Dollar Store Services in Las Vegas
THE TRUTH ABOUT DOLLAR STORE SERVICES-DRSS-DISCOUNT PARTY STORES –MAIL BOX CENTERS
We were let go from the company about November of 2014. We waited till our unemployment was finished before giving out this information. We will be 100% truthful even thou it will show that we are also low life. Even when we knew the truth about DRSS we stayed and lied to clients about the most important details because we were told to follow policy.
Let’s start in the dollar store division. We were told to tell prospects that they would get 20%-25% discount on all the products they bought from their connections. At 1st we all thought this was true. I have opened about 35 dollar stores and my friend has open about 20 dollar stores or mail box store combined. These discounts are 100% false.
Merchandise is the most important part of the store. If you cannot get great products at a reasonable price then you’re out of business fast.
From our research our clients tell us that about half of the dollar store products sit on the shelves after the store opens and the items that do sell will cost about 85 cents each plus freight. Freight is included on all opening orders and then may be negotiable. The company tells you the average cost of merchandise is about 54-55 cents. This may be true on the opening order because your store is filled with mostly junk and some good selling brand names. They even say on their web site that they save you 20%-25% on merchandise. THINK ABOUT IT-YOU’RE BUYING MERCHANDISE CHEAPER THAT DOLLAR TREE??--IN THEIR PARTY DIVISION THEY SAY YOU ARE BUYING PRODUCT 35% CHEAPER THAT PARTY CITY??-YOU HAVE TO BE INSANE TO BELIEVE ALL OF THIS .DRSS even records all conversations and they know their reps all spilling this garbage.
Reference’s-HERE IS A BIG JOKE-reps are told only to use new stores as references because they are still excited about opening a new business. As of late 2014 DRSS had opened about 3200 stores but only had about 425 opened at that time. We had to change our cell numbers because too many of our clients were calling and begging for help. GOD couldn’t help these store owners.
They tell you that your dollar store location should generate about $185 per square foot per year in business. Even if that was true and it is not, you can’t keep the doors opened when your markup is about 15%.-20%.
FINANCE-If you use their suggested financing you will be getting as many as 8-20 credit cards and told not to cash them until you get instructions from them to liquidate the cards so you can pay DRSS and your new landlord. The next month your FICO score just dropped to about 500 not the 700 plus you had. Your credit is now almost worthless. If you pay cash or use your 401 you can say bye to your money. I CAN PROVIDE YOU OF MANY STORE OWNERS THAT CAN TELL YOU THE SAME OR JUST READ THE COMPLAINTS LISTED ON RIP OFF REPORTS. The credit cards may give you a grace period of no interest and your DRSS finance rep will convince you that you will make enough profit in that time to pay off the credit cards before your free interest rate is up. No store has ever ACCOMPLISHED THIS FEAT. Think about this. If you get $70,000-$100,000 on credit cards and your free interest is for about 1 year, your payment will be about $6,000-$8000 per month to pay them off before your 15%-20% interest rate starts. Only a few stores can even sell that amount of merchandise a month. Maybe if your store was over 5000 feet you may sell that much. Most store are only 1000ft -2000ft in size. There lucky, very lucky to even last one year. READ THE RIP OFF REPORTS.
They will tell you that a store will average $185 per foot each year. Let’s take a small store, maybe 1000 square feet. At these low numbers you should generate $185,000 in business your 1st year. Your average mark may be about 25% if you are very lucky and you won’t be. This should generate about $46,000 per year in profit. If your rent is only $2000 per month and your loan payment is just $5000 per month that alone comes to $84,000 paid out in the 1st year not counting insurance, utilities, pay roll and so much more. The numbers don’t lie. You take in $46,000 gross profit and payout at least $84,000 in the 1st year. You’re short about $38,000 plus all the other overhead each month. Your next step will be close the store and probably file bankruptcy later in the year. The larger the store the larger your loss will be.
COMMISSION-
We all make commission from your store. Sales reps, finance reps, site location reps and real estate department reps. DRSS has their owned licensed Real Estate company that will also take a very hefty commission when completing the lease. Many clients have told me that they could get a better location on their own for almost 40%-50% lower. We all have the same goal. Get your store open and make our commission. One good thing I will say about DRSS. The owner does try to find a viable site where you may have some hope of survival. One problem with this is there a list of shopping centers that have banned DRSS from getting sites for your store. The shopping center owners or reps have had too many DRSS stores close in the past.
You don’t have to believe me. Go on line and look up all the stores they have opened in the past 5 years on You Tube. Then Google those stores and talk to the store owners if they are still open. Look on DRSS own web site and Google their store owners and see what they have to say. If they are still open.
Party Stores and Mail Box Centers. They got so desperate for a good reference they even hired a current mail center owner in Las Vegas to come in and call prospect Mail Center owners and tell them about his store. For some reason he did not last long as a sales rep. At this time his store may still be open. I think he is one of the few success stories that DRSS has. But if his store was doing so well why did he need a job at DRSS.
More about store references. They pay their stores to be a reference if a prospect calls you and you say good things about DRSS. New store owners will say good things the first few months. Once they start complaining they will come off the reference list. DRSS does have a few successful dollar stores over the years. Most of them will tell you once they found their merchandise on their own they had a chance of actually stay in business for a few years.
