Dollar General Vs. Family Dollar: Ultimate Dollar Store Challenge 

Thanks for mentioning that the problem isn't employees at Dollar General. My friend works there and she regularly has to man the whole store herself. Last week they got three trucks, all early. They needed to put things out in the aisles because the stockroom was getting too full to walk in. Corporate does not care whatsoever.

you guys are like vaporwave for retail, and i love it.

The family dollar you visited is the "new" layout they call "H2" it's meant to make the isles a tad wider, and make the store feel bigger, it also has more practical department grouping. We remodeled our family dollar last year. For the most part, the only stores that haven't been done yet are very rural stores with lower sales.

Dollar General and Family Dollar vary SOOO much by location, some are just awful and a complete hazard, but some are DG market locations and even have some fresh groceries, which can be great if they locate in areas with no other places besides convenience stores. I can’t believe how they except a single person to stock the shelves and run the register though. They’ve also started combining Family Dollar and Dollar tree locations into one building, and selling kind of the best of each of them.

I worked at DG in Georgia and it’s tough to keep up on anything when you’re alone from open to 1pm. Since moved to the mid-west and the DGs up here are actually well arranged for whatever reason, possibly because one DM isn’t trying to manage 20+ stores since they have so many in the south. The concrete floors are a godsend compared to the white tiles mine had, that was the main part of the renovation plus adding more of the home goods. The toys were split because the first aisles you showed were seasonal. Seasonal was always a nightmare because they’d send random stuff and it’d never go to planogram. Luckily our promo was on the same aisle so we avoided that problem. You just put things where you can. RE safety stuff: our back room was always impacted on truck day and was unacceptably blocked when they dumped out post inventory double truck on us. People would’ve died in a fire if the front doors got blocked. The company will just pay the fine and blame the store manager whether it’s their fault or not. They are much more interested in police style interrogations of employees by loss prevention, which is why I left. Mesa Family Dollars are nicer than the ones up here though, ours are about on par with DG but without the snack selection.

having stuff block the fire exit is actually a violation i do believe just like in a restaurant, if you have a cart or even a box blocking a sink that's a violation too.

Don't dismiss the demand for the cassette audio adapters. Since the avg age of vehicles is about 12 yrs, there are many cars from the early 2000s and late 1990s on the road with cassette players. Especially where you are (Arizona) where cars don't rust out. Also the demographic of the customers is more likely to own older or used cars. Also the cars that last the longest (Hondas and Toyotas) had cassette players longer than other makes.

I work at Dollar Tree and we are required to keep all aisles clear and keep all of the emergency exits clear. That Dollar General was in direct violation of the fire code.

Stores like this were a big help during c*v*d when people were waiting in line to get into box stores.

That dollar general looks nice compared to the ones near me. They should actually pay decent wages and then they'd be able to hold onto staff

Decor from a HGTV show from 6 Years Ago, that is the coldest and mosr creative insult i have ever heard.

I'd actually like to see your take on the Big Lot's chain, not sure if they're out west though. They're like a slightly higher end Dollar General/Family Dollar, they actually seem to have more than two people staffing the store whenever I go.

Congrats on your play-button!! no one deserves it more than you! and I loved this vid...so glad when I see a notification that you have uploaded...looking forward to the next one. Cheers!

I went to my Dollar General to get my mom some distilled water for her CPAP machine. It’s 5 mins from my house. Couldn’t find it and saw a box of it next to the sodas. I just opened it and gotwhat I needed. Only to find they put it two aisles over. Such a mess. Another one in town has a self checkout that basically isn’t functioning. Also I live in Arkansas where they found rats in the Family Dollar Warehouse Never been to a Family Dollar though. 😬

Wow! That was one clean Family Dollar. I also thought it was going to be a comparison of two bad stores, but that was shocking. Dollar General is usually my go to when I need to pick up something grocery related , but I don't want to go to the actual grocery store. That may have just changed.

I'm in Northern Virginia and yet STILL I nodded along with EVERYTHING you said because even though I haven't run errands at either of those stores in YEARS, every word of it is gospel!

Dollar General does not worry about an individual store getting dinged. They put every store into a different LLC (would you love to be the accountant keeping track of all these LLCs?) so that way no matter how much a store gets dinged the authority cannot come after the main company because it is protected from the store's LLC.

My DG's fire exit was, for about a week, so blocked that even employees couldn't get through to move new stock into the store. HEY, dude! I want those. And CONGRATULATIONS!

