Dollar Tree 2013 Annual Report Download - page 5

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ever-changing assortments to our advantage. To the customer, this means there is always
something new at Dollar Tree. Customers can find a balanced assortment of the high
value basics they need and fun, exciting discretionary merchandise they want on every
visit. Seasonal assortments are fresh, colorful and fun, providing merchandise energy in
the stores.
is strategic advantage has been validated by results. History shows that we have
increased our relevance throughout both inflationary and deflationary cycles by leveraging
our scale and our flexibility to change the product or the source while maintaining our
focus on achieving margin targets and providing surprising value to our customers.
The Future: more growth ahead
Looking forward, we are excited about our potential to grow through increasing our
relevance to the customer. We believe the consumers’ demand for value will intensify over
the next several years. We plan to continue expanding our business by providing even more
value to a broader range of customers. We are doing this in many ways.
e first way is by building more New Stores. Our plan for fiscal 2014 includes
approximately 375 new stores and 75 relocations for a total of 450 projects across the
U.S. and Canada. Square footage growth is planned to be 7.0%, on top of the 6.9% square
footage growth in 2013.
We also continue to operate Better Stores. In 2012, average new store sales per square
foot were the highest level since 2001. Our 2013 class was slightly below the 2012 level,
but still historically strong. We believe the stores that we opened in 2013 – especially those
affected by the winter storms in the fourth quarter – will continue to annualize at a higher
sales per foot as we continue through 2014.
is steady improvement has been the result of a coordinated process involving
our Real Estate department, Financial Planning, Merchandising and Field organization,
concentrating on improved site-selection, right-sizing the stores, expanding our
assortments, improved staffing and building the bench of qualified store management.
Customers are seeing elements of this strategy in new and existing stores throughout
the chain. Our stores feature more powerful Seasonal and Party presentations, which
create interest and a fun shopping experience. We continue to rationalize and expand
assortments across the chain in Stationery, Candy, Health and Beauty Care, and Home
and Household Products to enhance our relevance to our customers. We have re-fixtured,
re-merchandised and expanded assortments at the front end of our stores to create more
merchandise energy and to drive impulse sales. Store associates are emphasizing more
effective customer engagement and are working to drive sales of related items through
cross merchandising and suggestive selling. All of these initiatives contributed to our sales
growth in 2013.
Our expansion of frozen and refrigerated product continues. We installed freezers
and coolers in 608 stores in 2013, including 208 new stores. We now offer frozen and
refrigerated product in more than 3,000 stores. is important category serves the current
needs of our customers, drives traffic into our stores and provides incremental sales across
2013 Annual Report 3