Dollar Tree, for many years, had a policy of “everything is a dollar”. If something was clearly too cheap to pay a dollar for, you just got “more” of it. In the last couple years, they had to soften that thanks to inflation — “Thank you Joe!” — and it is now $1.25 for everything.

Family Dollar is much more the standard “five and dime” model from yesteryear. Everything is cheap, and often low quality, but prices can range from under a buck to 20-30 bucks for items.

Family Dollar expanded quite a bit in the last 5-10 years, especially in rural areas, so that’s probably going to hurt some smaller places, as they will have to drive to larger population zones for things.

As to malls, well, they were a “parent approved” place to hang out in for tweens and teens for a long long time. This faded with social media, I think, as the groups stopped actually meeting each other to socialize as much.

The growth of the internet for sales purposes has also hurt them, as many of the shops are pretty overpriced and/or a serious niche market. Plus, as a result of that pricing, people may do the obvious, and find their size in something they like, then hunt for an online store with better prices.

There’s also been a much greater push towards the strip mall and the similar model with “pods” of locations in a huge parking area. The latter has become the more common “upscale” model for stores.

From what I understand, a lot of mall spaces have been partitioned into doctor and medical spaces — not necessarily the whole space, but a good chunk of it.

This latter is especially common as the classic “anchor” stores — Burdines/Macy’s, Sears, etc., have fallen by the wayside with no replacement, leaving large spaces empty, which also hurts the mall attendance, as they are called “anchor” stores for a reason.

I recall the local mall in my area — in 1980 it was one long strip with a Belk’s at one end and a JC Penney at the other. They added three more legs to make a square and opened a Dillard’s as a third anchor. Then they extended it a bit off one corner to make space for the area Sears to move from its prior space in an older, smaller mall (since largely torn down) to the “big” mall. Then they extended it one last time to add a fifth anchor, a Burdines (large Florida chain, bought out by Macys during the big anchor contraction). The Sears is obviously gone, as is the Macy’s. There’s been talk about doing the offices thing with that entire segment of the mall. I can’t say I’ve been in it in the last year or two, so not sure what the current state is, though I do know the JCP, Belk’s, and Dillards are still there.

Now, as I understand it, the Mall was originally going to be built in one part of the town, on land owned by a powerful local family. There was some kind of fast bait-and-switch skulduggery (or so I have heard) which put it in a very different location well away from that land.

Supposedly, that family was majorly PO’d, and set out to ruin the mall, by building up an alternative retail space on their land over time (>40y, so yeah, long term effort). The have largely succeeded in many ways, with all the real major new retail space (Sams, Walmart, Lowes, Whole Foods, etc.) in the city going onto that land originally for the “Mall” — they’ve developed the area into both large-type “strip” malls (mostly very large stores, not lots of small ones and a couple large units) as well as some of that upscale single-store-in-a-huge-parking-lot style. They’ve gotten nailed a couple times in recent years as The Office Mart (aka Office Depot) closed, and now the Best Buy is also closing. So they’ll have some empty space for a bit as long as our current administration is anti-American.

}}} It takes money to go to SuperWalmart and load up your SUV with two weeks’ supplies. Even though the unit or per-use price is lower.

The biggest complaint I have with Wal-Mart these days is that, due to Covid, they contracted away from the 24/7 model, and now it doesn’t matter when you go in, the lines at the @#$#$@% checkout are ridiculously not worth the wait for what you save. It’s easier, almost always, to just buy off the internet.

P.S., I will note one thing — it seems as though, in areas where they have the “market only” walmart “foods” markets, the walmart milk prices are about half what they are in general (e.g., $2 a gallon rather than $4+) — they seem to use the milk as a loss-leader. This is (so far as I have noted in work-related travels) ONLY in those areas where they have the market-only locations. Half gallons are similarly reduced

There was a story some years ago about Lever Brothers going to individual usage packaging even for the developed world. So, instead of twenty-four ounces of shampoo, you buy two or three half-ounce envelopes and make them last. That fit the developing world.
The same applies to the dollar-store market.

It takes money to go to SuperWalmart and load up your SUV with two weeks’ supplies. Even though the unit or per-use price is lower.

“The problem with this is that in tiny little towns, a Family Dollar opened up which heavily contributed to what little local retail remained, folding up shop. Now, the Family Dollar will close, leaving the town with nothing.”

I think it is probable that the other half of the corporate lineup will move into the vacuum.

The problem with Family Dollar per se was its shambolic business practices which were so bad that Dollar Tree which bought them could not restore the company to usefulness.

Dollar Tree, the remaining part of the business, at least made a stab at actually being a dollar or thereabouts, store.

I admit I have no knowledge whatsoever of Dollar General, and the linked article so far as I read, did not cover that corporation.

Sounds like you and he were kindred spirits.

I meant “familiar” as in ” I’m not so familiar with Family Dollar … ”

I just fixed it, thanks.

“I sometimes shop in Dollar Tree stores; I’m not so family with Family Dollar, but I assume it’s similar.”

No, not so far as I know. Cannot claim long experience with these stores, but used one in a small northwoods burg, and occassionally for bopping into a suburban location to scoop up 20 tubes of toothpaste at a crack.

Now ignoring shrink-flation and marginal price boosting, the difference is that Family Dollar long ago started charging say 5,6, 10 bucks for detergent or whatever, sold more useless frippery type crap, and just was a more pathetic disorganized run down version of the other.

Now, buying toothpaste in bulk downstate, or paper towels and tinned German kippers in the north, may not make me an expert. But I can definitely say that Family Dollar deserves the trash can. Might as well shop for convenience purchases at a 7-11, or your local pharmacy chain.

And I am not recommending that you do that.