Dollarama

Dollarama

Type	Public
Traded as	TSX: DOL S&P/TSX 60 component
Industry	Retail
Founded	1992
Founder	Neil Rossy
Headquarters	Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Number of locations	1,368[1] (additional 700 new locations are planned to open between 2021-2031 as of April,2021[2]) (2020)
Key people	Neil Rossy, CEO[3] Larry Rossy (Executive Chairman)
Products	Cleaning supplies, toys, candy, grocery, gifts, healthcare products, kitchenware, stationery, party supplies, hardware
Revenue	$2.9 billion CAD (2016)[4]
Operating income	$646.5 million CAD (2016)[4]
Net income	$445.6 million CAD (2016)[4]
Number of employees	Around 20,000 (2016)[5]
Website	www.dollarama.com

Dollarama is a Canadian dollar store retail chain headquartered in Montreal. Since 2009, it is now Canada's largest retailer of items for four dollars or less.^[6] Dollarama has over 1000 stores and has a presence in every province of Canada; Ontario has the most stores.^[7]

History[]

Rossy S Inc.[]

The first all-dollar store was founded in Montreal in 1910 by Salim Rassy, a Lebanese immigrant, whose name became Rossy.^[8][9] His son George took over the retailer in 1937 and led the company until his death in 1973 when grandson Larry Rossy assumed leadership of it when it had 20 stores.^[10]

Dollarama[]

The discount retailer grew to 44 stores by 1992 which until then operated under the name Rossy S Inc. (not to be confused with Rossy Michael, a similar chain founded in 1949 by another son of Salim Rassy^[11]). That year, Larry Rossy opened the first Dollarama at the shopping centre "Les promenades du St-Laurent" in Matane. By the late 1990s, Dollarama had become by far the primary source of revenue for the Rossy family. As such, the Rossy S chain was discontinued by the turn of the new millennium, with all of its stores either closed or converted into Dollarama locations.^[12] After converting all the locations to the dollar store concept, Larry Rossy continued to open new stores reaching 1,000 stores in 2015.^[10] In November 2004, 80 percent of the chain was sold for $850 million US, to a private equity fund, Bain Capital, of Boston, Massachusetts.^[12]

Post IPO[]

Dollarama's initial public offering took place on October 9, 2009.^[13] In 2013, Dollarama was planning to expand its market to Latin America, and made an eight-year agreement to share its business expertise and provide sourcing services to , a Salvadoran chain of dollar stores in Central America and Colombia.^[14]

In 2016, Dollarama established a partnership with the Marco G. R. Enterprise, resulting in the sponsorship of the first edition of the Formula Windsor Championship.^[15]

In 2018, Dollarama recalled over 50,000 children's toys due to dangerous levels of phthalates.^[16]

Business practices[]

A standalone Dollarama store in Toronto's Parkdale neighbourhood

Dollarama in Richmond Hill, Ontario

Many items are priced at $1.00 or less, and initially almost all items were priced as such.^[12] In early 2009, Dollarama began to introduce items priced up to $2.00 (including $1.25 and $1.50 price points). Due to the positive response from consumers to the multi-price point strategy, the stores subsequently introduced items at $2.50 and $3.00 in August 2012. They again increased price points to include $3.50 and $4.00 items in August 2016. This price level increase allowed the chain to acquire products from a greater variety of sources, including closeout sales.^[17] Adjustments may eventually happen to all prices.^[18] Dollarama has always had a No Return and No Exchange Policy. Once an item is checkout/ bought, it cannot be returned or exchanged.

Payment in Dollarama stores was once by cash only, until Interac debit cards were added as a payment option beginning in 2008. Gift cards began to be offered in 2011. As of 2015, all Dollarama stores additionally support contact-less Interac Flash payments. In March 2017, Dollarama announced that credit cards would be offered as a payment option at all stores by the end of summer 2018.^[19] Customers will be able to pay with Visa, Mastercard, and American Express, following a successful pilot program.^[20][21]

Many Dollarama stores were opened in place of former locations of the now defunct BiWay,^{[citation needed]} which closed after a series of dubious financial transactions involving a new owner of the parent operation.^[22] Dollarama officially launched its online store on January 21, 2019 where it will sell many of its products in bulk.^[23] Only 1000 of the roughly 4000 products offered in Dollarama stores will be sold online, namely items that are easily purchased in bulk.^[24]

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Most large scale modern Dollar stores sourced products from their inception from China beginning in the mid 1990s when they appeared on the retail landscape.^{[citation needed]} This was the same time when Chinese companies entered the market and were allowed to manufacture for Western countries.^{[citation needed]} Dollarama started branding sourced products starting in the very early 2000s.^{[citation needed]} Such brands include the store's line of stationery branded as Studio,^[25] and plastic storage containers under the name Plastico.^[26] For a long period of time the public did not know that these were created brands by Dollarama.^{[citation needed]} This would only have been known if customers scrutinized the labels.^[opinion] Such practices were not new: private labels were created as a far back as the early 1930s in Canada by Canadian Tire with Motomaster products,^{[citation needed]} and most retail stores followed.^[relevant?]

An extremely large percentage of Dollarama products are privately sourced. In mid-2009 it rolled out its own store brand, "D". Unlike small dollar/discount stores, it sources most of its products directly from manufacturers, rather than from local unknown distributors.

See also[]

• A Buck or Two
• Dollar Tree
• Great Canadian Dollar Store
• Your Dollar Store with More

References[]

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Dollarama.

• Official website
• CNW: Dollarama, press releases