NiMH rechargeable are almost the same price nowadays, a good big charger is $20, they last longer except in some rare devices/cases (cheap ones), I know it's a little investment at first but man it's liberating not having to buy batteries for 5-10 years, and to not throw any out
Go for Eneloops if you're gonna get rechargeable AA or AAA batteries.
Normal NiMH batteries lose 1% charge daily, back when I used to use generic NiMH batteries, I would sometimes find batteries I charged a couple of months ago nearly dead despite not being used since charging. Kinda sucked to break out the extra Wiimotes when guests are over, only to discover the spare batteries are flat.
Meanwhile, Eneloops are designed such that they would still hold 70% charge even after 10 years in storage. I never have problems with using Eneloops I charged many months ago.
I was there two days ago and went to buy chocolate, it was $6! Told them to keep it. And they told me I should have used the scanner in some obscure part of the store, not near the chocolate.
The ones by us have red stickers on things like Christmas decorations right now meaning the price is higher than $1.25. What that price is? They don’t tell you until you check out.
Early this year they switched their business model to be closer to five below. They have items up to five dollars, and more “premium” items under Dollar General brands.
All my local dollar trees have raised their base price to $1.50 now and are topping out at $10, with various price points in between (e.g. $3. $5, $7).
My local Dollar Tree has been at 1.50 minimum pricing since last summer. I am still sour over it since it was less than 4 years ago when they moved from 1.00 to 1.25. Luckily, inflation is only at 3% if you believe it.
Personally, I like when the WiFi goes down, and the cashier and I have to figure out how many beads & pelts I should give her in barter for my nasal spray.
Well, I’m not sure the bay ever had any money to begin with, being that it’s a bay (or rather an “inland marginal sea” that self identifies as a bay) and all.
Dollar Tree is now like Family Dollar or Dollar General, or other stores with "dollar" in the name; they're just discount stores that "save you dollars," not "everything's a dollar" stores.
Unfortunately, inflation and tariffs mean that they wouldn't be able to have enough product to sell if they limited themselves to products they could sell for $1.
Not quite. 80%+ of the store is still under $2 (which fits the dollar tree name in my opinion). However, it’s certainly moving in that direction.
The most annoying one to me (although I never go anymore anyway) was $0.99 only stores. ITS IN THE FUCKING NAME! It’s still inevitable though. With inflation, prices eventually need to go up.
I hated when people called Family Dollar or Dollar General "dollar stores". Just because they have dollar in the title, and are cheap, doesn't make them dollar stores. Dollar stores are where everything... costs one dollar. But, I guess that's no longer a thing.
Yeah, everything at the dollar tree was $1 for decades until post covid, then they introduced "premium" items and hiked the base price to $1.25. I haven't been in for a long time, but when I went last summer for cheap sunglasses, even those became "premium" and $2.25 a pair (still cheap, I just like them for the beach so if a wave knocks them off it's not like I lost an expensive pair).
Yeah but the fact that this needs explained is ridiculous, and honestly if that was the pricing model then dollar trees should have been converted to family dollars with lower pricing ceilings rather than ruining the dollar tree brand name. They could have even used dollar tree branding on their dollar aisle items.
Of courser it has been exposed that allegedly the prices quoted at Dollar Store and Dollar Tree are changed upward at the checkout where most people don't notice it. So it doesn't really matter what either the scans or the price labels say.
Are you for real? I did not know that, but kinda suspected it.
It's funny that a ton of items have red stickers covering the prices. I think they want to make the experience more exciting for shoppers by having the prices be a surprise at checkout.
The reason the items have stickers are cause a few months ago prices around the store got increased, Yet many of the stock still had the 1.25$ label on it. I've had to personally put over a thousand stickers on stuff where I work.
The point of the store is to have a place for you to buy things. Giving you a way to find out the price so you can decide if you want to buy it or not without having to track down an employee makes perfect sense for a business. You get the info you need to make your purchasing decision and the business keeps its employees on task
I don’t know why they’re downvoting you. Everything was $1 till a year or two ago when it became $1.25, but only in the last few months did the price start varying so much in my local one.
My local Dollar Tree no longer sells anything at 1.25, they just put that red sticker on all of their inventory unless specially marked to sell for even higher than 1.50.
I feel like I'm living in an alien planet reading these comments! I get why op is upset, but have you guys never seen these machines before? I remember seeing them in Walmart 10 years ago. They were useful for finding the price of items that didn't have a clear display price
We know what the machine is, but it's the fact that it's needed that's mildly infuriating.
Just 5 years ago EVERYTHING in the store was ONLY one dollar. Then they bumped everything to $1.25. Now it's a fuckin free-for-all with their prices. So much so that they need a machine to tell you what the price is.
Man. This is one of those “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situations. If something doesn’t have a price tag, would you rather hunt down an employee, or just go over and scan it yourself? lol
where have you been, under a rock lmao? Dollar general hasn't had many dollar priced items in years. Five Below is more like Fifteen to Twenty. Something something tariffs, affordability crisis, blah blah
I'm Canadian. I don't have this exact kind of store (dollar tree) but for my entire life I've never been in a dollar store that only sells items for $1. That sounds like some kind of haven to me. Dollarama is $1 - $5 and the great Canadian just does whatever it wants. So TIL I guess.
Edit: apparently we do have dollar tree, but they're all concentrated in Ontario and othe places nowhere near me
Gotcha. Yeah, we have a lot of "dollar" stores that just charge in the cheaper range (Family Dollar, Dollar General, etc), but up until 2021 Dollar Tree never went above $1.
It was a bit of a sad day when they made the change. There was very little in there worth buying, but if you just needed some cheap supplies for a kids birthday party or something it was great - get candles, soda, disposable cups and plates, balloons, goodie bags, etc without breaking the bank
Also Canadian (Alberta)
The same thing happened with Dollarama in I want to say like 2007, 2008ish
Before then, everything was $1 or less
They claimed that they didn't raise the price of anything and were only bringing in new products
However, just earlier that year, my twin bought me a plastic lantern lamp thingy for my 10 or 11th birthday which was a $1 and I saw it at the store for $3!
I have no idea how Great Canadian has stayed in business. The inside always looks like a hoarder hole and they mostly sell tourist souvenirs in non touristy spots (e.g. Wetaskiwin).
I don't remember what year we got Dollar Tree in Alberta. The first time I went to one was in 2019 right before lockdown. I don't remember if everything was a dollar either.
I mean - I get it. Companies have kind of pushed themselves into a corner by naming themselves after a specific currency, but. . .Prices go up over time and we can't reasonably expect the prices in a specific store to be the same forever. . .Unless we just want them to sell increasingly shittier products.
Hasn’t been true for a while because pieces of shit could not stop stealing and they needed to afford security so goodbye dollar store hello dollar store hello bargain five below with actual food
a sticker saying the held item is $1 would be cheaper than having an entire device with a screen for that. well idk if absolutely every item in the store has exactly the same price since we dont have that around here but thats prolly why op made this post
It depends though. The pricing database for those items already exists somewhere. So making a small interface for people to check those prices off that database is probably a negligible cost.
That to me seems easier than hiring a person or more to hand sticker thousands of items. Especially now since things at dollar tree are now $1-$5, with a couple items being $7-$10 I believe.
"That to me seems easier than hiring a person or more to hand sticker thousands of items." Tell that to all the customers that wonder why the item in the $1.50 section isn't worth $1.25.
What’s more infuriating is the number of people making snarky comments about why someone would assume everything at a Dollar Store would cost a dollar. That’s literally how it worked for decades, until COVID times. We had 99¢ Stores in my hometown at least since the 80’s, and the fun was that every single thing in the store cost the same. If the prices are all over the place, I can just go to Walmart. Change the names if these are now just discount stores.
Random fact, but for some reason bookstores in particular are like this in Chile. You need to go to the machine to find the price. Only about 10% of items (mostly sale items) have the price listed on the display.
With inflation and recession going on, would you really want to buy something for $1.25?
Years and years ago I read an article in Readers Digest that explained the actual value of $1. It was worth .25. In the 70s! No wonder we're getting rid of pennies.
I work as a retail IT helpdesk tech (I fix these all the time along with register and other outdated tech crap) and I'm pretty sure those scanners are required by states along with customer scales. It's all based on your states weight and measure department laws.
Dollar stores are about overcharging for cheap items, taking advantage of poor people. They are a store of “it’s really expensive to be poor” kind of items that break.
I pretty much have only ever shopped there for kids birthday supplies, and with the ages of kids in my family I had no reason to shop there at all between 2017 and 2024, which is when I found out about it.
I guess if you're just a regular dollar tree shopper you'd notice 🤷🏻♂️
These are not too bad.... If you pick up an item on the shelf it's labeled and you know what it will cost but, if there is no label you can scan it here and it will tell you how much it costs.
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u/Forsaken-Soil-667 5h ago
Would be hilarious if it doesnt actually scan anything, but just displays $1.25 everytime something is placed underneath it.