NEWS
BY MORGAN THEOPHIL
THE DOLLAR
STORE BOOM
ONE OF CRESWELL'S
DOLLAR STORES
Discount stores thrive throughout
rural communities
n early February, a quiet but prominent company made
an announcement: 1,000 new stores were to open
throughout the remainder of 2017, surpassing the 900
it opened last year. One of those stores opened this
summer in Creswell, another in Oakridge, although
neither one is a town booming with wealth.
Dollar General sells a variety of food, snacks, health
and beauty aids, cleaning supplies, basic apparel, house-
wares and seasonal items, all at strikingly low prices in its
14,321 stores in 44 U.S. states, according to its publicity
department.
Dollar General’s greatest competitor, Dollar Tree —
which purchased the third largest chain, Family Dollar, in
2015 — also sells a large variety of household items, in-
cluding snacks, health and beauty products, stationery and
useful household items, cleaning supplies and countless
knick-knacks and toys.
Dollar stores are thriving due to their presence in lower-
income rural communities.
“The more the rural U.S. struggles,” Dollar General
company officials said in a press release, “the more places
Dollar General has found to prosper.”
A GROWING PRESENCE
According to its most recent annual report, Dollar Tree
operated 14,108 stores in the U.S. as of March this year.
Everything sold at Dollar Tree is priced $1 or less.
Eugene has no Dollar General, but there are 22 within
the surrounding 100 miles in cities such as Creswell, Sweet
Home, Drain, Sutherlin and Mill City.
Dollar Tree on the other hand, which seems to have
more locations than Dollar General, has three locations in
Eugene alone, five including Springfield and Junction City,
and 50 altogether within the surrounding 100 miles, ac-
cording to its store locator.
All Dollar Trees accept EBT cards — aka Electronic
Benefit Transfer cards. In Oregon EBT cards are known as
Oregon Trail cards and Oregon Trail Cards are used mostly
for food benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assis-
P H O T O BY B O B K E E F E R
I
tance Program (SNAP), aka food stamps. They also are
used for cash benefits through the Temporary Assistance
for Needy Families (TANF) program.
Both dollar stores share obvious goals: providing low-
priced items for everyday use. On my occasional visits to a
local dollar, I’ve quickly grabbed wrapping for a gift, dish
soap for my kitchen or any assortment of necessary sup-
plies that stand out in the stores brightly lit aisles.
For easy-stop shopping locations, the number of Dol-
lar Generals and Dollar Trees in the U.S. significantly out-
number all CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid stores combined.
The presence of dollar stores around the U.S. is soaring.
A RURAL FOCUS
Dollar General’s black-and-yellow trademark and Dol-
lar Tree’s green-and-white logo are making their mark as
they spread throughout the country’s rural areas — often
making way into towns where other major grocery stores
and outlets have failed.
In 2011, Walmart began a new program: 102 Walmart
Express stores opened around the U.S. to primarily offer
even lower-priced goods in rural communities.
The company’s venture to combat dollar stores lasted
less than five years. In January 2016, Walmart announced
plans to close 269 stores worldwide, including all 102 Ex-
press stores.
“While we have learned a lot from this pilot, includ-
ing a deeper understanding of the everyday needs of our
customers, we have decided not to proceed with this offer-
ing,” Walmart president and chief executive officer Doug
• It’s cold outside and the volunteers
of the Egan Warming Center have be-
ing going nonstop trying to keep the
unhoused in our community warm. Con-
sider donating or volunteering to this
valuable service. Here at EW we get re-
ports the University of Oregon students
can’t afford to buy food, Lane Community College students who are homeless (LCC
has an Egan Center to help with that), veterans who are still on the street and fami-
lies who don’t have homes for Christmas. This community has made huge strides
in caring for those in need, but places like Egan still mark a thin line between sur-
vival and freezing to death on Eugene’s streets as the center’s namesake, Major
Thomas Egan, did in 2008. To donate or volunteer go to eganwarmingcenter.com.
• We left the City Club of Eugene meeting Dec. 8 even more convinced that Mea-
sure 101 should pass in the special election on Jan. 23. Measure 101 is a fee on
hospitals and insurance companies that funds Medicaid, which provides health
care coverage to 1 in 4 Oregonians. More than 120 organizations and experts in-
cluding nurses, doctors, firefighters, teachers, local hospitals and patient advo-
cates across Oregon support it. Rep. Cedric Hayden (R-Roseburg) couldn’t make
the case against it and Rep. Dan Rayfield (D-Corvallis) made the case for it. Op-
ponents are using the phony “sales tax” propaganda that Oregonians easily fall
for. Not a sales tax, it is a provider tax paid by hospitals and insurance companies.
8
December 14, 2017 • eugeneweekly.com
McMillon said of the closing on a company blog.
Less than six months after the announcement, Dollar
General purchased 41 of Walmart’s closed Express stores,
announcing that, while many large retailers are closing
outlets, it planned to continue building more stores.
“The economy is continuing to create more of our core
customer,” chief executive Todd Vasos told The Wall Street
Journal in a Dec. 5 article.
Despite their low prices, profits at both stores are go-
ing through the roof. Dollar General marked $22 billion in
sales in the 2016 fiscal year, marking their 27th consecu-
tive year of sales growth.
Elizabeth Racine, a public health professor at the Uni-
versity of North Carolina at Charlotte, has closely studied
dollar store chains. Her research included an analysis of
the food sold in 90 different stores.
“I could quickly tell there are a lot of dollar stores in
rural areas. Clearly they operate in low income areas,” Ra-
cine tells me. “Often, even if a lower-income community
can get the money to start up a real grocery store, it isn’t
successful.”
Oakridge, site of Dollar General #17448, has 29.7 per-
cent of individuals below the poverty level.
Dollar General representative Crystal Ghassemi says
that the company strives to give its customers more than
everyday low prices on merchandise as part of its mission
of serving others — and it’s clear that the company has
found the right communities to serve.
“Dollar stores have found a business model that works
and are implementing it in the right places,” Racine says.
• Making us proud to be Oregonians: Two of the six U. S. senators calling for Don-
ald Trump to resign as of Dec. 12 are Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden. The others are
Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Kirsten Gilli-
brand (D-NY). Not that they will force him to resign right now, but it’s a significant
step along the way.
• Ho! Ho? No. Local tree merchants confirm a shortage of Christmas trees this
year. The reasons? One tells us that the younger generation of tree growers would
rather grow grapes. An NPR report confirms this and also adds that marijuana is
becoming a preferred crop. The final reason? The Recession. Starting about 10
years ago, growers planted fewer trees because people were buying fewer trees.
Trees grow about a foot a year, the public radio story points out, so if you want an
eight-foot Christmas tree and fewer trees were planted eight years ago — well, you
do the math.
• Mr. Jones goes to Washington: In a stunning defeat of Trumpism and a vote for
basic decency, Alabamans said “no” to Roy Moore, the alleged child-molester and
Bible-thumping theocrat the GOP supported for the Senate. Instead they chose
Doug Jones, the first Democrat to win statewide office there in more than two de-
cades. Though Jones’ margin was small — just 1.5 percent — that’s a huge shift
from the 28-percent margin that gave the state to Trump just last year. Thanks,
Alabama! And thanks to black women in particular — 98 percent of black women
who voted went for Jones.