Your dollar general is actually maneuverable. Ours has these huge carts of boxes of merchandise they can’t fit on the shelves and you literally have to squeeze past them everywhere in the store. It’s like that at all of the ones near me, which I can count 6 in a ten mile radius

Every time I go to a dollar store I get stuck behind the 1 person in line buying over $100 worth of $1 crap. We go for the Lays Stax ($1-$2 less than grocery stores) and crossword puzzle books.

I think family dollar has a better feeling because my local dollar general had missing floor tiles and the store never had restocking days so we had empty peg hooks almost every week

And now there's the Family Dollar/Dollar Tree combos.

Carpet squares/remnants are used a lot in childcare or preschools to assign a child a "spot" on the floor at circle time or for games, activities. Helps kids with spatial awareness and general classroom management.

These are the times I thank God I jumped ship from retail to private security way back in the early 2000s. There's a reason it's called "Retail Hell"

DG is a meme in itself at this point. I remember hearing that the CEO wanted a DG to be within walking distance of every house in America, which is why some of them pop up in the most out of the way, illogical places. My mother would say "learn to take care of what you've got before you get anything new," but I guess DG doesn't believe in that.

Forget the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, NCAA Championship, and Wrestlemania THIS IS THE SHOWDOWN OF THE IMMORTALS

A lot of teachers use the carpet remnants for reading corners.

From experience. Stores will often be tipped off a couple days or maybe on the day that an inspection is happening and quickly clean up before the safety auditor arrives.

Oh the carpet remnants are super useful to recarpet a cat tree. Last time I needed some scrap carpet, I found it at a flea market, but $2 for a scrap is actually a good deal. It's surprisingly hard to find a small scrap of carpet.

It really depends on the area and the mangment.

That is the nicest Family Dollar I have ever seen. The ones around here are very similar to the Dollar General you went to.

You know what’s the crazy part? The prices aren’t any better than Walmart.

I have worked for both of these companies during my retail career. The biggest problem is the labor model used to operate these stores. Second is the amount of merchandise sent to the stores. Stores need more help and less stock in order to serve the customers. Also lower the shelves, too.

The cassette adapters are still used a lot. Used cheap cars and vintage 80-90s cars that are restored and/or kept original as possible. So they still have a cassette player, need external Bluetooth or CD adapters.

Congrats on 100K subscribers! I've been here since the K-Mart video from 5 years ago and never left. Retail Archeology has been a calming presence on RU-vid and I hope this channel continues to be around for a long time.

On my recent trip to the US this year (I'm from Australia), I was amazed by the sheer amount of Dollar General stores in rural Oklahoma where I visited. Every few miles in every small community along the highway there was a Dollar General in a generic brown metal shed with a brick facade. Is this normal in other parts of the US? I travelled between Tulsa and Oklahoma City and the country around Tulsa where I saw them. My assumption is Dollar General has taken over the role of the rural general store in small rural communities going by what I saw.

Honestly I can't remember ever going into a dollar general and that's unfortunate to see how they are done. It's been a few years since I've been into a family dollar but I remember it being decent but that could have also been just that location.

I hate dollar general. All the dg's I've seen only have windows at the front door, combined with the high shelves and often dim lighting I feel like I'm in a dungeon whenever I go

Congrats on the 100k! Here’s to 100k more! 🎉 I like this vid idea. I’d say do it again with another Family Dollar & Dollar General pair and see if you get the same results. In my experience, whether one in an area is better than the other is really location-specific and unpredictable. The Family Dollar near my grandmothers was clean and well-kept, while in my home town, the Family Dollars were cesspools, and Dollar General & Dollar Tree were the way to go. “Everything’s a dollar” was my fave as a kid… 😂

Dollar General definitely has issues with staffing and store upkeep, but they play a critical role in the retail industry. They go into markets that others won't touch. They compensate for low profit margins with a quantity over quality approach (i.e. having tons of low-margin stores vs a few high-performing ones). An overwhelming majority of Dollar Generals are in towns with fewer than 10k people and/or areas with a below-average income. They know their demographic and capitalize on the absense of any competition

another great video as always love how you film the products it gives me insight into what is sold in America so many shops etc that i have never heard of before finding your channel and you film so smooth and calm not a camera flying all over the place which i very much appreciate !

It FASCINATES me, it's like convergent evolution lol! Speaking of stocking and register both, that's why I had to quit my job at Wawa, they WANTED me to do all that crap on overnights WHILE two or three of them STOOD there in the deli gabbling like chickens and it was "Lura, you've got a customer...". I WILL END YOU!

