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GOODLETTSVILLE, Tenn. — As executive vice president and chief merchant at Dollar General, Emily Taylor maintains a laserlike focus on value. She is, first and foremost, concerned with curating a compelling assortment of everyday essentials at the lowest possible price for the company’s customers, a key focus because the majority of Dollar General’s sales come from a core customer who has an annual household income of less than $35,000. But the impact of her work in merchandising extends far beyond the product mix, helping Dollar General deliver an enhanced shopping experience and improving operational efficiency to benefit the people who staff the stores and bolster the bottom line. In light of Taylor’s success in all of those endeavors, the editors of Mass Market Retailers have named her Merchant of the Year.
During the course of her 27 years at Dollar General, Taylor developed expertise that equipped her for her current assignment. Prior to becoming chief merchandising officer four and a half years ago, she served as — among other roles — vice president of pricing and master data optimization and vice president of merchandise operations, as well as senior vice president and general merchandise manager for nonconsumables and senior vice president of channel innovation. That diverse experience has proven particularly useful as Dollar General has, since the return of Todd Vasos as chief executive officer in October 2023, placed a renewed emphasis on operational efficiency.
“In merchandising, we are focused on making sure we’re doing everything we can upstream to simplify the operations for the store,” comments Taylor. “Last year we announced three significant deliverables. One, we committed to a net reduction of approximately 1,000 SKUs by the end of 2024. Secondly, we simplified the store by reducing the number of floor stands and monthly end-cap resets to ensure the stores are more efficient to operate and easier to shop.
“Finally, and perhaps the most impactful area we’re focused on, is reducing the inventory levels inside stores. As of the end of the third quarter, inventory was down 7% on a per-store basis. The team is doing a great job of threading the needle between reducing inventory while also improving our in-stock levels. We still have work to do but are really proud of the progress so far.”
Taylor is quick to add that steps to sharpen operational efficiency, like everything else she and her team do, starts with the customer. “Our intent is to ensure we’re able to get the right store format in the right market and then be flexible with how we bring that to life for the shopper,” she explains.
Nowhere is the effectiveness of that strategy more apparent than at the DG Market in Greenbrier, Tenn., a rural community about 25 miles north of Nashville. The 10,000-square-foot store incorporates the company’s latest merchandising concepts, with an expanded range of groceries (the primary characteristic that distinguishes the format from a traditional Dollar General store), a beauty and personal care department designed to encourage browsing, and compelling new dis-plays, including two-tier tables on end-caps in the general merchandise aisles. The goal is to create a destination where area residents can access everyday essentials in one convenient location.
“I hear a lot of glowing compliments about this store,” says Taylor. “Customers tell us, ‘Wow, I can get everything I need here.’ They’re excited because we brought this closer to their home and made it easier for them to get all their shopping done in one stop.”
Amidst all the change and innovation, the company hasn’t lost sight of its core mission of helping shoppers save money and its commitment to the one dollar price point. Value Valley, introduced in 2020 to offer steep discounts as well as custom package sizing of commonly purchased items, is one of the highlights at Dollar General stores, and it gets a prominent, centralized display at the DG Market in Greenbrier.
“This section is critically important to our customer,” says Taylor. “We have approximately 2,000 items in our store at or under a dollar every day. We see our shoppers using this section of the store in two different ways. They’ll use it for trial, so they might buy a national brand that’s a slightly smaller size than what we carry in our core location. It gives them an opportunity to try something with a very low cost investment.”
The ever-changing mix in Value Valley adds a “treasure hunt” dimension to the shopping experience. More important, it helps budget-conscious customers stretch their dollars.
“We include a lot of high-value products in Value Valley,” Taylor says. “As a result, we have seen this area grow disproportionately to the rest of our store for multiple years now. That’s a testament to how the customer is continuing to look for value.
“Another way we see customers using Value Valley is towards the end of the month when she is trying to make sure her money lasts. She is using this section of the store at a greater rate. For a variety of reasons, the customer has gotten used to thinking, ‘I’ll start there and see what value I can find, and then I’ll shop the rest of the store as well.’ ”
The company’s commitment to serving as today’s “neighborhood general store” is perhaps best reflected by DG Market’s food and beverage offerings. For example, the central aisle of the Greenbrier store begins with a striking display of fresh fruit and vegetables and meat. Since entering the produce category in 2003, Dollar General has expanded the business to approximately 6,500 of its 20,000 stores, giving consumers more points of access to such products than any other retailer in the U.S. A more recent venture, the addition of fresh meat to the merchandise mix has been expanded to more than 900 locations.
“The DG Market strategy is to try to complete the customer’s entire grocery trip,” Taylor explains. “We’ve had a lot of success with it.”
A more recent innovation is the company’s Beauty Reinvention program. Launched in February 2023, it aims to make Dollar General a destination for beauty and personal care products.
“We’ve done a couple of different things here,” says Taylor. “One, we’ve expanded the assortment and, two, we’ve changed the shopping experience so that we create more of an enclosed area where the customer is comfortable browsing and taking her time shopping these categories. We’ve also lowered the sight lines, which certainly helps from a customer perspective by making it a little more shopper friendly, but also helps from a store operations perspective, which is important as well.”
The assortment has been expanded, particularly in skin care and hair care. Emphasis has also been placed on impulse-driven beauty products that bring fun to the shopping experience.
“We’ve been very pleased with the performance in this area in the DG Market format, not just this store, but several hundred others that we now have open,” she notes. “Based on that performance, our merchants have done a great job incorporating some of these elements back into our base of traditional DG stores. This will likely be a key growth driver for us going forward.”
The enhanced presentation has created synergies with Dollar General’s health care section, which was previously expanded in about 7,000 stores. Taylor reports that sales of over-the-counter medications and related products have risen substantially after being paired with beauty and personal care.
As in years past, Dollar General has aggressive plans to make its offerings available to more Americans. In its new fiscal year, the company plans to open 575 stores in the U.S. (as well as up to 15 in Mexico, a market it entered in early 2023). Some 2,000 existing U.S. locations are slated to be fully remodeled. In addition, approximately 2,250 stores are scheduled to receive a light-touch remodel through Project Elevate, an incremental remodeling program, beginning in 2025.
In addition to more brick-and-mortar locations, Dollar General is using digital technology to extend its reach and engagement with consumers. Shoppers can not only order products via the retailer’s website but utilize a variety of savings tools for assistance in any of DG’s more than 20,000 brick-and-mortar locations.
Many in-store displays feature QR codes that enable customers to easily obtain product and promotional information. App users can view weekly ads, access and redeem digital coupons, and earn DG Cash Back on selected items. Other features allow users to create shopping lists, calculate the cost of goods in their shopping cart and manage it all in their myDG Wallet.
Taylor says that the proliferation of digital technology has changed how she goes about her work, especially in terms of promotional offers: “A lot of our savings are accessible through our digital coupon program via our app and our website. I’m so excited that it’s been really successful, and our customers are highly engaged. We also offer delivery from our stores and have a great partnership with DoorDash.”
Further application of digital technology will speed the development of personalization.
“We are going to keep working to simplify things for our customers,” Taylor notes. “The more you know your customers and the more engaged they are in your digital experience, the better your odds of addressing the needs of individual customers in a meaningful way.”
