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General Knowledge
In which we ponder the ubiquity of Dollar General stores
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Much of my family lives in North Carolina. So, I spend quite a bit of time driving between my Northern Virginia home and various points south. One thing that never fails to impress, once I leave the cosmopolitan bubble of Fairfax County, is this: There sure are a lot of Dollar General stores. Don’t believe me? Check out this map of Dollar General locations in Virginia alone.
Cover photo by Michael Rivera (CC BY-SA 4.0)
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Virginia's 427 Dollar General stores
If you’re not familiar with Dollar General, it’s a super discount chain that offers household goods at low, low prices. There’s a significant overlap between products you might find at a Dollar General and a Walmart, but Dollar General stores are much smaller. There are over 15,000 Dollar Generals in the United States currently. While the stores are more prevalent in the southern and eastern parts of the US at the moment, Dollar General has a presence in almost every state (except WA, ID, WY, MT, AK, HI, & DC).
Some people think Walmarts are ubiquitous. In Virginia, compared to Dollar Generals, they’re not even close.
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Virginia's 427 Dollar General stores and 138 Walmart stores
Looking at the two sets of points together on one map, we see that Walmart and Dollar General are often found within proximity of each other. However, the spread of Dollar General is much more diffuse. Another easily observable pattern is that Walmarts tend to be located closer to highways and interstates.
Let’s bring in some administrative boundaries. Spotting a county without a Dollar General is like trying to find Waldo. There are quite a few counties without Walmarts, though.
Dollar General and Walmart stores with county outlines
If we color counties by population density (the most densely populated counties appearing in red), it becomes apparent that Walmarts tend to stick to more populous areas. Dollar Generals, on the other hand, seem to thrive in urban and rural counties alike. Since Dollar General stores don’t require a very large footprint, the cost of opening and maintaining a store is less than that of Walmart. This enables Dollar General to be profitable even in areas where sales volumes aren’t as high.
Population density (population per square mile) by county
Okay, so what’s with the area delineated in purple up at the top of the state? Lots of people. Lots of Walmarts. But nary a Dollar General for miles…Since population alone doesn’t offer any explanations for this dearth of Dollar General, let’s try a different variable.
The map below shows counties by Median Household Income. The darker the green, the wealthier the county. The area inside the purple polygon includes Loudoun, Fairfax, and Arlington counties – three of the most affluent in the Commonwealth.
Median household income by county
Why the conspicuous absence of yellow dots in these counties? We can make some educated guesses: For one thing, Dollar General parking lots offer no place for these people to plug in their Teslas...which is to say that the demographic here may not fit the mold of motivated bargain hunter. Also, real estate costs are quite high compared with the rest of Virginia. Perhaps these two conditions make this area a less profitable prospect?
Want to see what the Walmart / Dollar General balance looks like for your state? Use the interactive below to explore! Click the legend to toggle layers.
Retail Location Interactive
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