If you call your store Five Below, you might be painting yourself into a corner with the implicit promise of “$5 or below” in your name. But one customer appears to have captured some sort of history being made for the retailer.
In a viral video, TikToker @einstiensdaughter shows a Five Below employee changing a sign trumpeting “$5 tee shirts” by affixing a tiny 55 next to the big five to make it read “$5.55.”
The video, soundtracked to a snippet of Don McLean’s “American Pie,” went up on Sunday and has garnered over 1 million views since.
@einstiensdaughter 😔
♬ original sound – ꧁abby!!꧂ ☮
The on-screen caption accompanying the video read, “We literally witnessed the change.”
Judging from Five Below’s website, however, the retailer already seems to have hinted at certain items being more than $5. The site’s company info page has a graphic that reads, “Cool stuff $1 to $5,” with a smaller font adding “and beyond” to the slogan.
The site also notes, “Five Below is a leading high-growth value retailer offering trend-right, high-quality products loved by tweens, teens and beyond. We believe life is better when customers are free to ‘let go & have fun’ in an amazing experience filled with unlimited possibilities. With most items priced between $1 and $5 and some extreme value items priced beyond $5 in our incredible Five Beyond shop, Five Below makes it easy to say YES! to the newest, coolest stuff across eight awesome Five Below worlds: Style, Room, Sports, Tech, Create, Party, Candy, and New & Now.”
Still, some viewers expressed dismay with what the video captured.
“5 below turned into 5 above and dollar tree turned into 1.25 and up tree in the same year,” one observed.
Another remarked, “It’s no longer inflation…. it’s greed at this point.”
Someone else opined, “I’m tired of companies telling employees’ we can’t do raises because inflation’ and then reporting record profits. It has to stop.”
Another person cracked that the store was now “5 and some.”
And one person claimed, “5 below has had $15 items for the last two years at least.”
The Daily Dot contacted @einstiensdaughter via TikTok comment and Five Below via email for further information.
