Rich Future for Dollar Stores

How many retailers can you say are not seriously threatened by an economic downturn, the Internet, Wal-Mart(WMT Quote) or less-than-stellar store locations?

All this is largely true of the so-called dollar-store retailers, those mushrooming retailers such as Dollar Tree(DLTR Quote), Fred's(FRED Quote) and Dollar General(DG Quote) that comprise the second-fastest growing retailing sector behind supercenters, with sales growth of about 5.5% a year. And the growth story looks far from over.

"We anticipate that this channel will be a strong growth channel compared to others," said Sandy Skrovan, vice president of retail-research firm Retail Forward. Skrovan believes the group is well-positioned to keep growing into untapped markets: Retail Forward estimates the U.S. market can support another 15,000 dollar stores. "The big players continue to roll out stores -- Family Dollar(FDO Quote) and Dollar General are rolling out a store a day." ...