When I first heard about Temu, my initial thought was about how unsustainable the model seemed. But my second thought went to dollar stores: How could they compete with a website that makes it easy to find thousands of even cheaper items and have them delivered directly to your home, instead of having to search through the aisles of these stores?

Having recently read about Dollar Tree and Dollar General’s stock prices dropping significantly in the last quarter, I immediately wondered if competition from Temu and Shein was too much for these companies. Was my assumption correct, or is the situation more complex? Let’s see what’s happening with dollar stores and see if Temu is responsible for the drop in their stock prices. Then, I’ll quickly review what I observe on the digital side of these companies.

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