed your family.
“I’m not going to get an extra $300 to buy food,” she said.
This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
