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India’s Quick Service Restaurant war seems to be never ending. At a point when saturation point in burger has been reached, thanks to <keyword id="33542" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Burger-King">Burger King</keyword>, McDonalds and <keyword id="6376241" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="KFC">KFC</keyword>, a new <keyword id="491" type="POSITION" weightage="20" keywordseo="player">player</keyword>, <keyword id="349155" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Wendy">Wendy</keyword>’s has joined the race. World’s third largest burger chain boasts in the fact that they won’t reduce the price compromising with the quality. A time when the price war has triggered a tough competition making McD and KFC to sell burgers at Rs 25-35 onwards, Wendy has earmarked the burgers above Rs 59. 
 As per a news report by The Economic Times, its starting menu has 11 vegetarian and 10 non-vegetarian products with burger prices going up to about Rs 200 apiece. <keyword id="1646510" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Jaspal-Singh-Sabharwal">Jaspal Singh Sabharwal</keyword>, MD at <keyword id="34499" type="POSITION" weightage="20" keywordseo="private-equity">private equity</keyword> firm <keyword id="260134" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Everstone-Capital">Everstone Capital</keyword> that partners Burger King in India, agreed it is not easy to do a quality product at less than Rs 30. Talking to the ET, Wendy's <keyword id="194612" type="POSITION" weightage="20" keywordseo="global-president">global president</keyword> <keyword id="2838732" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Darrell-van-Ligten">Darrell van Ligten</keyword> said, “"We are starting at Rs 59 because we believe that's where quality comes in.” 
 
"It is a strategic call that the brands take. You can play the sub-Rs 30 game by re-engineering the product build and certain consumers don't mind it because they understand the price-value equation very well. For brands, this means lower per unit profits but much higher penny profits driven by huge traffic and an added opportunity to up-sell other items like fries and beverages," Sabharwal told the ET. 
 
 According to Sabharwal, the price elasticity at lower price points is huge in India. "You can sell more than 700 burgers a day at Rs 27 per unit but this drops to 250 if you increase price to Rs 35 per unit," he says. Prices at Burger King start atRs 35, McDonald's sells burgers upwards of Rs 27, and KFC sells burgers starting at Rs 29. Wendy's Ligten admitted that the firm had lost the first mover advantage in India, but hinted that coming in late has its advantage. "Thanks to them (McDonald's and KFC), we don't have to educate Indian consumers about western QSRs (quick service restaurants)," said Ligten, a former employee at Yum! that owns KFC and <keyword id="58553" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Pizza-Hut">Pizza Hut</keyword> chains. 
 The Et report reads, officials at Wendy's, however, feel there are enough consumers for 'quality' products. "People are eating less pizzas and burgers here despite low prices because of the quality of the food," said Jasper Reid, head of <keyword id="748111" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Sierra-Nevada">Sierra Nevada</keyword> Restaurants, exclusive franchise partner to Wendy's in India. "New Delhi is no different from <keyword id="6355838" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="New-York">New York</keyword>. Consumers are the same everywhere. There's a flight towards quality," he added. Sierra Nevada is a joint JV between UK firm <keyword id="2838478" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="International-Market-Management">International Market Management</keyword> and domestic firm <keyword id="2493023" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Rolltainers">Rolltainers</keyword>. <keyword id="1694775" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Sanjay-Chhabra">Sanjay Chhabra</keyword>, <keyword id="2839097" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="director-at-Sierra">director at Sierra</keyword> Nevada, said it plans to set up 8-10 Wendy's restaurants every year over the next five years or so. 
 
(Image: Hufffington POst)

