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This is a bit dated now, but I noticed Placer.ai put out its Q3 summary on foot traffic at dollar stores (and other retailers) a little while back. Looking at all of Q1 - Q3, here are placer.ai's numbers:

Share of visits by chain

                 Q1.     Q2.     Q3. 
DollarTree.      37.9%.  39.4%.  38.3%
Dollar General.  35.5%.  32.9%.  36.0%
Family Dollar.   13.9%.  13.4%.  11.2%
All other.       12.7%.  14.3%.  14.5%

To the extent placer.ai is providing accurate data, and the above chains are in competition with one another, DG's Q3 traffic gains (+3.1 quarter over quarter) are likely mostly coming at the expense of Family Dollar (-2.2%), which is the other dollar store retailer with a significant rural presence.

This conclusion is supported by the year over year data for each chain.

The year over year traffic comparisons with respect to "quarterly visits" for DG are: -3.8% (Q1 '23 v Q1 '22); Q2, -2.9%; and Q3, 0.0%.

For Family Dollar, the Y/Y numbers are +3.1%, +5.1%, and -3.0%.

The headline data provided by placer may be evidence that DG's promised competition on pricing has had some of the intended effects, and that Family Dollar's initial success at growing traffic via price cuts and other efforts has been countered.

That said, there's a lot that placer's public reporting doesn't say or disclose, so the above is offered with a large grain of salt.

All of the above is from Placer.ai White Papers, and specifically "Placer.ai’s Q1 2023 Quarterly Index" through Q3: https://www.placer.ai/resources/library/white-pape...

An update on some further Pacer.ai foot traffic data, see (further retail comparisons available): https://x.com/kouroshshafi/status/1744461105525850...

	         DG	FDO	DLTR (chain, i.e., not including FDO)
July 23(Q2)	-4%	1%	5%
Aug 23 (Q3)	-5%	-3%	3%
Sep 23 (Q3)	-2%	-5%	1%
Oct 23 (Q3)	-7%	-9%	-2%
Nov 23 (Q4)	-3%	-7%	3%
Dec 23 (Q4)	-2%	-9%	5%

These are year-over-year comparisons, so the historical benchmarks are relevant.

Subsequent to two quarters of traffic increases, 4Q of 2022 DG saw a "a modest decrease in customer traffic" (press release), which then turned into a "decrease in foot traffic" in Q1, 2023 (no longer modest?) (press release). In Q2, 2023, SSS turned negative (-0.1%), "driven by a decline in customer traffic". In short, 3 consecutive quarters of traffic decreases, with the decreases apparently intensifying in Q1.

In Q3, 2023, DG reported an increase of customer traffic thus: "Same-store sales decreased 1.3% compared to the third quarter of 2022, driven by a decline in average transaction amount, partially offset by an increase in customer traffic."

In the Q3 2023 call, Vasos described the traffic patterns thus:

From an overall monthly cadence perspective, same-store sales growth was very similar in all three months of the quarter. However, I'm pleased to note that customer traffic was positive in Q3. After starting the quarter slightly negative, traffic turned positive in the middle period and improved sequentially each period of the quarter. Notably, customer traffic and same-store sales continue to improve in November, which, although early in the quarter, we believe reflects early traction from our work on getting back to the basics here at Dollar General.

While you'd obviously like to see positive traffic trends year over year, -3% and -2% off of Nov and Dec 2022 (4Q), respectively, i.e., before the wheels started to come off, strikes me as relatively encouraging, particularly when compared to FDO's trajectory. Taken as a whole, the data seems consistent with the notion that the biggest headwind for DG right now is the struggling, low-income rural consumer, and that DG is still capable of out-performing its most direct competitor (FDO).

Placer.ai's April 17 White Paper had the following:

Drilling down into the data for leading retail segments demonstrates the continued success of value-priced, essential, and wellness-related categories.

Discount & Dollar Stores led the pack with 11.2% YoY quarterly visit growth, followed by Grocery Stores, Fitness, and Superstores – all of which outperformed Overall Retail....

Discount & Dollar Stores experienced strong YoY visit growth throughout most of Q1 – and as go-to destinations for groceries and other other essential goods, they held their own even during mid-January’s Arctic blast. In the last week of March, shoppers flocked to leading discount chains for everything from chocolate Easter bunnies to basket-making supplies – driving a remarkable 21.5% YoY visit spike.


Dollar General Reins Supreme
Dollar General continued to dominate the Discount & Dollar Store space in Q1, with visits to its locations accounting for nearly half of the segment’s quarterly foot traffic (44.7%). Next in line was Dollar Tree, followed by Family Dollar and Five Below. Together, the four chains – all of which experienced positive YoY quarterly visit growth – drew a whopping 91.6% of quarterly visits to the category.

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Q1 White Paper, with additional charts, available here:

https://go.placer.ai/library/q1-2024-retail-dining...

NB: Q1 is for the calendar year, which is only the first two months of DG's Q1 (Feb/Mar)

Forgot to add, one of the charts has DG's Q1 (calendar) up 12.6% year over year. Five Below is at 18.3%, DLTR at 12.4%, and FDO at 4.8%.

My newsfeed is full of "dollar stores face reckoning" (Note: Average square footage of a 99c store was something like 23, 000, or about 3x the size of a DG - a different business model almost entirely), but it looks like the top chains are still drawing customers.

Some more recent placer.ai data posted today:

https://www.placer.ai/blog/dollar-stores-still-gai...

Mostly more of the same through DG’s Q1 - healthy and persistent traffic growth year over year.

April through June data now available at Placer. Putting it together, Placer's Q1 and Q2 quarterly reports for dollar stores have traffic growth yoy as follows:

Jan-Mar	12.6%
Apr	9.1% (note: Easter fell in March this year)
May	14.3%
Jun	15.9%  

Placer looks at total "foot traffic", so a good chunk of the above traffic growth arises from (1) store growth and (2) remodels of smaller footprint stores. [Note: It is also why FIVE shows up well in this metric, on placer's Q2 report, despite their recent struggles -- they've added quite a few new stores on a percentage basis]. The several popshelf to DG conversions also presumably resulted in increased traffic.

But per store traffic growth is the better metric.

DG's Q1 earnings call reported "consumer traffic" growth by store to be "over 4%", for the February to April quarter. If one is taking Placer's numbers for the quarter and turning them into per store numbers, that required about a -7% adjustment for Q1.

The rate of DG's store growth, on a percentage basis, did not change much during the relevant time periods. Assuming, very roughly, a similar haircut of 7% to Placer's May and June numbers, we'd get 8.1% traffic growth by store in the first 2/3rds of Q2. I'll take the under on the figure, but I assume its roughly right and DG is not having a problem drawing customers in Q2.

I will be interested in seeing if DG give another percentage figure on customer traffic growth in the Q2 call. Eyeballing Placer's numbers here and elsehwere, they often appear a bit inflated, though perhaps it is because they are picking up "foot traffic" growth that does not result in sales/consumer growth.

Links to the above data:

Some reporting, at Quartz: https://stocks.apple.com/AAvwmKXP2SS-eXWZf1tPIDw

Placer's Q1 report: https://go.placer.ai/library/q1-2024-retail-dining...

Placer's Q2 report: https://go.placer.ai/library/q2-2024---retail-rest...

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