It really shows that DG don't give a damn about Shrink or the employees until it's time to blame the single store employee for merchandise being stolen. Family Dollar on the other hand although i'm sure they're a pain to work for just like any other retail discount outlet at least looks clean, easy to shop and has a lot more. I feel sorry for the workers are DG that have to be there alone which should be an illegal practice.

That Paul Blart bit was hilarious. You're not even in a mall and he's after you. That Family Dollar looked way better than the one in your 2019 video, maybe they watched your video and got their act together XD And congratulations on the silver play button! You've sure as hell earned it. Love your work as always

There is probably stuff in front of the fire exit to deter shoplifters. Boy do people love to load up on goods and just make it out the fire exit pissing off just about everyone until an underpaid employee has to disable and then re arm the alarm

Congrats on the 100,000 subs!! Been one for a long time. 😀👍

I’ve been watching you for years! You should really check out Ollie’s if you have one in AZ. They usually sell stuff other stores can’t sell, and it’s incredibly unorganized. Also, I’d love to see an episode on struggling AMC.

Congrats on the 100k! Thanks for the comparison video... We don't have Dollar General where I live so it's interesting to see how different the two stores are!

I find that all the "dollar store" type places vary by state and region. The Dollar Tree stores near me all look like bombs went off in them. These kinds of stores tend to also be in areas of cities or towns in some states where you don't want to go into them after dark or at all, depending on the area.

Being in a wheelchair these blocked aisles are a major issue for me. Its bad enough when the stores are empty but then put people and carts in those aisles too.....

Thank you so much retail archeology. From one lifelong retail employee you've made my day.

Family dollar is owned by Dollar Tree. Im a store manager at a Dollar Tree and corporate has really been pushing “brand standards” and forcing bad stores to improve. Most likely doing the same for Family Dollar.

Always a pleasure to see a new Retail Archeology video.

I love your new Capcom intro to your channel!!! So please keep up with the tribute intros on your channel!!!

Love your videos, keep 'em coming dude!!!

Congratulations, your content and editing is worth the play button. My daughter and I love your channel. She gets a glimpse of the past and I get to reminisce. I agree, Family Dollar stores tend to be more clean and stocked.

You should check out the PoundLand documentary series that aired in the UK, Pound Wars, (it's on RU-vid). They spent millions working out what products work best in each store and having them as enticing as possible. They would absolutely lose their sh!t at how these stores display their products.

Is that Family Dollar you visited at Main and Recker in Mesa? That's one of their new stores, it's maybe 18 months old at most. The new FD stores are a lot nicer looking now, wider aisles, etc. Coincidentally that space used to be a Dollar General that closed a few years ago.

if you come to the northeast i’d love if you went to ocean state job lot, its a big discount department store pretty much and they have some reallyyyy weird stuff. i work at one and every day i find something new thats very strange

Awesome surprise at the end with the play button! Congrats man!

I know it’s not in the contest but I found Yoohoo drinks and a Cibo Matto CD at dollar tree so that wins for me! They started really pushing their CD and DVD section lately so if you go there be sure to check it out, I’m sure they get more weird stuff like that from time to time.

A friend of mine's car has a tape deck, so yeah, there is definitely still a market for those tape adapters. Bluetooth ones even exist.

DG is exactly the same in Indiana. Messy, cluttered, chaos.

Congrats on the milestone, man. You deserve it!

I live just down the street from a Dollar General and my heart always breaks for the employees. There is rarely more than 1-2 people working in the entire store. Impossible for them to keep up with stocking inventory/cleaning all while running the cash register. The store seems to do pretty good business so I'm not sure why they can't increase employee pay to attract more help.

My Ex use to work at a Dollar General and she ended up quitting because it was just to much they wanted her to stock and run the store at the same time and that is no easy job when it gets busy.

6:08 I'll tell ya what it looks like in the back: The entire back room is filled, wall to wall, by those floats of merchandise that never gets ran. There's stuff from the previous year in there too, becasue, again, nobody has the time to run it.

At 11:47 I noticed a cameo of our beloved Devil's Ivy from the Power Square mall. My, it has certainly grown!

Your boxed Atari Lynx and Sega 32x looked amazing! I remember watching the CU podcast and you wrote them a question and I thought that was awesome! Love your content man!

oh yeahhhh!!!! another classic video uploaded.

Love this video, dude. Gotta be honest, I LOVE those Icee/SlushPuppie pouches - our local Market Basket grocery store carries those around here, LOVE THEM! I'm a sucker for those whenever I find them...expecially in the summer!

go to a small town Dollar General, that's where they get a lot more traffic because sometimes they're the only general store around for miles.

