Sophia Posted September 14, 2021 Share Posted September 14, 2021 Something I have been curious about was an online dollar store. A lot of people seem to love shopping for deals online and I know offline, dollar stores do very well. Some places will have it where things in the store can be as expensive as $5, $8, or $10 but never over. I am wondering what it takes to start one. Has anyone ever looked into this before? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mila Posted September 14, 2021 Share Posted September 14, 2021 I don't know much about them. I do know that most of the ones I have shopped at online in the past have since closed down. They seem to never last longer than a few years unless they have a chain of stores offline. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Posted September 14, 2021 Share Posted September 14, 2021 The reason this model works better offline is dollar stores buy liquidated inventory from normal retailers that were unable to sell the products. Once you bring those products online there is a lot of competition and the margins will get super slim. Shipping these kinds of products (hand soaps, detergents, canned foods) can be expensive because they are heavy. I have almost got into the liquidation market a few times over the years. I did make a run at it 15 - 20 years ago with CDs and DVDs and ended up failing. Think the reason we see such high turnover in this kind of store is the low margins that are able to be achieved selling products that are already part of a saturated marketplace. Which is why the products likely did not sell at Wal Mart or Target to begin with. There are other sides of this industry that do seem to work well. Such as buying liquidation pallets from Home Depot and so forth. A lot of those products are evergreen and there will always be someone looking for the product or the part. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stacey Posted September 17, 2021 Share Posted September 17, 2021 You are better off running your own e-bay store. Online dollar stores do not work. I have shopped at a few. One of my favorites in recent years was Hollar. They have since shut down. I still miss that place. They had so many cool things and free shipping when you spent $25. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carson Posted September 17, 2021 Share Posted September 17, 2021 We already have an online dollar store with sites like Wish and Dealextreme which often sell cheap stuff. I mean stuff for as cheap as a $1. I've purchased stuff from DealExtreme, which I believe you can also buy stuff wholesale. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ella Posted September 18, 2021 Share Posted September 18, 2021 On 9/17/2021 at 12:32 PM, Carson said: We already have an online dollar store with sites like Wish and Dealextreme which often sell cheap stuff. I mean stuff for as cheap as a $1. I've purchased stuff from DealExtreme, which I believe you can also buy stuff wholesale. I have considered buying stuff from places like this wholesale and reselling it but I am not sure how well this would do these days. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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