In America, we are always looking for a good deal. With inflation rising and wages staying mostly fixed, sometimes stores that guarantee a bargain are the way to go. That is going to get a lot more difficult in 2024, with Family Dollar shutting down 1,000 stores nationwide.
In 2015, Dollar Tree bought Family Dollar for $8.5 billion dollars. The company believed acquiring Family Dollar would help the chain compete against larger rivals, but it misjudged the deal.
“They never had the right business model. They were never going to get there,” according to David D’Arezzo, a former high-ranking executive at Dollar General and other retail chains.
That is what we are seeing now with the closing of nearly 1,000 Family Dollar stores across America. Family Dollar will close around 600 of those stores in 2024, and another 400 or so in the years after.
The locations that are closing are not profitable for the company, Dollar Tree CEO Rick Dreiling revealed on a call with analysts in March.
“Family Dollar is a victim of the macro environment out there,” he said. Dollar Tree thought that they could acquire Family Dollar and run it almost the same way.
That turned out to be incorrect. Family Dollar stores were in worse shape than Dollar Tree executives expected, and new strategies to turn sales around, such as selling beer, didn’t work.
Many Family Dollar stores were located too close to each other and sort of cancelled each other out.
“Family Dollar’s sales have been sputtering, hurt by neglected stores, poor product selection and unhappy workers,” The Wall Street Journal reported in 2018. Family Dollar “needs more work than the company originally thought.”
Evan Paul is the host of Taste of Country Nights, a syndicated radio show heard on more than 130 country radio stations nationwide, every night from 7PM to midnight. He plays the best new country music and interviews today’s top stars, like Luke Combs, Morgan Wallen, Kenny Chesney, Miranda Lambert, Dan + Shay, Keith Urban, Carrie Underwood, Luke Bryan, Chris Stapleton, Lady A, + more!
