For a discount store, this DG is a lot more interesting than I thought it would be. I've been looking for Luzianne iced tea bags, and the Market District doesn't carry them. A quick search on the Luzianne website revealed that (surprisingly) DG is the only store in PGH that stocks them, so I decided to drop by in hopes of finding them. I did find them here ($2.25), and was pleasantly surprised by DG's other offerings.
Having visited other dollar stores infrequently, I was expecting the majority of the product to be cheap, off-brand junk. Not so! The product is at least half name-brand items, with the remainder house brand. There's a surprising amount of food items, as well as personal care and cleaning products. My favorite finds, however, have been interesting products that I haven't found anywhere else around town, such as the Luzianne tea bags and Palmer peppermint patties ($1, which were surprisingly good, despite the suspect "chocolatey" label).
Having said this, a couple of caveats are in order. First, despite the name, not everything in here costs a dollar! Then again, I guess that's the necessary trade off for having mostly name-brand product. Second, don't automatically assume that everything you see here will be cheaper than GE, CVS, etc. I've seen the same brands of cereal sold here on sale for less at Market District, and some of the products priced more cheaply come in smaller sizes than they would elsewhere (toothpaste, cat litter). Second, the selection can be lacking for some product types (e.g., most of the food is on the processed/junkier side, even within categories, such as cereals--but then again, I suppose I'm not quite their target demographic).
Because this DG is very conveniently located to my apt., I will be checking here for certain items before going to GE or CVS. Hopefully, I can make some more cool unique finds! read more