Wendy’s is taking McDonalds
head-on in the Indian market

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Some Dollar General stores have temporarily closed because they are overcrowded with goods.</li><li>Photos show items like bottled water and dog food clogging aisles, and boxes packing back rooms.</li></ul>Some Dollar General stores are so full of stuff that local fire marshals are ordering the stores to close until they can cut down on the clutter.At some locations, aisles are clogged with plastic tubs and metal-framed dollies, called "rolltainers," that hold goods still wrapped in their shipping containers, according to photos shared with Insider. Typically, these items are stored in back rooms until employees can unpack them. But some Dollar General stores appear to be unloading truck deliveries directly onto sales floors. In some cases, the merchandise has blocked aisles, exits, and access to fire extinguishers, according to fire safety officials.Insider counted at least six Dollar General stores around the US that have closed temporarily within the last few months after local officials said they violated fire safety codes. Insider identified the stores using local media reports, interviews with local officials, and public records of Dollar General store inspections.A Dollar General spokesperson told Insider that it "is committed to providing a safe work environment for its associates and shopping experience for its customers.""We regularly review and refine our safety programs, and reinforce them through training, ongoing communication, recognition and accountability," the spokesperson said. "When we learn of situations where we have failed to live up to this commitment, we work to timely address the issue and ensure that the company's expectations regarding safety are clearly communicated, understood and implemented."<h2>Dollar General stores with too much inventory sitting in the aisles can violate fire safety codes</h2>In Pittsylvania County, located in Southern Virginia, county officials ordered two Dollar General stores to close temporarily last fall."When they receive a shipment of stock, their back room isn't big enough for that stock," said Christopher Key, public safety director for Pittsylvania County told Insider.Inspections at the stores in Gretna and Mount Hermon, Virginia found aisles so cluttered that they lacked at least 36 inches of space for customers and employees to get through, the minimum clearance required by law, Key said. Inventory was also blocking exits and was too close to electrical panels, he said.Both stores reopened within a few days, Key said. But the county still hears from customers about how packed Dollar General stores in Pittsylvania are, he added."The one in Gretna, we receive complaints week after week after week," Key said.In neighboring North Carolina, officials in Watauga County ordered two Dollar General stores to close for similar reasons, <a href="https://www.wataugademocrat.com/news/local/one-dollar-general-reopens-after-fire-marshal-closes-two-locations/article_8872a9d0-a9ab-11ed-b5a9-e32cf6f34d62.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the Watauga Democrat reported on February 14.</a>At a Dollar General in Cadott, Wisconsin, about 110 miles East of Minneapolis, Minnesota, the local fire department found "excessive amounts of overstock items in the aisles and in their shipping/receiving area," the Cadott Police Department <a href="https://www.weau.com/2022/08/29/cadott-dollar-general-forced-close-due-safety-concerns/" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow sponsored">posted on Facebook in August.</a> The store reopened later that month.One truck driver who delivers merchandise to Dollar General stores in the Midwest told Insider that they sometimes drive a full trailer of merchandise hundreds of miles to a store only to find out that it's been closed by local fire safety officials. The driver asked not to be identified by name for fear of retaliation at work.<div type="image" title="Rolltainers full of boxes of cleaning supplies sit in the freezer aisle of a Dollar General in the Midwest." height="1008" width="756" msid="98316482" hostid="261" sizebytes="72210"></div>In those cases, the driver contacts the store's district manager, who lets them into the store to unload the merchandise. But that doesn't always happen, the driver said. "Sometimes, the manager will tell us to leave it outside, or we'll bring it back to the distribution center," the driver said.During a recent delivery, the driver said they arrived to a Dollar General store in Maple Lake, Minnesota and found it closed. Rolltainers of candy, toilet paper, and other merchandise were lined up outside of the building. A sign on the front door said that the store was temporarily closed but would "reopen soon," according to a photo viewed by insider.<h2>Dollar General has faced fines over excess inventory</h2>Dollar General's stores have been the subject of criticism and investigation for years.OSHA has fined the Goodlettsville, Tennessee-based retailer $15 million for what the agency said were "numerous willful, repeat and serious <a href="https://www.osha.gov/news/newsreleases/national/01262023#:~:text=Since%202017%2C%20OSHA%20has%20issued,more%20than%20180%20inspections%20nationwide." target="_blank" rel="noopener">workplace safety violations</a> related to unsafe conditions in more than 180 inspections nationwide" since 2017.One recent inspection, conducted at a Dollar General store in Mount Pleasant, Texas, found blocked exits "that exposed employees to fire hazards," <a href="https://www.osha.gov/news/newsreleases/national/02232023" target="_blank" rel="noopener">OSHA said.</a>The Midwest truck driver estimated that "between 60% and 80%" of the stores they visit are overcrowded with merchandise, especially consumable dry goods like pet food and bottled water. <div type="image" title="The back room of a Dollar General store in Iowa is filled with boxes of toys, trash bags, and other goods." height="756" width="1008" msid="98316485" hostid="261" sizebytes="63014"></div>Some Dollar General employees have even posted to TikTok about the problem. One video, posted in November by a user identifying himself as a worker at an Indiana store, shows plastic totes and rolltainers cluttering the sales floor."The whole aisle is full of totes," he says in the video. "And at each end cap, we have a rolltainer." Do you work or shop at a Dollar General that's cluttered and/or had to close? Reach out to Alex Bitter at <a href="mailto:abitter@insider.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">abitter@insider.com</a> or via encrypted messaging app Signal at (808) 854-4501.

