Now, post-COVID, the company is planning to leverage momentum from the pandemic to keep aggressively opening stores, become even more of a grocery store than a dollar store, ramp up digital capabilities and hire tens of thousands of new workers to help drive all of that new growth. But perhaps no retailer has benefited more from pandemic-related consumer behavior trends than Dollar General.Įven before COVID, the retailer was already taking advantage of economic recessions, retail consolidation and a new fondness among consumers for frugality (and discounters) to amass impressive revenue and expansion over the past decade. It’s no secret that the pandemic has turbo-charged growth at many food retailers. stores than Kroger, Walmart and Costco combined, r etail health would be another new frontier, in addition to fresh grocery and e-commerce.īut the fact that Yale University and the CDC would select Dollar General as the ideal retailer for vaccine distribution, as opposed to Walmart or CVS, speaks to the company’s position of power in the food retail industry, a position that is set only to strengthen as it deploys several new strategic initiatives ideally suited for the post-pandemic economy of 2021 and beyond. So far, Dollar General hasn’t revealed that it’s joining the federal Retail Pharmacy Partnership Program, which includes Kroger, Walmart, Costco and a number of other food retailers. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, in a recent interview with the New Haven Register, in Connecticut. “We’re exploring a promising collaboration with Dollar General stores, which have locations within 10 or 15 miles of our rural communities in all but four states,” said Dr. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) quickly agreed. Adding COVID-19 vaccination clinics to Dollar General’s massive store footprint would get vaccines in the arms of the people most in need of them, thus giving America its best shot at ending the COVID-19 crisis, the researchers argued. consumers 75% of Americans live within 5 miles of a Dollar General.
The Goodlettsville, Tenn.-based retailer is now the closest grocery store for millions of U.S. The researchers’ conclusion? Dollar General.
In April, a team of Yale University public-health professors published a 34-page study that explained how to end the pandemic in America.