Love the Capcom / street fighter cameo. Keep up the great work!

Congratulations on the play award, I love your channel. You are really funny and entertaining and interesting.

Congratulations!!!!!! I love your channel

You were lucky to find one of those picture stands.

Everytime im in a dollar general I feel like stuff is going to fall on me cause of how they stuff the isles and shelves to the max.

Usually I watch these videos to relax. This is giving me anxiety how gross they are.

Dollar General's whole game plan seems to be to rent/buy small buildings and stuff them to the gills. There's one close to me that's kept reasonably clean, but I still don't bother with it. The nearest Family Dollar closed a few years back.

Thank you so much for this video! 🤗

I just happened to check to see if there were any new videos and there was a brand new one! 😁👍

4:30 I do Doordash and DG is some of my business. I hate losing time because the same thing (candy is the example I can think of) is split among 3 different places and end caps. I don’t take their orders until Friday or else they are out of a lot of stuff. I will say the store is usually pretty clean, maybe 2 people working most of the time. Don’t remember if their fire escape is blocked...

I'm so jealous of your play button! Congratulations!!

Every Dollar General I have gone to always has stuff in the aisle or blocking the whole aisle altogether. You should check out PopShelf, which is a cross between a Five Below and a dollar store. PopShelf is owned by Dollar General and it supposed to be somewhat of a nicer Dollar General then a regular Dollar General store.

In all my years in retail I never saw a safety inspector.

And thank you for the great engaging content, really look forward to it!

I have a '99 Pontiac Grand Am that has a am/fm cassette radio. After 23 years, it literally just rolled over 100k last week.

Yeah DG is really rough on their employees, really underpaid and overworked. It makes it a damn near impossibility to do keep up. Their issues with popping up in food deserts are especially the cause of this, popping up in low income areas like a cancer.

Thanks again for this really great video. I always love to travel with you. : )

It's funny, because comparing the cleanliness and clutter, DG and FD are exactly inverted in my area. The Dollar General near me is pretty well laid out and clean, and the Family Dollar a mile away is a total disaster.

There's a DG that is semi-close to where I live that is immaculate, but they burn through employees, I almost never see the same employee more than 2 or 3 times. It's so clean and well-stocked, I had to edit this to stress how weird it feels walking around in it. Employees are always out of sight unless at the register, and there seems to be very few shoppers. It's by a road that has natural gas industry, 24/7 trucks and equipment up and down the road so I think the DG was put there just for that reason. There's a few waves of workers who shop there at a specific time of day and the rest of the time it's empty.

Picture holders can be found plentifully at any At Home or Michaels.

100K! Congrats!

DG is up the road from my house, convenient for me, glad to see you got the YT plaque :)

"It's like a thrift store" wow, I don't think anyone has nailed stores like dollar general and family dollar better than that.

I have friends and family who has worked in both places. One of them was a manager in both stores at one time. One thing I was told a lot in both stores was on how the payroll was often very low and while they sometimes may have it to where only one person is working for awhile and because of that they can't restock due to them being told that someone has to be on the counter(one person got fired at one time for going leaving the counter). Having two employees at a time didn't happen too much and if it did, the 2nd employee may be there for 2-4 hours, which helps on the lunch breaks(which btw some managers never could take), but doesn't help in restocking quickly at times. That family dollar having three employees on at a time is a good reason why it was doing much better. Also as to the dirty floors and all, I was told a lot that the employees just don't have that much motivation and love for the company so they just don't care, or that they are doing so much because of corporate and with some customers leaving a mess, they just don't feel that motivated to go out there and take the extra mile to clean it up a lot and in turn just do the minimum. I am sure a lot of these are just people complaining but when you hear it enough and go into a store and watch for a bit after awhile you do think that there is perhaps a nugget of truth in it.

I found season six the office dvds for six bucks. Around the time it was taken off Netflix

Congrats! We all love you. Also, MINI DRAGON'S LAIR

I worked at the family dollar earlier this year. Dollar/discount stores tend to only have 2 employees maybe 3 at a time in the store. They also expect us to be stockers, cashiers and janitors all at the same time and get annoyed at us for not paying attention and having a customer waiting. Even if we’re in a back corner stocking something that causes us to be unable to see our register. That being said. Family dollar does look nicer. They pride themselves on being “organized”. Each store is different. Some are more organized than others.

Our very rural Family Dollar and Dollar General stores are across the street from each other on a two-lane dead end road.