‘Sick to my stomach’: Dollar Tree fanatics protest new $1.25 prices
Some shoppers have started derisively calling the chain “$1.25 Tree” and say it should change its name.
The criticism highlights the risks that Dollar Tree — the last of the big dollar store chains to actually sell nearly everything for a dollar — took when it abandoned its $1 brand identity.
“This is the worst time to increase the price, when everything else is so much,” she said.
We won’t know for certain whether customers are turning their backs on Dollar Tree’s new prices until it reports its quarterly results in the coming weeks. But there are signs the move may be alienating some shoppers.
Dollar Tree added the $1.25 prices to more than 2,000 stores in December (it has around 8,700 US stores), and Coresight said in a report that its “decline in shopper numbers appears to coincide with its price hike.” The firm cautioned against an “overreliance on a single week’s data point,” but said the latest figures “may reflect a shopper exodus on the back” of the price change.
“We have had a very positive response from the overwhelming majority of our customers around the $1.25 price point and the extreme value and broader product selection it has enabled, especially in these inflationary times,” a Dollar Tree spokesperson said in an email. “We look forward to providing more details on this initiative during our next earnings call.”
‘Our niche’
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