I could go on for days telling you the horror stories that clients have told me or the other reps had shared with me. DRSS will of course defend themselves. They will show you how rip off report is a scam web site. It may be but ALL the people complaining about hundreds or thousands of businesses can’t be just making it up to help Rip Off Report. Thousands of individuals make complaints on Rip Off Report about hundreds of larger companies than DRSS. Since DRSS is a small company they only generate a few complaints. Most of their complaints are true but one is exaggerated. I wonder how many complaints DRSS would get if the 3500 store owners that have open a store with DRSS knew about Rip Off Report? DRSS even blocks access in their building so most employees cannot look up the complaints on Rip Off Reports. Most of us were not aware off all the problems at DRSS until after we had been there for a while but most of us still stayed scamming clients because we needed the job. We both have to be honest. If we had not been fired we would still be working and scamming at DRSS or Dollar Store Services or Mail Box Centers or Party Store Developers. We have talked to many ex-employees of DRSS and they all say about the same things. We knew we were scamming clients but we needed the job. One guy we know worked there for 6-7 years and he knew what was going on but still defends the company even after he was also fired last year. He is either an *** or a psychopath. No one in the company that we have known really wants you to fail but there was nothing we could do about it. They told us about 80% of all small startup business fails in the 1st two years. DRSS will not tell you this number because you would never open a store with them. If 80% is average with all new business I wonder what DRSS numbers would be. Maybe 95% failure in the 1st two years??? Maybe even more than 95%, we can only guess because DRSS does not give out those numbers.
Can we prove all that we have reported in this complaint? Probably not but we know are numbers are close. Are we mad at ourselves for working there? Probably not. We were *** doing this to clients. Are we mad at DRSS? Maybe a little angry but also relieved. My blood pressure was off the charts when I was working there and now it’s about normal for a person my age.
I could leave you a phone number or email address to contact me but I think other complaints have email addresses in them from actual store owners. They can tell you 1st hand.
I wish you luck and hope some of you found this report before buying a store from DRSS. DRSS will call us liars and afraid to say who we are. We all signed non-compete contracts and could possibly be sued by DRSS for telling what we know. Why is the FTC not knocking on their doors? They may be but DRSS is broken up into many smaller companies for tax benefits and may be under the radar. Also store owners may not have complained enough to the FTC. We don’t know but DRSS is not a franchise so they don’t have to follow all the same rules of dis closure.
GOOD LUCK-Even if 1% of this is true you should run. In this case we think 100% is the truth.
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada
Thank You for Your Reply! We are processing your message.
Comments
Please avoid publishing any personal information and promotional content
I am talking to Rexx Mehta of Dollarstore.com who claims the complaints is against Dollar Store Services and is not associated with Dollarstore.com. Could anyone kindly clarify? Rexx added that there is no complaint against Dollarstore.com and promptly show me a link of Dollarstore India where review was all good until I learned Dollarstore India is owned by Rexx Mehta from another website.
you all just save us, we were already in the process, paid the refund the stuff about messing up our credit, we experienced it. Thank God, there will be no going forward from this point. My God is faithful
Does any one know where I can find a good vendor
Hello I was wondering if I can contact you
Thank you this helped a lot you just saved me a lot of money and head ache
I wish I could turn back time. In the summer of 2014 I opened a Dollar Store....I had to closed it 5 months after.
I wish I knew all of these. It is true, its a scam. Now, Im just working to pay off all my debt with credit cards.
I used my savings and financed the rest with all the credit cards they open for you.
Now, I dont have any on my savings and have to see my paycheck gone to all those crdit card .
Dont believe DRSS-they are a scam!!!!!
These employees are telling the truth. I am a former store owner.
I was fortunate enough and found some of my own suppliers. I caught on real quick as a business owner to DSS deceptive practices. I used some of my own while still using DSS suppliers that I could not find a replacement for. I'm sure there was some kind of contract with suppliers on DSS list so I would try to connect with suppliers that were not on their list.
When your store stays open for a while word gets around. Local reps start calling on your store to get your business. This is how I think I was able to survive. I wrote the BBB of Las Vegas on them but in order to succeed I had to move forward.
It is difficult to operate your business & do battle with DSS. They tell you they are not a franchise but they are. If not why do they get a percentage of the orders you place with suppliers? I don't know all the legal loopholes but DSS is obviously using it to their advantage.
I would ask suppliers how they could do business with DSS. The sales reps knew what was going on but they had families to take care of & I'm sure were afraid. I do know the turnover was pretty high. I would get a different sales rep routinely from DSS the time I had my store.
I did not use their finance dept. & had my own commercial real estate agent but let DSS talk me into using their real estate dept. They said "why pay somebody else when you have already paid us for this service." They are full of lies. I wonder if Jim Wichert still meets with potential store owners.
Once he gets your money he will NEVER SPEAK TO YOU AGAIN!!!!
I'm glad to hear that shopping centers are banning DSS from opening in their centers. If more would do the same we won't have to worry about DSS taking advantage of another potential business owner.
I'm doing my due diligence and thank you for your feed back. I will continue doing a lot of research before even consider open. Thanks
Hello can you email me so we can talk twinny082003@***.com
You Just save my life , thanks a lot
Wow,
I could see the numbers on the website did not make much sense. Now it is clear to me we almost walked into a scam.
Thank you for your comments. Hopefully more people will get to read this.
You just save my life! Was about to do it!