Published on Friday, December 5, 2025
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Both Dollar Tree and Dollar General pointed to the holidays during their Q3 earnings calls.
Santa has brought some early presents for Dollar General and Dollar Tree with strong quarterly performance and increased outlooks for the year. While the lower-income consumer has been cutting back on QSRs and non-essential purchases, the group, along with even affluent individuals, appears to be rushing to discount stores.
Earnings releases come directly from the companies and Q3 earnings transcripts from S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Similar retailers as Abercrombie & Fitch, Best Buy, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Kohl’s noted increased annual outlooks last week, The Wall Street Journal reported, with shoppers overall continuing to spend during an uncertain economy.
Dollar General raised its financial expectations based on its Q3 “outperformance” and improved outlook for Q4. Net sales growth is expected to increase from a 4.3% to 4.8% range to 4.7% to 4.9%. Same-store sales are anticipated to be 2.5% to 2.7% rather than the previous 2.1% to 2.6%. EPS should increase from the previously expected $5.80 and $6.30 to $6.30 to $6.50.
The current fiscal year 2025 should see 575 new stores in the U.S and up to 15 new stores in Mexico. It is remodeling a total of 4,250 stores. Next year is expected to bring 450 new U.S. stores and 10 in Mexico.
Dollar General is bullish about the overall consumer appetite it has been seeing at its locations.
“[A]s we exited Q3, I would tell you that low middle end consumer continues to be stretched. She is definitely being very mindful of where she shops and what she shops for, making trade-offs at the shelf in many instances,” Dollar General CEO Todd Vasos said during the latest earnings call on December 4.
But "holiday is off to a really good start as well,” Vasos added.
“So, feel bullish, but always keep in mind, a lot of quarter still left ahead of us with the important Christmas holiday selling season upon us at this point. But we feel we have a fair amount of momentum heading into that holiday season and into next year.”
Dollar Tree, meanwhile, revised its comparable store net sales growth outlook range to 5% to 5.5% from the range in the Q2 earnings report from 4% to 6%. A lower top range but a higher bottom. The net sales outlook range is up from $19.35 billion to $19.45 billion.
“At the same time higher-income households are trading into Dollar Tree, lower-income households are depending on us more than ever,” Dollar Tree CEO Michael Creedon said during the December 3 earnings call.
“For example, the average spend for lower-income households grew more than twice as fast in the third quarter as the average spend for higher-income households.”
He also said that the chain has seen broad price elasticity.
“Our customers responding across all income cohorts, core customers, new customers, the 60% of the new 3 million that have come in, making more than $100,000,” Creedon said.