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99 Cents Only Stores vs Dollar Tree

By Claudia Strasbaugh

Anybody unaware of how far a buck can go hasn't shopped the deep discount kings of the land. Neither of them are spelled W-a-l-m-a-r-t. Both beat the big "W" prices.

For variety of dry goods, Dollar Tree today has the upper hand. There, one can acquire a beautiful expensive hand-painted glass Christmas tree ball fit for a royal, packaged in its own 5.5 inch square velvet box.

99 Cents Only stores however got an early jump on "Buy for a Buck", in the grocery department. Both offer loads of yums at prices that truly make cents sense. The 99 Cents people pushed perishable products by putting their cash into more refrigeration within the stores.

Dollar Tree wins in the money market clout. Dollar Tree publicly held stock symbol DLTR trades around $42 a share. Although it pays no dividends, its volatile value is closer to $100.

99 Cents Only is also publicly held, with the NDN symbol, and is far and away run by a marketing genius of our time. Only at 99 Cents Only Stores can one buy an Apple iPod Nano for Only 99.99c. That celebration opened 99 Cents first ever store in San Jose, California, this November 2009.

99c Only Stores reports second Quarter Fiscal 2010 Consolidated Earnings Per Share of $0.14 Versus a Loss of $0.13 in the Second Quarter Fiscal 2009. So yes, they gave it away but they're getting it back in spades. Same store 2009 sales increased 2.3% when most retail chains were eating big losses.

What makes Dollar Tree the big merchandise winner? Clothing. Already tops in Pet products, kitty toys, doggie collars, clothing for that charming canine, the first human clothing appearing in San Diego County. Yes, indeed, there it hung in Miramesa, California's latest grand opening, jackets for both adults and children, "One Dollar."

Dollar Tree has taken on Walmart in another part of this good size city but it appears they didn't expect such aggressive product expansion so soon. My only surprise was that Walmart didn't see this coming.

The 99 Cents Only charge into deep discount that began back in 1982 is led by a brilliant mind, that some have been heard in whispers to term a "Wacko".

If it is so, let it roll. Coming up with events as Legendary Coach John Wooden Celebrating his 99th Birthday in a 99 Cents Only store was a stroke of marketing genius without peer.

In September of this year 99 Cents Only Stores selected MicroStrategy as its Enterprise Reporting Standard. 99 Cents is run by a man who works both sides of the brain, 99 Cents also Celebrated September's Luckiest Day of the Century, 9/9/09, by marrying 9 Couples for Only 99 cents at its Hollywood store. Another clever marketing item was a gift of $999.99 to a 9lb 9oz baby born on the same Special Lucky Day.

From the first store, the 99¢ Only Store chain has expanded to 273 stores; 204 in California, 32 in Texas, 25 in Arizona, and 12 in Nevada. Stores open for a full year averaged 21,722 square feet and generated average net sales per estimated sellable square foot of $263. Average net sales per store, $4.5 million.

Let us not forget nor count out Dollar Tree who recently ran one of the fullest lines of greeting cards with enough class to make Hallmark shutter, two for One Dollar.

In the race for your deep discount buy in, whichever of these two stores you choose, you can't go wrong.

Copyright (c) Strasbaugh