We went shopping at Dollar General and Five Below to see which rapidly growing discount store offered a better experience, and the winner was clear

Dollar stores have been growing like crazy over the past few years.

From 2010 to 2015, dollar-store sales grew from $30.4 billion to $45.3 billion in the United States. Dollar General, Dollar Tree, and Family Dollar have all announced plans to open hundreds of stores this year.

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 two rapidly growing dollar stores and found that one offered a far better experience. Here's the verdict: