Silly store name
I snapped this photo on Vermont St. in Los Angeles.
Even a Bentley dealership could hang a sign that says ,"Everything $2.99 & Up."
(Note that the sign was repainted. I'll bet it used to say, "Everything $2.99 to $9.99" or something like it.)
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Yes, it seems with gas prices being what they are, more and more "dollar stores" are hedging their bets. Take for example this "99 cents or less (or more)" sign.
Looks like this sign-maker needs some "kiducation":
http://www.banterist.com/archivefiles/000536.html
If you look at the banner on the side carefully, you can see that it used to say "EVERYTHING $2.99 ONLY". You can bring out the "ONLY" through some clever histogram adjustment in photoshop.
#3 Marilyn Terrel:It's like soylent green in reverse!
Last fall I drove by a store in some town on Long Island (Huntington, maybe?) called: "Things Over $1". I've been meaning to drive back and take a picture ever since.
Reminds me of other meaningless spin, e.g. the weatherman:
"Partly cloudy with a chance of showers"
or the financial analyst:
"the market will recover from these or lower levels"
This one near my work is worse, in my opinion. It bills itself as a $0.99 store, but in smaller print claims all its items are $1 and up!
http://flickr.com/photos/jonathanharford/2078783023/
In 1968 I worked in a small mom & pop discount clothing store (I was 15). One day, the boss told me to put price tags on a shipment of men's dress socks. He told me to mark them 55 cents each/4 pairs for $2.25. When I tried to point out the error in his methodology he told me "just do it kid". It was pretty interesting to see how many people bought them in groups of 4 without ever stopping to check the math. I only saw one lady question him on the price and he told her that it meant they were 55 cents per sock. And she believed him.
Heh... Kinda reminds me of a store called "Stupid Prices". We have one here in Kent, WA. I haven't been in there to determine whether the prices are stupidly high or stupidly low.
Here's one in Houston
Less or More $1 Store
http://www.flickr.com/photos/allelbows/319686496/in/set-72157594404767321/
I live about a mile south of this place and believe me there's alot of funny store names. Just up the street from this is an indoor golfing range called "Llama Golf"
The ones around here say "Everything's a Dollar (almost!)"
Like Justin, I live near there and drive vermont all the time. There are great stores in there, for example: "Hi Puppies!" with pictures of small dogs wearing crowns, and "Good Ha!!!"
There is also a Brazilian Deaf Church. I have no desire to make fun of them, but I do think that it's got to be a real niche community they're aiming for there.
I live right by this store, and I jog by it every night. I'll have to investigate just how high these prices get from 2.99 and report.
I guess my favorite store name on Vermont though, is the hilariously named "Porno Mania!!"
of course there's the "singular" cellphone store... i think it's on 6th? Or the Korean eyeglass place (eye) (heart) (eyes/glasses)?
Just needs a colon.
Everything: $2.99 & Up
Let's see the Bentley dealer top that.
HEY Mark!
DONT DIS THE $2.99 STORE, I ACTUALLY SHOP THERE ALL THE TIME! AND AS A STARVING STUDENT, WITH THE ECONOMY GOING TO SHIT, IT IS TRULY A BLESSING TO BE ABLE TO GO INTO A STORE IN LA AND ACTUALLY AFFORD SOMETHING. sorry for the caps, but seriously...
OK, Here's my rant:
This store sells overstock of pretty cool clothes that normally sell at places like Forever 21, Target, etc. for at least $20 per article.
And it used to all be sold for $2.99 (Hence "Everything $2.99")
For example, they sell cute t-shirts, tanks, skirts, belts, etc.
I believe the material use to make the item of clothing is worth more than $2.99, so it feels like a bargain... Way cheaper than a thrift store for brand new clothes...
Then earlier this year they got in some better/hipper merchandise (Hence the "And up") and these newer style clothes I've seen sold for way more in the expensive shops on Melrose.
I've gotten a lot of designer duds at THIS STORE and rock bottom prices. Nothing in the store is more than $9.99, which is the price they sell shoes for up stairs -- Better quality shoes than Payless, and usually cheaper.
A lot of the accessories are 99 cents, so I guess not "Everything" is $2.99 & Up.
Thanks for reading,
Happy Shopping!
Sarahfenix: Please stop yelling, you can make your point(?) without the caps.
I'm going to be pedantic now: the problem isn't with the fact that the store sells cheap shit. The problem is that the store could be selling really really expensive shit (see Bently et al. above) and could easily claim to not be misleading their customers who, presumably, were looking for the genuinely cheap shit. This according to the sign out front.
Happy Shopping!
0.o
silly store names aside, as a child of parents who own and operate a discount store, this really is an indication of how tough it is to survive as a small business owner now.
Your patronizing aside, for everyone who has never even been in this store, you don't seem to understand that at one point in time "EVERYTHING" in the store WAS sold for two dollars and ninety nine cents; using the sign "Everything $2.99"
My point is: the original sign was not misleading.
Further, the majority of the items in the store are STILL sold for two dollars and ninety nine cents with the remaining selection sold for more.
I get it: the "& up" is misleading... But not if you actually go in to the store. Then you would know what they mean.
Absent that, it's obviously a bright & catchy sign with all you need to know entitled in the store name.
Maybe Bentley Dealerships should change their names to "EVERYTHING $200,000 & UP" but then that wouldn't be as catchy, would it? It would also keep people (the majority of us) from stepping foot into the lot (ie. bad for business?)
Sarah,
If you didn't already have a comment history, I would think that you were just here to shill for the store.
what does it say about a society that stigmatizes thrift and probity?
I agree with #21 SarahFenix. Over here, the store would have simply put up a sign that says everything $2.99; nevermind that 5% to 10% of it's stuff is actually more than that.
I have seen plenty of $2 stores that do this. The stuff that are more than $2 have price stickers, $3 to $5, and sometimes (rarely) even up to $10. Everything else (90%) is $2. Nobody feels cheated into walking into the store because most of the stuff is actually really $2. OTOH it would have been misleading if only 5% of their stuff were $2 and everything else was in the "and up" category.
Looks like their sign has a potential to be misleading (and other businesses have done this), but as Sarah (who has actually went into the store) points out, they're not actually that sleazy. The potential to be misleading is not the same as the realized fact of actually being misleading. It's like Bush's "preemptive strike policy". We should declare this as a "non-sleazy" store we may actually visit, which I would, if not for the fact that I live about 15,000km away.