The Dollar is our Best Friend

June 18, 2009
By

Walking through the mall the other day, i was pleasantly horrified to see this:

WTH is a Dollar store doing in Delhi? First the prices everywhere seem to be directly converted from dollars, and now this?

Somebody please tell someone that people in India earn in Rupees, not Dollars.

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32 Responses to “ The Dollar is our Best Friend ”

  1. vimmuuu on June 18, 2009 at 1:08 pm

    LOL, this is heights ! :D

  2. amreekandesi on June 18, 2009 at 1:28 pm

    @Vimal - Crazy, isn’t it!?

  3. Roshni on June 18, 2009 at 2:02 pm

    did you go in?! If you did and see the items worth $1, you may have got a bigger shock!!

  4. some body on June 18, 2009 at 2:20 pm

    “Somebody please tell someone that people in India earn in Rupees, not Dollars.”

    aapkaa hukm sar aankhon par. i expect no-one to respond ;-).

    - s.b.

  5. Ritesh on June 18, 2009 at 4:27 pm

    that is some funny s&@t!!

  6. Smitha on June 18, 2009 at 6:55 pm

    That is really the heights!! What do they expect?

  7. Liju Philip on June 18, 2009 at 8:11 pm

    we have been Amreekanised ;)

  8. Vinod Sharma on June 18, 2009 at 10:33 pm

    One of the many copy-paste jobs you see these days. There are plenty of Desiamreekans here, Amreekandesi!

  9. Vinod Sharma on June 18, 2009 at 10:34 pm

    Is is called dollar store, though everything goes for Rs 99.

  10. amlistening on June 19, 2009 at 12:30 am

    Its one of those cheap Big Bazaar type stores. I did not like there quality of some things though. I think there is an advantage in buying the branded products as quality is same but bulk buying makes the price efficient for the store.
    Am now thinking what more can India take from US…
    ->Laundry stores
    ->Blockbuster
    ->Fireworks on Independence day :)

  11. Mridu Khullar on June 19, 2009 at 12:49 am

    Oh my.

  12. kavi on June 19, 2009 at 1:56 am

    Oh ! This has been around for some time now ! From the hey days when the dollar was indeed soaring. And it was considered an ‘aspirational’ !

    There is not much available for a dollar or its equivalent here. And this place has got itself sufficiently mainstream here !

    People are aware. Of how much a dollar can do. And what value a store branding offers !

    :)

  13. ruSh.Me on June 19, 2009 at 2:47 am

    I have bought Mugs for gifting, deodorants, Shampoos and tonnes of Mars bars from here… :|

    p.s. where is the “No Indian Style, Please” post?

  14. Solilo on June 19, 2009 at 3:30 am

    It should be renamed as ninyaanaway rupaiyya store.

  15. Dinesh on June 19, 2009 at 11:56 am

    Our salary is paid in Rupees, But our clients are billed in Dollars :)

  16. Poonam on June 19, 2009 at 12:16 pm

    This is new expression, “pleasantly horrified” :P

  17. Nita on June 19, 2009 at 12:55 pm

    Several dollar stores opened all over Mumbai a few years ago. One by one they started to close down, and I think it was the recession combined with the dollar going up against the rupee. A few months ago the dollar store in a nearby mall closed down as well. They used to sell cheap brands at high prices anyway. You can buy imported products from anywhere these days, one doesn’t have to go to a dollar store. The one in Pune has also closed down.

  18. Indyeah on June 19, 2009 at 2:58 pm

    ???
    Where is this in Delhi?

  19. Hindi Radio on June 21, 2009 at 1:17 am

    yeah its happening not only in delhi but also many other big cities of India and this is not the only thing you will see here there are many others who think Indians are earning good in dollars… hehehehehe!

  20. Reema on June 21, 2009 at 7:05 am

    pardon my ignorance. what is a dollarstore?

