Dollar General is going back to its roots.
The discount retailer is leaning into its selection of $1 items, from potato chips to trash bags, to draw in customers as fuel prices have risen this year. It harkens back to the chain’s early years, when everything on its shelves was $1.
Customers are responding to the move. Those on limited budgets are buying more $1 items, CEO Todd Vasos said on the company’s latest earnings call earlier this month.
“I can’t emphasize this enough, that $1 price point has turned out to be a real savior for our core customer,” the CEO said.
The strategy helped push Dollar General’s net sales 3% higher to $10.8 billion in its most recent quarter that ended May 1.
The price point is also attracting more affluent customers who have been shopping at Dollar General more often over the last few years, Vasos said.
Rival Dollar Tree, meanwhile, has gone in a different direction. In 2021, it raised its base price point to $1.25 and has since started charging more for some items.
Dollar General said it carries about 2,000 items that cost $1 or less. More are coming to stores, Vasos said on the earnings call, including an entire freezer door with food options priced at $1 each.
I wanted to see Dollar General’s $1 selection for myself. I was curious about whether I could buy most of what I needed for my weekly grocery haul, aside from fresh items like meat and produce, since most Dollar General stores don’t carry them.
Dollar General has been expanding its grocery selection. The chain grew its share of grocery visits between 2019 and 2025, according to foot-traffic data from Placer.ai.
It also operates some DG Market stores, which sell produce and other fresh foods, though they represent a small fraction of the chain’s roughly 21,000 locations.
I visited a Dollar General store in the Washington, DC, metro area to find out. Here’s what I saw.
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I visited this Dollar General store in Hyattsville, Maryland.
Located in a strip mall, this Dollar General is next to an independent grocery store and two fast-food restaurants — a McDonald’s and a Popeyes.
The front of the Dollar General was filled with products that cost more than $1 each.
I saw two-liter bottles of soda that cost between $2 to $3, bags of chips, and other grocery items as I walked in the front door.
I started finding $1 items toward the back of the store.
This store didn’t have a full freezer section of $1 items, but I found a few at that price, such as these chicken pot pies.
Some $1 items were stocked next to name-brand equivalents.
Lots of dry groceries, such as these jars of spices, were $1 each. Often, they were from Dollar General’s own Clover Valley store brand and stocked next to more expensive name-brand versions, such as the $2.50 jar of Lawry’s chili powder.
Others were part of an entire aisle dedicated to $1 items.
Dubbed “Value Valley” by Dollar General, this aisle included everything from rubber cleaning gloves to potato chips.
There was a lot of signage advertising the $1 price point.
I saw lots of useful items here, especially cleaning supplies. There were air fresheners, scrubbing brushes, rubber gloves, sponges, and lots of other cleaning tools — each costing $1.
The selection varied from Epsom salts…
Some $1 items weren’t store-branded, such as these Yardley Epsom salts.
… to bags of flavored popcorn.
Snacks were one of the product areas with a variety of $1 options.
In general, though, there wasn’t as wide a selection of food as I expected. Maybe Dollar General’s expanded frozen food selection hasn’t arrived at this store yet.
Dollar General did not respond to a request for comment.
In other aisles, I saw full-priced versions of many $1 items.
These Glad trash bags were almost $6 a pack at Dollar General and were in a separate aisle from the $1 trash bag alternatives.
There was a wide selection of sweet snacks for $1 a bag.
If you’re a fan of sweet treats, such as Sour Patch Kids or coconut macaroons, there was quite a selection at this Dollar General.
Overall, I didn’t see enough $1 stuff to fulfill my weekly grocery haul.
Overall, there was a reasonable selection of store-brand household goods, frozen foods, and dry groceries available for $1 each. That might make Dollar General a decent place to shop for consumers on a budget.
I could see stopping by regularly for a few pantry staples and some cleaning supplies. As long as there were other grocery options nearby, though, I probably wouldn’t go out of my way to make it a stop on my weekly grocery run.
This store didn’t quite have everything most people would need on a weekly basis — at least, not without buying a lot of items above $1 each.
And, of course, there was no fresh food, though I didn’t expect it at this store.
The $1 price point seems to function as a loss leader for Dollar General.
From the frozen pot pies to trash bags, many of the $1 items at this Dollar General were located toward the back of the store, meaning that you had to walk past full-priced equivalents to get there.
That made me think that $1 items act as a loss leader for the chain. Supermarkets have done this for years by putting essentials like milk toward the rear of their stores and pricing them competitively. The theory is that you’ll stop by for cheap milk — then pick up other, full-price items as you walk there and back.
The same could be true at Dollar General. The $1 items seem to be a draw for many shoppers, but they’re not the only items most shoppers buy.
