Of course it's early days and things can change, but the in game dollars can be used for food, weapons, ammo etc and only cosmetic items are sold for real money ( gold coins or whatnot). I believe you keep those gold coin items if you die.
Unlike war z, you can sell all the items you find to NPCs, so there is more of an economy. The GI space is also very limited which encourages you to sell the spare items for dollars.
In my very short playing I found lots of food, ammo, melee weapons, couple of guns and meds and lots of shop fodder items.