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Store Spotlight: DG Market

Explore Dollar General’s 16,000 square-foot grocery store format as well as the brand marketing opportunities it offers. 
DG Market
DG Market

As Dollar General plots its 2025 national expansion plans, P2PI visited one of its DG concept stores.

About DG Market

Dollar General is the largest U.S. retailer by store footprint. It opened its 20,000th store in February 2024 — a Dollar General Market (or DG Market) in Alice, Texas. 

The discount giant first debuted the concept, which is slightly larger than the traditional Dollar General format, in 2003 as it served as the model for the rollout of fresh meat and produce to the retailer's other formats. As of November 2024, approximately 600 locations offer fresh meat. The format accounts for approximately 1% of the total chain.

In addition to stocking an assortment of fresh meats, DG Market format stores offer expanded produce, refrigerated and frozen food, dairy products and general merchandise and other items not found in traditional Dollar General stores.

DG Market stores are approximately 16,000 square feet in size, compared to the standard store size of 9,100 square feet, which included a 7,300-square-foot sales floor. That has more recently increased to 8,500 to 9,500 square feet of selling space to make room for more fresh food and other expanded departments such as health and beauty

Dollar General's 2025 Plans

Dollar General is continuing its physical expansion plans throughout 2025, as it plans to open 575 new stores in the U.S., fully remodel 2,000 stores and relocate 45 stores. More than 80% of its 2025 new store plans focus on its 8,500-square-foot formats, and will predominantly be in rural areas. 

Nearly all relocations are planned for 8,500- or 9,500-square-foot stores. According to Dollar General, the larger formats drive increased sales productivity per square foot and allow for expanded cooler offerings, more health and beauty SKUs, and more produce.

Brand Opportunities

P2PI visited a DG Market store in Bloomingdale, Illinois, in September 2024. Here’s a breakdown of what caught our eyes. 

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dg market produce
dg market produce

The format feels like a mini grocery store, with most of the departments just with much smaller selections. The produce and meat department was open with each category clearly identifiable through green signage noting “Fresh” and “Freshness Every Day.”

The store was notably more spacious than a standard Dollar General with wider aisles and plenty of room for brand marketing, with exclusive products often receiving extra attention. 

For instance, brands often take over endcap displays with branded and/or account specific P-O-P materials. 

At the time of our visit, PepsiCo’s Mountain Dew garnered attention via a colorful permanent, partially refrigerated endcap display promoting Dollar General exclusive flavor Maui Burst as well as Spark, Major Melon and Red Code. The refrigerated case stocked individual cans and bottles of the promoted flavors as well as others, while cases were stocked below. 

Mars Petcare also preoccupied endcap space with account specific signage promoting a special deal on Pedigree products and a cause incentive where DG will pay adoption fees with qualifying purchases. 

In the general merchandise section, seasonal and exclusive products received secondary merchandising space via endcap table displays, including Dollar General’s exclusive Dolly Parton collection of kitchen and houseware items. 

Many displays, signage and shelf price labels also included QR codes, linking to digital coupons or DG promotional landing pages. DG Market also highlighted plenty of retailer-led promotions and deals via in-store marketing materials, often in green and yellow. 

Other common in-store marketing tactics and brand opportunities present included shelf tags, sidekicks, 4-way displays/floorstands, shelf trays, display fixtures/racks and other signage. 

P2PI members can explore our robust image vault or dedicated Retailer Profile for deeper insights on merchandising.

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Additional Dollar General Formats

In addition to DG Market, Dollar General also operates its main format Dollar General Traditional Plus as well as:

  • A small format with less than 6,000 square feet of selling space;
  • Dollar General Plus, which averages 9,000 square feet in size and has 34 cooler doors used to stock an expanded perishables assortment;
  • DGX, which is a 3,600-square-foot convenience-style store;
  • Popshelf, which typically spans 9,000 square feet and offers items such as on-trend seasonal and home decor, health and beauty items, home cleaning supplies, arts and entertaining supplies; and
  • Mi Super Dollar General, which operates in Mexico and sources products from Mexico. 
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