Discount and Dollar Stores’ Traffic Keeps Pace with 2023

Not long ago, Family Dollar announced it would be closing stores. But even it saw its foot traffic numbers remain on par with last year’s visit levels, indicating the ongoing demand for value-priced goods in 2024.

The data comes from PlacerAI, which in a recent report showed that discount and dollar stores have become an important part of the wider retail landscape over the past couple of years, and location intelligence indicates that the category is continuing to gain momentum in 2024, according to its analyst Shira Petrack.

Of the three banners analyzed, Dollar General receives the most visits nationwide – but Dollar Tree comes out ahead in the western United States.

The gap between Dollar General and Dollar Tree’s visit shares is relatively small in several major states, indicating strong consumer demand that can sustain multiple leaders in the asset class.

For example, looking at Q1 2024 state-by-state relative visit share of the three chains – Dollar General, Dollar Tree, or Family Dollar – Dollar Tree was more popular in the West, as well as it being the most-visited chain in Eastern states Maryland, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.

Dollar General, meanwhile, received the majority or plurality of the visit share in the rest of the country.

PlacerAI’s traffic shows that there is not a “winner-take-all” model in dollar and discount stores, Petrack said. In many states, Dollar Tree’s visit share is just slightly lower than that of Dollar General.

In New York, for example, where Dollar General received 44.6% of the combined visit share in Q1 2024, 38.1% of visits in the same period went to Dollar Tree. And in Florida, where 44.2% of the combined visits to the three banners went to Dollar General, 38.2% of visits went to Dollar Tree.

It seems, then, “there is demand to sustain multiple players in the space,” according to the report.