The holiday shopping season, and the most important time of the year for retailers, is heading to a close. What can retailers expect this last weekend before Christmas? How about a boost for dollar stores?
Dollar stores have been strong for a long time, surging when the national economy was struggling and still performing well today. It’s not surprising, then, that consumers are flocking to them during the holiday shopping season.
Retail research firm NPD Group reported that more than four in 10 consumers said they planned to shop at a dollar store during the holiday season.
This continues a trend of increasing popularity for these discount stores. NPD’s Checkout, a receipt mining service, found that stores such as Dollar Tree, Family Dollar and Dollar General are growing in popularity. The service found that the number of shoppers at these stores rose 3 percent in the 12 months ending in October of 2018 when compared to the same period a year earlier.
Marshal Cohen, chief industry advisor for Port Washington, New York-based NPD Group, said that dollar stores have worked to attract more customers, and these efforts have paid off.
“Dollar stores’ old bargain-based reputation is now more about value and variety, expanding their reach among consumers,” Cohen said in a press release. “Especially during the holiday shopping season, time-starved consumers are attracted to one-stop retailers that help them minimize the surge in their spending.”
Dollar stores are attracting consumers of all incomes, too. NPD Group says that nearly a third of dollar store spending comes from households with incomes of $100,000 or higher. The second-highest share of spending comes from buyers with annual incomes of $25,000 to $49,999.
Older shoppers from the ages of 45 and 54 are the primary shopper at dollar stores, representing 30 percent of the spending at these retailers.
“In a world where online continues to threaten the livelihood of physical stores, dollar stores are proving that brick isn’t dead as long as it delivers the right balance of value to the consumer,” Cohen said.
