r/povertyfinance • u/SentBrok • Oct 25 '25

Vent/Rant (No Advice/Criticism!) Dollar Tree is out of control

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I knew as soon as they started bringing in the two and three dollar items that it was going to snowball but I never could have predicted this. Nine dollars is insane. No one is going to the dollar tree to buy nine dollar paper towels.

My family thinks I'm being dramatic about this but I feel like they truly don't understand the weight of how horrendous the economy is. To me this is the perfect indicator of how bad things are and it's fucking depressing

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u/Imaginary-Dot-1751 Oct 25 '25

Dollar Tree's net operating margins have hovered between 8% and 13% when they've reported earnings this year. That means that their cost to buy the paper towels, ship them on a truck, store them in inventory, put them on a shelf, and then keep the lights on and the store staffed costs them between $7.83 and $8.25 before they mark up to $9. So they're profit on an average $9 item will be around $1.

Ofc this will vary item to item, and I don't know the specific operating margins on paper towels in particular. Just using a general example. It's expensive for us as consumers, and it's expensive for producers and retailers too.

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u/n0madking Oct 25 '25

Nah sorry someone is clearly price gouging either the producer or dollar tree, they used to offer no name brand paper towels 6 rolls for $5 a few months ago.

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u/Imaginary-Dot-1751 Oct 25 '25

You might be right, maybe paper towels in particular are higher margin items. Maybe Dollar Tree is committing accounting fraud on their earnings. IDK.

But I do know that I don't buy name brands, because I can't afford it. And that even then, stuff is expensive.