Business Insider/Jessica Tyler Dollar Tree, Dollar General, and Five below are all opening tons of new stores this year.
- Dollar stores are having a moment.
- Dollar Tree currently has 14,000 locations, with plans to open hundreds more in 2018. Comparable sales were up 1.8% at Dollar Tree in the second quarter.
- Dollar General currently has about 15,000 locations, with plans to open 900 in 2018. Comparable sales were up 3.7% at Dollar General in the second quarter.
- While not a traditional dollar store in that its products are priced up to $5, Five Below currently has 625 stores, and it plans to open 50 more this quarter alone. In the second quarter of 2018, Five Below's comparable sales grew by 2.7%.
- We shopped at all three dollar stores and found that one of them offered a much better experience than the other two.
Dollar stores have been growing like crazy recently, with Dollar General, Dollar Tree, and Five Below all planning on opening new stores in 2018. From 2010 to 2015, dollar-store sales grew from $30.4 billion to $45.3 billion in the United States.
Dollar Tree, which recently acquired the Family Dollar chain, currently has around 14,000 locations. In the second quarter of 2018, Dollar Tree reported comparable sales were up 1.8%. USA Today reported that Dollar Tree plans to open 350 more namesake locations, 300 new Family Dollar locations, and rebrand 50 Family Dollar locations as Dollar Tree stores.
Dollar General currently has around 15,000 locations. In 2017, Dollar General opened new locations at a rate of around four stores a day, and in 2018 it plans to open 900 more stores at a rate of about three stores a day. In the second quarter of 2018, Dollar General reported same-store sales were up 3.7%.
While not a traditional dollar store in that its products are priced up to $5, Five Below announced its own plans to grow earlier this year. In the second quarter of 2018, Five Below's comparable sales grew by 2.7%. It has opened 67 new stores so far in 2018 and plans to open another 50 this quarter in addition to the 625 stores it already operates, CEO Joel Anderson said in an earnings call earlier this month.
One of those stores will be a flagship location on New York's Fifth Avenue, one of the most expensive shopping destinations in the US, CNBC reported.
We compared what it's like to shop at the three rapidly growing stores and found that one offered a far better experience. Here's the verdict: