Posted on 06/02/2015 8:37:20 AM PDT by Citizen Zed
Discount retailer Dollar General sells everything from underwear to kitchen tools and school supplies, but sales volume from recent months indicates that its customers are more interested in items that provide a bit more fun: The company said Tuesday morning that strong sales in tobacco products, candy and snacks helped drive its first quarter same-store sales up nearly 4%. Though the sales figure was slightly lower than what Wall Street analysts were expecting to see, Dollar General did beat the Street’s expectations with its first quarter earnings results — news that sent the company’s stock for a nearly-5% jump in early Tuesday trading.
Dollar General reported Tuesday morning that it recorded $4.92 billion in first quarter revenue, a figure that’s up 8.8% year-over-year and just a hair below the $4.94 billion analyst consensus. Net income for the quarter came in at $253.2 million and resulted in earnings of 84 cents per share, a figure that beat the 82-cent per-share consensus estimate and a result that marked a 16.7% improvement over earnings reported this time last year.
Same-store sales increased 3.7%, thanks in part to strength in “vice” spending categories like tobacco, candy and snacks, but also to higher customer traffic and a higher-dollar transaction amounts.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
IIRC, Dollar General doesn’t hold the line at a buck.
The Department of Tobacco Candy and Snacks needs to look into this.
It’s the “Dollar Tree” that has everything for a buck.
Now all they need is the alcohol and firearms.
They’ve only been carrying tobacco for about two years.
My daughter used to work for them. She said the two items people asked for the most often, and which they did not carry, were cigarettes and condoms.
Clearly someone at HQ heard that and made a business decision. They now sell both. Seems to be a smart one as the CVS across the street subsequently quit selling tobacco.
Correct. Think of it more as a Five and Dime store. I shop there often especially for foods that other local stores don’t carry. Ro-Tel is an example. Common in the South but not around Pittsburgh until recently.
Ask for a can of Hop ‘n’ John’s at a supermarket here and you get blank stares.
I even considered making a Dollar General cookbook at one time.
They are also a good source for household products.
I have a friend who goes across the southeast constructing Dollar General stores from the ground up. He tells me many are out in the middle of nowhere with only a gas station being the other building in the little town
Candy is a vice?
“Ask for a can of Hop ‘n’ John’s at a supermarket here and you get blank stares.”
Ours has boiled peanuts. Probably the only place you’ll find them in the upper Midwest.
What happened?
This is a calamity. Someone on the Senate Agriculture Committee should investigate. Being in Georgia, I recommend Republican Sen. David perdue.
Half their traffic is reloaders.
One our favorite spots to get cheap stuff.
Do they need volunteers?
I have not been in the 2 local Dollar Generals or 1 local Family Dollar in a while.
The last time I was there, it seemed that they had fewer ‘store brand’ products and more name brands.
There is a brand new one in our town. It is larger than the ones in neighboring towns. I think they cut WalMart off at the pass by going into the very small towns. We have 2 withing 10 miles either direction with the big town 20 miles away.
Eric Garner could answer your question if he were available.
The irony is that Walmart got its start by opening stores in communities of around 3-5k population across Arkansas and Missouri in the 1960s. They competed with the mom-&-pops that had been the major stores in those towns.
That profitable base allowed them to expand into other states and larger cities by the 1980s.
Now if they would just add rot-gut booze and cut-rate hookers to their lineup, they’d see profits REALLY zoom!
It’s all about activating the dopamine receptors in the brain. Sugar is a good one for it.
People who shop at Dollar General are dopamine junkies.
It makes perfect, politically incorrect, sense.
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