Dollar Tree.
It used to have been an unreal experience witnessing the existence of these stores when they came out. Everything for a $1. No joke. The quality of some things have had corners cut and the quantity might’ve been laughable, but there was a good solid purpose for these stores.
And then I started seeing the signs after a few good solid years of shopping there. The first sign was how they stopped selling eggs. This was before the Bird Flu. They stopped selling eggs because they simply couldn’t afford to buy stock and then the price hike to $1.25 happened.
And now they’ve hiked the prices again to $1.50 for some products in a handful of stores. Additionally, they’ve incorporated items going from $2 ~ $15 so they have long lost the role and title of being the most affordable places to shop.
Gone were the days.
Granted it’s a bit niche, but: skiing + snowboarding.
I learned to ski as a kid back in the 90s, and have always loved it. Used to be you could get a lift ticket at alpine meadows (where I learned to ski) up in Tahoe for like 40 bucks. Palisades Tahoe (the merged resorts formerly known as Alpine Meadows and
Squaw ValleyPalisades) now costs between 2-300 a day (surge pricing, ofc) if you buy a ticket day-of - not including rentals/demos/parking/food/etc that a snow enjoyer might also opt for.Yeah, fine, it’s a kinda bougie sport, but it’s kinda awful that all these PE firms who are gobbling up all the mountains in the country are not even pretending to keep the prices even remotely reasonable. I don’t need a “curated resort experience”. I just want to slay some gnar pow.
What’s even worse is that even with these prices, Palisades is absolutely swamped with people on most days that are worth skiing (especially holidays).
So, unfortunately, the market can clearly bear these prices…
I definitely miss skiing in Tahoe when I was younger. Much different vibe now with all the crowds :(
What percentage of the market is daily pass vs seasonal pass, I wonder? I think it’s close to half at the big resorts. I feel like mountains (and mountain ownership groups) are pushing hard into the subscription model which means a lot of those people are paying less than the surge cost for the day, but a lot of people are also paying for a year pass but are sitting on their butt at home b/c they don’t actually have time to get out.
On peak days, both people with onesie-twosie passes and the people with annual passes are out there, I bet.
Yeah this is a tough one. I think I read something like 70% is pass holders. Stowe, a mountain in Vermont, used to charge $2,000+ for their season pass. Now Epic is ~$700-800 and gives you a bunch more. The lines suck, they treat their workers like shit, they charge for parking, but skiing has generally become more affordable with the mega passes in some regards. I prefer passes like the Indy pass myself anyway.