Dollar General's stores are so overrun with merchandise that fire marshals are closing them

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Dollar General is trying to cut down on excess inventory to tame its messy stores.</li><li>The retailer is marking down inventory and using special teams of employees to clean up stores.</li></ul>Dollar General is trying to get a grip on its <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dollar-general-workers-hours-cut-employee-shortage-leads-to-clutter-2023-5">messy, overstocked stores.</a>The dollar store chain is marking down millions of items to move extra inventory, especially non-consumable items such as home decor and toys, that has been blocking the aisles at its stores. Those markdowns will be a $95 million hit to the company's operating profit in the second half of 2023, CEO Jeff Owen said on Dollar General's second-quarter earnings call."We believe it will drive traffic and also more quickly reduce excess inventory," Owen said on the call.To clean up its stores, Dollar General is also deploying "smart teams," or groups of employees who move between multiple stores to organize excess inventory, Owen said. The teams, one in each of Dollar General's districts in the US, are part of $50 million that the company is adding to its spending on labor."The stores that these teams have been able to touch, we've seeing the sales accelerate and continue and they haven't plateaued," Owen said.One former Dollar General employee who worked on a smart team in Texas told Insider that the job involves taking unpacked inventory off of rolltainers, or metal carts that hold boxes of merchandise and have become a common sight at the ends of aisles at many Dollar General stores. The employee's smart team was usually sent to stores right before they underwent an annual inventory review, the employee said."It was basically doing a whole-store revamp," the former employee said. "We'd throw all the penny stuff away," the employee said, referring to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dollar-general-penny-shoppers-snag-deals-messy-dollar-stores-2023-7">Dollar General items that have been marked down to one cent</a> each in the store's inventory and have become targets for bargain hunters.Dollar General's same-store sales for the second quarter fell 0.1%. Analysts surveyed by S&amp;P Capital IQ had expected growth of 0.8%.Messy stores could be a turn-off for middle-income shoppers who have historically become a key customer base for dollar stores during economic downturns as its core customer – the low-income shopper – is squeezed by rising living costs.These shoppers trading down have been used to neater and more organized shopping conditions at full-price stores."The state of some Dollar General stores over the course of this year has been unhelpful to converting new shoppers into bigger spenders and to increasing basket size more generally," Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail said in a note to clients on Thursday."While few consumers expect Dollar General to be a place of great inspiration, basic shopkeeping standards – such as not having aisles completely blocked by cages of merchandise, which are a function of excess inventory – are important," he added.With <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dollar-general-dollar-tree-family-dollar-stores-compared-2023-6">more discount store options</a> to choose from and chains like Walmart focusing on price, there are fewer reasons for these consumers to have to switch to Dollar General.Aisles at many Dollar General stores have been clogged with everything from dog food to school supplies over the last few years. Employees have told Insider that one cause for the mess is that Dollar General hasn't allocated enough worker hours to maintaining them.That's led to multiple problems, such as <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dollar-general-stores-closing-fire-code-violations-too-much-stuff-2023-2">local fire marshals closing Dollar General </a>stores because merchandise is blocking fire exits. One former employee in Texas also told Insider about a store where <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-show-rat-chewed-on-food-texas-dollar-general-store-2023-7">Dollar General's excess inventory was chewed and defecated on by rats.</a>Do you work at Dollar General and have a story to share? Reach out to this reporter at abitter@insider.com

Dollar General's messy stores are haunting the retailer as it takes a $95 million hit on inventory markdowns and deploys 'smart teams' to clean up

