Dollar General\u00a0CEO Todd Vasos said on Thursday that inflation continues to hurt the discounter\u2019s customers and that the macroeconomic environment won\u2019t improve this year.<\/p>\n
On the company\u2019s fourth-quarter\u00a0earnings\u00a0call, Vasos said customers are expecting value and convenience \u201cmore than ever\u201d from the dollar-store chain.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur customers continue to report that their financial situation has worsened over the last year, as they have been negatively impacted by ongoing inflation. Many of our customers report they only have enough money for basic essentials, with some noting that they have had to sacrifice even on the necessities,\u201d Vasos said. \u201cAs we enter 2025, we are not anticipating improvement in the macro environment, particularly for our core customer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dollar General\u2019s core consumer is \u201calways strained\u201d due to their economic status, but also resourceful, Vasos said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve started to see where [our customer is] getting her sea legs, if you will, on the additional inflation that\u2019s been very sticky out there, and she\u2019s starting to understand her budgets even more,\u201d Vasos said.<\/p>\n
Part of the uncertainty, Vasos said, stems from the potential impact of President Donald Trump\u2019s\u00a0tariffs\u00a0on the consumer.<\/p>\n
When Trump imposed tariffs during his first term in office in 2018 and 2019, Dollar General had to raise some prices in line with others in the industry, Vasos said. But the general store was able to mitigate the impact back then and is \u201cwell positioned\u201d to do so again this year, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiven the already stressed financial condition of our core customer, we are closely monitoring these and any other potential economic headwinds, including any changes to government entitlement programs,\u201d Vasos said.<\/p>\n
CFO Kelly Dilts said the company\u2019s 2025 guidance factors in continued economic pressure on the consumer, but does not account for further changes to tariff policy or government initiatives like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which subsidizes food for low-income Americans.<\/p>\n
For the fourth-quarter, Dollar General said same-store sales growth of 1.2% was driven entirely by 2.3% growth in average transaction. Customer traffic fell 1.1% during the period, \u201cimpacted by ongoing financial pressures of our core consumer,\u201d\u00a0Vasos said.<\/p>\n
Alongside its fourth-quarter earnings, Dollar General said Thursday it would close 96\u00a0Dollar General\u00a0stores and 45 Popshelf stores and will convert six other Popshelf stores into flagship banner locations this year. Popshelf primarily serves\u00a0higher-income shoppers\u00a0with lower-priced products.<\/p>\n
Shares of Dollar General rose 5% Thursday morning.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Dollar General\u00a0CEO Todd Vasos said on Thursday that inflation continues to hurt the discounter\u2019s customers and that the macroeconomic environment won\u2019t improve this year. On the company\u2019s fourth-quarter\u00a0earnings\u00a0call, Vasos said customers are expecting value and convenience \u201cmore than ever\u201d from the dollar-store chain. \u201cOur customers continue to report that their financial situation has worsened over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":15896,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}