{"id":43237,"date":"2019-06-03T11:00:14","date_gmt":"2019-06-03T15:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=43237"},"modified":"2019-06-03T11:00:28","modified_gmt":"2019-06-03T15:00:28","slug":"dollar-tree-adding-alcohol-to-struggling-family-dollar-stores","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2019\/06\/dollar-tree-adding-alcohol-to-struggling-family-dollar-stores\/","title":{"rendered":"Dollar Tree adding alcohol to struggling Family Dollar stores"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Dollar Tree is adding alcoholic drinks to about 1,000 Family\nDollar stores in its latest effort to turn around the struggling chain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chesapeake, Virginia-based Dollar Tree announced the plans\nThursday, saying it would also expand freezers and coolers at about 400 Family\nDollar stores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company recently announced plans to close up to 390\nFamily Dollar stores this year, mostly in the second quarter. In a normal year,\nit closes about 75. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dollar Tree acquired Family Dollar in 2015, but the\nacquisition has dragged the company’s finances. Family Dollar’s same-store\nsales rose only 0.1% in 2018 and 0.4% in 2017, prompting the overhaul efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The disappointing results earlier this year had drawn a\nchallenge from activist investors at Starboard Value. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The retailer is also renovating at least 1,000 Family Dollar\nlocations to include expanded party goods and certain Dollar Tree-branded\nmerchandise. Some 200 locations are being rebranded as Dollar Tree stores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In our view, Family Dollar remains a drag on\nperformance and its transformation will continue to absorb both management time\nand company capital for the remainder of this year and beyond,” Global Data\nRetail managing director Neil Saunders wrote Thursday, but “fortunately,\nthe steps being taken to improve performance at Family Dollar appear to be\nworking.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dollar Tree also announced Thursday that it is expanding a test in which it offers more items for more than\nits customary $1 price point<\/a> at its namesake locations. A trial\nunderway during the first quarter for the Dollar Tree Plus! products will be\nextended to more than 100 Dollar Tree locations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company, which has more than 15,000 stores overall, said\nit would continue to offer $1 items at Dollar Tree locations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sales at Family Dollar stores open at least a year rose 1.9%\nin the first quarter, marking the chain’s best performance since Dollar Tree\nbegan reporting those figures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Our Family Dollar turnaround is gaining\ntraction,” Dollar Tree CEO Gary Philbin said in a statement. “Our\nefforts to accelerate initiatives to optimize the real estate portfolio are\nmaking a difference as demonstrated by our improving same-store sales\nresults.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But challenges remain. “We are under no illusions that\na complete turnaround of the business will not be delivered quickly nor will it\ncome cheap,” Saunders wrote. “This will both reverse the benefit of\nsynchronistic cost savings from bringing Dollar Tree and Family Dollar together\nand raises questions over the amount paid for the business.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, the retailer’s first-quarter net sales rose 4.6% to\n$5.81 billion. Net income rose 66.9% to $267.9 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dollar Tree is adding alcoholic drinks to about 1,000 Family Dollar stores in its latest effort to turn around the struggling chain. Chesapeake, Virginia-based Dollar Tree announced the plans Thursday,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":43238,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43237"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}