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Dollar General workers say their hours have been cut, creating a mess of merchandise at stores.</li><li>A shortage of person power makes it tough to unpack new merchandise and update inventory.</li></ul>Editors note: This story was originally published in May 2023. It was Christmas in May in the back room of a Michigan Dollar General last year.Two metal carts of Christmas toys leftover from the previous holiday season sat in the store's back room well into 2022. The plan, according to one employee who works at the store, was to hold the inventory there for a year until the next holiday season came around. "We're almost used as an extension of the warehouse," an employee at the store said.Current and former employees who spoke to Insider say clutter at Dollar General stores has gotten worse over the last few years. They've said staffing issues, including cut hours and poor wages, are at least partially to blame because employees must choose between helping customers and stocking shelves. At locations from Louisiana to Maine, stacks of unpacked candy, toilet paper, barbeque sauce, and pet food have attracted attention from local fire marshals, who have ordered some stores to close when the clutter blocks exits or access to fire extinguishers, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dollar-general-stores-closing-fire-code-violations-too-much-stuff-2023-2">Insider previously reported</a>. The clutter is one of the reasons that the Department of Labor labeled Dollar General a "severe violator" in March. The chain has racked up more than $15 million in fines from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and is in early talks with the federal government over a settlement, The <a href="https://t.co/PVNmHHkluH" target="_blank" rel="noopener">New York Times reported in March.</a>A spokesperson for Dollar General said: "Our goal is to provide stores with the resources they need, including the appropriate labor budgets, to support our expectations of a clean, well-stocked shopping environment as well as excellent customer service."Insider spoke with four current and two former Dollar General employees. They declined to be identified by name in this article for fear of professional consequences. Their identities are known to Insider.<div type="image" title="Clutter might keep some consumers away, but Dollar General is the only choice for essential food items and home goods in many areas." height="3024" width="4032" msid="100166312" hostid="261"></div><h2>Dollar General has reduced worker hours at many stores, leaving employees to choose between helping customers and stocking shelves</h2>An employee in Michigan said the hour cuts started about a year ago. Another in the Midwest said their store cut their hours, along with others' at their store and in their district, at the start of 2023. "For most people, it takes away needed hours and needed money," the employee told Insider. And those lost hours leave Dollar General stores understaffed and cultured, the employee added.Some stores have a single employee on duty for several hours at a time, according to three of the employees who spoke to Insider. "The morning shift is always the worst, because you spend the entire morning as the only person in the store," the Michigan employee told Insider. "I can't get any truck done," the employee said, referring to inventory that has been unloaded from a truck but still needs to be unpacked. Most employees that Insider spoke with said that their stores simply don't have the person power to unpack the rolltainers — the framed metal containers filled with inventory — that arrive each week. "The small back rooms are of course a problem, but they would be much less of an issue if stores were allotted enough hours to have employees stock trucks when they come in," one former employee, who worked at a store in Arizona for several years until last year, said.Every other week, store managers have to update an internal Dollar General system with counts of each item that they have on hand, so that the company knows what's out of stock and what to send in future deliveries, the former Arizona employee said. But items not on the shelves aren't always counted, employees said. This can lead to more inventory being shipped to the stores when it's not needed. "But if the store is a mess or there isn't enough time, then system numbers become wrong," the former employee said. That can lead to stores getting more bottled water and pet food even when their storage rooms or aisles might already be full of those things.The risks of being the only employee on duty extend beyond fire hazards. The stores are frequent targets for robberies, some of which have been deadly, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/26/business/dollar-general-robberies/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CNN</a> and <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/how-dollar-stores-became-magnets-for-crime-and-killing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ProPublica</a> reported in 2020. In January, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dollar-general-employee-charged-after-attempted-armed-robber-shot-killed-2023-1">a Dollar General clerk was charged with manslaughter after police said he shot and killed an armed robber</a>. The clerk said it was the sixth attempted armed robbery at that store since August.<div type="image" title="Despite the problems on the ground, Dollar General continues to earn positive feedback from analysts on Wall Street." height="3024" width="4032" msid="100166313" hostid="261"></div><h2>Cashiers and sales associates at Dollar General generally make a dollar or two above minimum wage</h2>Walmart this month raised the minimum wage for employees at its stores to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-increase-minimum-wage-for-employees-to-14-an-hour-2023-1">$14 an hour,</a> while Home Depot said in February that it would raise its starting wages to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-home-depot-spend-major-cash-on-worker-wages-2023-2">$15 an hour.</a> Dollar General has made investments in training and new jobs over the last few years, including $100 million it announced in March to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dollar-general-will-spend-millions-on-more-hours-for-employees-2023-3">add more hours for employees.</a>But multiple employees that Insider spoke with said that Dollar General stores often lose employees to similar retail employers, such as McDonald's, that offer higher wages and more hours.Cashiers and sales associates at the store generally make a dollar or two above minimum wage, an employee told Insider. As the minimum wage in some states has gone up, new employees frequently join at a higher hourly rate than workers who have been there for years."Somebody brought on today is brought on at what I hired at last year," an employee in the Midwest said. The fire marshal has closed their store four times due to excess inventory. When the more established employees see that, "they will generally quit" for a better-paying job, the employee added. "Then, I have to start recruiting again."Despite the problems on the ground, Dollar General continues to earn positive feedback from analysts on Wall Street. The chain's outlook, from its plan to open its 20,000th store this year to its expansion into new products and services, such as <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dollar-general-banking-financial-services-offers-2023-2">banking</a> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dollar-general-is-testing-mobile-healthcare-clinics-in-its-parking-lots-2023-1">healthcare,</a> earned its stock a "buy" rating last month from Corey Tarlowe, an analyst at Jefferies.That clutter might keep some consumers away, but in many areas, Dollar General is the only choice for essential food items and home goods."If they can't get it at a Dollar General or the gas station, people go without it," the employee in the Midwest said. Do you work or shop at a Dollar General store or have a story to share? Reach out to Alex Bitter at <a href="mailto:abitter@insider.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">abitter@insider.com</a> or via the encrypted messaging app Signal at (808) 854-4501.

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Wendy’s is taking McDonalds head-on in the Indian market

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Dollar General's stores are so overrun with merchandise that fire marshals are closing them

Alex Bitter

Dollar General's messy stores are haunting the retailer as it takes a $95 million hit on inventory markdowns and deploys 'smart teams' to clean up

Alex Bitter,Mary Hanbury

How Dollar General's troubles have snowballed into cluttered aisles and stores forced to close by fire marshals

Alex Bitter

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