NOREEN: Dollar stores booming
We reached the point at which the definition of good economic news is that the year-over-year monthly sales tax collection statistics show the decline is not as steep as it was a year ago.
It now counts as banner headline good news (Dec. 5) that the national unemployment rate declined in November — to 10 percent. On Tuesday, our latest heroic attempt to grasp a silver lining was that, according to a new study from the Brookings Institution and the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, Colorado Springs has “weathered the downturn better than the average U.S. metro.”
We all must be excused for our reluctance to celebrate.
Yet contradicting the old cliche about where money doesn’t grow is a frenetic business called the Dollar Tree at 4370 Austin Bluffs Parkway.
On Monday at 3:30 p.m., not a time you’d expect a crowded store 11 days before Christmas, shopping carts were in high demand. Cashiers were kept busy and that cha-ching sound retailers love so much was very much in the air.
The area around the store, not far from Doherty High School, is decidedly middle-class, not a neighborhood one would reflexively link with a big demand for a dollar store. But there it is, open 14 hours a day, a place where it was hard to find a good parking spot on Monday.
“A lot of our business is food,” said store manager Sue Compton. “It’s tough times, you know.”
Tough times, and changing times, too. Dollar stores are beginning to turn the convenience store concept a bit inside-out.
The Dollar Tree added refrigeration equipment and now accepts food stamps. That has doubled food sales at the store, Compton said.
Otherwise, the Dollar Tree offers what one would expect: seasonal items such as gift-wrapping paper and ornaments, greeting cards, household cleaning products, small toys, clothing and toiletries.
Christmas gifts at a dollar store?
“A lot of parents bring their children here to buy for their siblings," Compton said.
People shop at dollar stores all the time, though, so is the recession helping business?
“I know it is,” Compton said. “Especially after we started taking food stamps.”
Compton introduced one of her regulars, a middle-aged woman who would identify herself only as Inga.
“I always shop here,” Inga said while pushing a cart loaded with gift-wrapping supplies. “You have to, anymore. It’s only a dollar.”
Sounding a little like the Dollar Tree’s on-camera personality, Compton said, “if you don’t buy it the day you see it, it’s gone.”
Considering, however, that one had to hear the remark above all the background noise while constantly dodging shopping carts, it was hard to call it hype.
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