Overall demand for dollar stores appears to be growing, reported Placer.ai. Dollar General posted mid- to high-single-digit same-store traffic gains between September 2025 and January 2026, even as it continued to expand into rural America. Meanwhile, Dollar Tree, which added more than 300 stores over the past year, maintained flat to modestly positive same-store traffic trends.

According to Placer.ai, visitor behavior at the two chains helps explain why there is room for both brands to expand. Both stores fulfil different shopping missions: 25.0% of Dollar General visitors in 2025 were frequent shoppers, defined as four or more visits in an average month, compared to just 9.2% at Dollar Tree. Average dwell time also diverged, with shoppers spending 20 minutes per visit at Dollar General versus 13.6 minutes at Dollar Tree.

“Those patterns suggest that Dollar General functions as a routine essentials stop embedded in weekly shopping habits—a consumables-driven positioning that appears to be strengthening as the company expands large-format stores and invests further in fresh food offerings,” Placer.ai wrote. “Dollar Tree, by contrast, plays a more targeted role, capturing shorter, mission-driven trips often tied to seasonal goods, party supplies or discretionary bargains.”

Both discount stores reported an increased number of customers coming from higher-income households. “Growing trip frequency among these higher income customers, given their propensity to build bigger baskets, will be a powerful growth driver for Dollar Tree overtime,” Dollar Tree CEO Mike Creedon said in a December earnings call.

In December, Dollar General announced plans for 450 new store openings in 2026, most of which will be located in rural communities and will feature larger floor plans to allow for expanded health and beauty and fresh produce offerings.

Last year, Dollar Tree sold its Family Dollar business for $1 billion—a fraction of the $9 billion acquisition cost it paid almost 10 years ago—to two private equity firms. At the beginning of 2025, Family Dollar had around 7,600 stores after Dollar Tree started shuttering the banner, announcing it would close roughly 1,000 stores in 2024.