Consider for Your New Store

The location of the store, shopper demographics, competition and even the owner’s preferences also must be considered when selecting the best dollar store strategy for your new business. Read on for more on this important topic. In this article I present some of the most common formats along with some format variations to consider.

• 99¢ or $1.00 store. If you know how to open a dollar store, likely this is the format you think of first.

• Include both 99¢ or one-dollar, and dollar plus together in appropriate departments. Those who know how to open a dollar store recognize one of the easiest ways to include dollar plus merchandise is to make the majority of the merchandise 99¢ or $1 and then add in complementary products selling for more than $1. All of the merchandise just comes together in each department. Just remember to carefully price items to eliminate confusion for shoppers.

• Designate areas for 99¢ or one-dollar dollar store merchandise, and other areas for all dollar plus dollar store merchandise. By providing a standalone area for the items priced over $1 shoppers can decide for themselves whether they will even examine the dollar plus merchandise.

• Create a discount area designed for all dollar plus items. Generally this strategy allows you to include a wide variety of products which originally retailed for much more than $1. This opens the door to prices as high as $20 or even more. Just remember – deep discounts will be expected by shoppers.

• Set specific dollar amounts. For example, $1, $2, $3, or $5. This can become you store theme; everything sells for $3 for example. You also can designate portions of your store for each price point. Once again it is critical to make it clear to shoppers what they will be paying for different items.

• Convert to discount store format. Rather than worrying about a price point, the challenge here is to deeply discount all items offered to your shoppers.

Those who know how to open a dollar store recognize the importance of their format decision. They realize this one decision can have a long lasting effect on their business. Be sure to carefully consider your options. Once you have the decision, do everything possible to develop a solid business plan around your strategy.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 17th, 2011 at 1:51 pm and is filed under Business. Tags: Consider, Store You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.