An estimated 20 percent of the stores to open so far in 2021 are Dollar Generals.
"Retailers have announced 4,969 store openings so far in 2021, which represents a 58.3% increase over last year," reports Ben Unglesbee, citing data from Coresight Research.
Openings are slightly outpacing announced closures for the year, "which stand at 4,889, down 37.9% from 2020," adds Unglesbee.
The data comes with one very large caveat: a significant amount of announced opening are Dollar General stores—20 percent in all, in fact—so we aren't talking about a collective phoenix of small businesses rising from the ashes of the pandemic. Dollar General stores have been criticized for poor public health and economic outcomes in articles published by media outlets like CNN, Business Insider, and D magazine, as well as an article picked up by Planetizen in 2018.
Earlier in the year, Planetizen picked up news that Dollar Generals accounted for half of the store openings in the country through the first few months of 2021.
FULL STORY: New store opening announcements are up 58% from 2020: Coresight
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