Dollar General Plans to Add 10k Jobs While Traditional Chains Shut Their Doors

At a time when you can buy pretty much anything online, it’s no surprise that brick-and-mortar stores may be struggling. What is a surprise, however, is that some stores are actually thriving. You might know Dollar General from your local strip mall. Its popularity increased shortly after the recession, since it offers everyday items (from coffee to laundry detergent to diapers) at deep discounts. Amazingly, the retail chain plans to open nearly 1,000 stores in 2017. Via Marketwatch:

Dollar General Corp. DG, +1.06% said Friday it intends to create 10,000 new jobs in 2017, as part of its plan to open 1,000 new stores and two new distribution centers. The new jobs would increase its workforce by about 9% to over 130,000 employees, and would be the largest one-year increase in the discount retailer’s 78-year history.

According to Fortune:

…Dollar General recently completed its 26th straight year of same-store sales increases, a metric that strips out the effect of newly opened stores. In other words, the retailer’s new stores are not cannibalizing the more established ones. And Dollar General shares are trading near all-time highs.

Since these large chains are not acting as competition for each other, they must be affecting someone’s market share. It was recently reported that J.C. Penney, Macy’s, Sears and Kmart, along with countless popular chains often found in your typical shopping mall, have plans to close several locations. J.C. Penney alone will shut the doors of 130-140 of its stores, while CVS intends to close 70 of its drugstores.

From Clark.com:

…retailers on this list are closing stores because they’re not giving people what they want in terms of things like price, fashion and selection.

As a result, shoppers are increasingly turning to online and discount merchants for better deals.

If a traditional department store wants to survive in this challenging retail environment, Clark said they’ll have to be less traditional when it comes to pricing.

Clearly the pricing that people are flocking to can be found in chains like Dollar General, which is “targeting annual sales growth of 7% to 10%, with earnings per share growing 10% to 15%.”