Those Dollar Tree, Tik Tok shopping videos have become a way for me to "shop" from home. (I don't drive) I can see what I may want and then when I am able to leave the house, I can potentially get what I want. Easy right? Wrong!

I've been going to multiple Dollar Trees since January and I still can't find everything I want. I figured the items I wanted were/are just super popular and my persistence will pay off, etc.... Then I saw something very disturbing.

I found an article from the Daily Dot (I couldn't figure out how to link it but if you look up "Dollar Tree Employee Hiding Touchland Dupe", you'll find it). This article talked about a woman who went to Dollar Tree looking for items to add to Teacher appreciation baskets. One such item was the Touchland dupe that was made popular by Tiktok. The woman had gone to multiple locations and was empty handed each time. However, when she was getting into the checkout line another customer had two of the dupes in their cart. When asking where they got them, they told the woman that a worker had them in the back. This worker only allowed 2 to this woman making the Teacher appreciation baskets. The woman needed four.

But here's my question. Is this all a "friend of a friend" urban legend type thing where a person is trying to get clicks? So this woman called out Dollar Tree? The reason I ask is because it's widely known that Thrift Stores are rife with "Flippers" who over price items, refuse to sell the item or just take the item out right. Unfortunately it seems as if there's nothing changing. No rule, nothing.

Which brings me to this, the amount of that Sesame Street makeup I've seen on Ebay is ridiculous. Not to mention the amount of stories I'm hearing from people I know personally who have been told "everything is on the floor" and then someone else will have said item in their cart.

I'm a researcher at heart and I want to know if there are really this many employees who keep items to resell? Are there employees who pick and choose who they allow to have them? Is this a part of retail culture? Because if it is, it's really shady and scummy.

I want to be clear, I have absolutely no beef with an employee who buys something in their off hours. Even if they use their employee discounts. As long as they do things fairly, it's none of anyone's business what they do with the item once they get home.

EDIT: For clarification. The Daily Dot article is not the only source of information I had. I Googled retail law concerning employees not putting things out (to see if the woman in the article and others complaining of the alleged practice were complaining about something that was potentially illegal). I also Googled the policies of Dollar Tree or tried to to try and see if there was anything there. I read this sub reddit as well. However, I wanted to ask my specific question. I wanted to know if there was something going on. It's obviously not. I'm glad of that!