Five Below: Are The Cheap Thrills Worth The Plastic Waste?
It is just past eight on a Friday night. I enter the local Five Below flanked by two friends, one of whom sometimes uses “adulting” as a verb to make a point, the other is just south of 60-years-old and still delights in her own odd mix Sanrio cuteness and stygian goth that includes graphic descriptions of postmortem decay and artistic frolic with the dark gods of her ancestors.
At first blush, we see displays of plastic pool toys, hula hoops, and racks boasting all things bright and attention-getting. Unlike many salvage or dollar store-type places, everything is bright and new. There is an exactitude of what is allowed on the shelves. Unlike the almost-but-not-quite knockoffs of what’s popular, everything is what it claims to be. Star Wars is all over the place, as is Hello Kitty, and Jack Skellington makes his umpteenth resurrection to pop currency as another crop of teens discovers the charms of Tim Burton’s nearly quarter century old classic, The Nightmare Before Christmas. Racks of cosmetics and beauty products bump up against a wall of very cute canvas tennis shoes and flipflops, nearby a table spills over with tie-dyed t-shirts. We are easily the oldest people in the store. We are also the only people who are not accompanied by at least one child.
Look at dat haul! ?Remember: u have a long wknd coming up! ? ? Load up on all $1-$5 #summer. ?? ?: @the_mrsrtaylor pic.twitter.com/zHPwhMkMNx
— Five Below (@fivebelow) May 23, 2016
In a suburban community just outside of Nashville, Tennessee that offers street after street of places to spend discretionary cash on almost anything a teen or tween could even think of wanting, what is the appeal of this store? Everything is $5 or less
The upper end of that price point includes shoes, clothing, trendy t-shirts that would cost four times as much at a comparable mall store and hardbound sketchbooks. Down the price scale, bottles of nail polish can be had for three for $5, racks of individually wrapped Swedish Fish, Squirrel Nut Zippers, and Mary Janes can be had in fill your own bags at a rate of ten pieces of candy for $1
We observe as young people wander the aisles, stopping to look at a magnet on a metal rack, a jewelry organizer, an emoji pillow. There is not a question of finding what they want so much as it’s the agony of having to choose what their allowance will allow them to take home. We do not leave empty-handed, either. Both of my accomplices buy Ouija board print thermal glasses and I spend a princely seven dollars on an ergonomic tweezers and a pair of Warhol-esque pineapple print tennis shoes.
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As we settle into coffee and a discussion of what we saw, I finally hit on what Five Below most resembles. It’s not Hot Topic or Spencer’s gifts. Those dimly lit caves full of every trendy thing and more than a few items your parents would never want you to have seemed like a different breed of retailer altogether.
Functionally, they might favor each other. As David Schlessinger, formerly of the late, lamented Zany Brainy and now co-founder of Five Below observed in an interview with Buzzfeed, “Zany Brainy was all about what you want to buy for your children,” while Five Below focuses more “on what teens want to buy for themselves.”
While creating a place for young people to find items that help them express who they are, the reality of keeping up with that demand while keeping it affordable brings up some troubling concerns. CEO and co-founder Tom Vellios described Five Below’s demographic as “somewhat fickle” and added that teens’ tastes are in a constant state of change.
“That’s what this audience is looking for — look at yourself, how often do you get bored with stuff? And you don’t want to spend a lot if you’re getting bored with product often and frequently want to change it out. So, value is a good place.”
The low prices coupled with the built-in obsolescence of the merchandise more closely resembles the prize counter at Chuck E. Cheese. The big difference is one need not win rolls of tickets to get that coveted shiny thing. Those items are a cheap thrill and a temporary one at that. The very low price point and the expectation that little or none of it will last beyond a season begs questions of the ethics of the manufacturing behind many of the items, especially the clothing and the mass-produced products made in China.
The clothes seem sturdy enough. I’m sure my shoes will last at least a year or two. For many of the people who buy the t-shirts, the question of how the merchandise Bust Magazine defines as fast fashion got there and why it’s only $5.
Our owner @beyondbethell standing on 1.5M discarded shoes. This is what living in an era of #fastfashion looks like! pic.twitter.com/V1tMsEhqJY
— Beyond Retro (@beyondretrouk) May 20, 2016
My Goth friend, who is a grandmother, admitted the trip to Five Below was stupid fun. She also found it troubling that the thought process was more about the acquisition of stuff than the thoughtful purchase of things that last and speak more to the individual than the teen zeitgeist.
“It’s not just about getting that special thing, it’s about getting stuff and then more stuff.”
As we talk, three girls sit at a table nearby. Two of them have bags full of bright, new “merch” from “Five.” The third pulls a skein of yarn from her Hobby Lobby bag, some knitting needles from her oversized bag, and begins to cast on stitches. Maybe there’s hope for Generation Z.
[Photo by Timm Schamberger/Getty Images]