  21. amit on June 21, 2009 at 8:39 am

    Oh come on! It has been there from quite a while! :P
    And try TGIP Mall in Noida, you will see a lot more brands there. :)

  22. abhi on June 22, 2009 at 1:24 pm

    not just big cities.. i saw one in Nashik ( maharashtra ). all the stuff is of low quality and most of food and beverage items sold are banned in USA for not conforming to U.S. FDA norms and also the infamous Chinese toys !! most of them have been shut down till this date ( atlest in Maharashtra ) i wonder how they are still doing in Delhi !

  23. Vijay on June 25, 2009 at 5:53 am

    Such a scam…as another commenter pointed out they sell bad quality/banned items…there was one near where I live in Bangalore and that got closed down…wasnt surprising as no one went there…

  24. My3 on July 1, 2009 at 7:11 am

    There was one in Mysore on Sayyaji Rao Road!!! I will check and see if they are still there. Just like here, they were filled with junk stuff for Rs. 99 and above.

  25. joreel on July 2, 2009 at 3:38 am

    hahahahah your right….its weird….!! :)

  26. gauri on July 2, 2009 at 11:42 am

    Is this a franchise or just a name?

  27. Nikhil on July 9, 2009 at 4:01 am

    LOL..!! this is insanity! :D
    Welcome back to India, btw! You’re in Delhi? Well, I moved to Delhi recently too… We should catch up! :D

  28. Bored Indian on July 13, 2009 at 7:22 am

    Ya, there was one here in Navi Mumbai. It’s a store where you get US stuff for 99 rupees.
    Initially, when I was younger, I used to be really fascinated by the slew of gizmos they used to display. When I was 13, I’d once bought a voice-amplifier(Made in America) for Rs.99. It didn’t last beyond an hour. My friend said the same thing could be got at the roadside “Janta Market” for 30 bucks.(I don’t know whether to believe that, though. He swears by JM :P)
    We used to go for stationery till it closed down. I really liked the quality of the notebooks . Especially the paper quality. Then one day I discovered to my dismay the dreadful back cover . Written there was : Made in INDIA. It was essentially export quality stuff (awesome paper quality, mind you). For some reason, I never find them in local stationery shops though other local brands have improved a long way.
    I found the quality of stuff really suspect. Most seem to be US factory rejects.(Though I used to buy stuff like foreign chocolates and Gatorade). But now I’ve been saving a lot of my parents’ money after Snickers came to India and people like Sachin Tendulkar started drinking Gatorade :D.

    I may be sounding paranoid, but this is an indication of a larger problem. How western nations dump waste and substandard stuff in developing countries like ours, just to earn a quick buck. India should be more assertive in this regard. But I’m not very hopeful. Especially after we caved in to the other nations’ bullying at G8 recently. The developed countries seem to be using every trick in the book just to escape shedding their lethargy on environmental issues and are trying to armtwist countries like ours to “be more responsible”. I’d read a newsitem as to how US biotech firms are dumping biomedical waste in places like AP. The Clemeanceau issue is only too well-known, though I don’t know what eventually became of it . Did that asbestos laden poisonous behemoth eventually land at Alang and strangle our workers? I wouldn’t be surprised if it did :(

    Sorry for the huge digression, but I thought these things are related…Feel free to correct me if you think I’m wrong.

  29. amreekandesi on July 28, 2009 at 1:32 pm

    Guys, thanks for the comments, and apologies for not posting individual replies like i usually do.

    This store was at the Great India Place mall in Noida, and i did not go in so cant comment on what sort of stuff they had. Will try to do that the next time i am in that area :)

  30. amreekandesi on July 28, 2009 at 1:33 pm

    @Nikhil - Thanks. And yes we should definitely organize a little blogger’s meetup for the Delhi gang at least.
    Congrats on your new book!

  31. Clifton Lauritsen on March 23, 2011 at 3:33 pm

    I can’t disagree any of your insights. You should write regularly!

  32. Doot on April 19, 2011 at 3:20 pm

    i need address of Dollor store in NCR ??

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All content on this site is the personal opinion of the writer. It is in no way related to their employer or their official policies. Most of what is written here is in a satirical tone. If it hurts your sensibilities, I sincerely apologize.
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