Tuesday, November 10, 2026 Vol. I · No. 21 Price: One Attention Span
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  • Maison Deux Price, Every Item $2 ▲ +100%
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Opinion Satire

Two Dollars. Compare At One.

Percival Markdown, a price tag, on the luxury dollar store, where for the first time in his career the original price is lower.

Engraved portrait of a price tagBy , Guest Columnist (Alumnus) · 1 min read

Based on real news: How Much Growth Can Dollar General Unlock From Store Remodels? (Yahoo Finance)

My friend, I have been a price tag for nine years, and I have never been asked to do what they asked of me this week.

A dollar store opened a luxury room where everything costs two dollars. The merchandise team wanted my usual line. Compare at. I said, compare at what. They said, compare at one dollar. In the next room. Where the same sponge is.

You have to understand what this means for a tag like me. For nine years, the number on my top line has been the important one, the one nobody has ever seen in a store. Compare at $89. Now $29. Where was it $89? A store that has since been remodeled. I have defended that store at dinner parties.

If anyone asks for the original price, I will change the subject, which is the only part of the job that has stayed the same.

Compare At, A Career RetrospectivePercival's compare-at price as a share of the actual price, %
0%50%100%150%200%Throw pillows, 2019170%Cookware set, 2022164%Holiday sweater, 2025155%Maison Deux sponge,202650%
Compare At, A Career Retrospective
Throw pillows, 2019170%
Cookware set, 2022164%
Holiday sweater, 2025155%
Maison Deux sponge, 202650%

Source: Source: Percival Markdown, from memory, which has been remodeled. Fictional. Original prices available in a store that is no longer there.

This is the first time in my career that the compare-at price is real, it is right there, and it is lower. They want me to say compare at one, and then say two, and have the shopper feel good about the second number. My friend, that is not a markdown. That is a markup in a nice coat.

And yet it works. Celeste Abernathy, who has asked me for receipts more than once, reports that most shoppers ask whether the sponge is the same sponge, and buy it anyway. I have always believed shoppers do not want a lower price. They want a story about a price. The luxury room tells the story in reverse, and they still listen.

I have accepted the assignment. I will hang on the sponge. I will say compare at one. If anyone asks for the original price, I will change the subject, which is the only part of the job that has stayed the same.

Two dollars, my friend. Today only. Every day.

Mr. Markdown is a 40-percent-off price tag. He appeared in Edition No. 2.

More on Dollar General · Dollar Tree

Terms in this story: Markdown

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Riffing on: How Much Growth Can Dollar General Unlock From Store Remodels?, Yahoo Finance