The talk of the town. The big joke.
That’s the best way to describe the new Dollar General parking lot in Chatfield, Minn.
“The engineers must be from Arizona, where they don’t have to deal with ice and snow,” said one person.
For those who haven’t driven by the site of the new store opening in Chatfield, here’s the best way to describe it.
Imagine placing a business directly at the bottom of a sledding hill. That’s why I’ve been referring to it as the new drive-thru Dollar General.
All joking aside, the lack of understanding of how to construct a parking lot in Minnesota leads to another more significant point.
Grasping for growth
Sometimes it seems like our communities are grasping for any type of business growth even if it takes away from another long-time business. We offer tax incentives for the corporate newcomer that ultimately creates an unlevel playing field in opposition of the locally-owned long-time established business.
Thus far, we’ve seen Family Dollar pop up in Preston and Rushford. Dollar General has been eating away at the local businesses in Spring Valley for quite some time, while Chatfield is just getting started. Dollar General and Family Dollar, both under different ownership, are born in the same vein.
They cannot grow unless they take away business from somebody else. That’s how market share works.
And, it’s painful for communities like ours, because consumers don’t realize what they are doing with every purchase.
When you spend money at Family Dollar or Dollar General, you are not supporting a locally-owned business that provides the exact same product and truly cares about the community they serve.
Why is this so important?
I guarantee that our locally-owned hardware stores and grocery stores employ many more people than any Family Dollar or Dollar General store. If you walk into any of these corporate retail mazes, good luck finding someone to help you. The same person stocking the shelves is also working at the cash register. So, you may wait awhile. They operate with a skeleton crew.
The other reality is that, to my knowledge, Family Dollar and Dollar General doesn’t make any donations to the our local schools, booster clubs, Chamber of Commerce events, FFA, 4-H, Girl Scouts, or any activities/benefits in the area. These are corporations that only care about hauling truckloads of profits back to their headquarters located in Matthews, N.C., and Goodlettsville, Tenn., respectively.
Don’t ask a local business to support anything if you don’t support them. Simply put.
Dollar General has over 15,000 stores worldwide while Family Dollar has 8,000 stores.
Isn’t it amazing that Dollar General announced that they are opening more than 1,000 stores throughout the United States in the next year? I would think, at some point, they will oversaturate the market, even competing with themselves. Maybe that’s why in March of 2019, Family Dollar announced they were closing 390 stores. It must be a numbers game, like playing a game of speed monopoly.
Too big to fail? No, too big to care. Our markets don’t matter. Our schools don’t matter. Our people don’t matter. The only thing that matters is our money.
At the end of this experiment, only a certain number of stores will make it. And, the rest will be left behind like large cinderblock deer carcasses scattered throughout small town America. Faceless and gutted like the ALCO building in Spring Valley, Minn.
Opening and closing stores at such a rapid pace doesn’t seem like a good long-term business strategy. But what do I know?
Whether it’s Family Dollar or Dollar General, just like that Chatfield parking lot, I’m guessing it’s all down hill from here.
I just hope our locally-owned businesses are still standing at the top of this sledding hill.
Mike Zwart says
I ve heard from a chatfield citizen “ you no what kind of people shop there”. Watch what you wish for😂