The Impacts of Dollar General Stores on Rural Illinois Communities

Abstract

Bucking the trend of the retail apocalypse, which has restructured and forced the closure of many brick and mortar retail store chains over the past two decades, the number of Dollar General, Dollar Tree, and Family Dollar stores has expanded dramatically. For example, in the year 2000, there were 4,294 Dollar General Stores in the United States, with 203 of those in Illinois. By 2017, the number of Dollar General Stores had expanded to 14,609 nationally, with 481 of those in Illinois. The Dollar General Store expansion is particularly relevant to rural stakeholders, because unlike Family Dollar and Dollar Tree Stores, which have expanded mostly in urban and suburban markets, Dollar General Stores have also expanded significantly in rural communities. The purpose of this presentation is to describe the expansion of Dollar Stores in Illinois, provide a market profile of communities that host Dollar General stores, explore the profile of consumers who shop at these kinds of stores, and examine the positive and negative impacts these stores have on rural Illinois communities.