Dollar General

Dollar General is based in Goodlettsville, Tennessee. The store is small, the trip is frequent, and the basket is paper goods, snacks, household chemicals, and private-label staples, with cooler and produce programs added in part of the fleet.

Dollar Tree's Family Dollar banner is the closest small-box rival, and Walmart is the supercenter a shopper drives to when the trip is large enough. In rural counties the Dollar General may be the only store within several miles, which is a location advantage rather than a unique product.

Consumer-packaged-goods companies such as Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo, and Coca-Cola need these doors because that is where their rural volume sells. Shelf space inside a small box is scarce, so a vendor who wins the rack displaces someone else entirely.

Store density in rural counties is the barrier a new entrant would have to build site by site.

Small assortments mean each facing is a winner-take-most decision for a vendor.

Fresh-food additions put Dollar General into competition with grocery, not only with dollar stores.

Residents without a nearby supermarket use Dollar General as the default for fill-in groceries.

Brands that lose the shelf in that box lose the town, because there is no second small-format door.