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Closing of Family Dollar store in Elkins draws shoppers

The Inter-Mountain photo by Brad Johnson Shoppers packed the Family Dollar store in Elkins, which has announced it will close.

ELKINS — Shoppers were once again flocking to the Elkins Family Dollar store Tuesday, after the store announced that it would soon be closing.

Late Monday afternoon, so many shoppers were driving in and out of the store’s parking lot – located off the Beverly Five-Lane next to Shop ‘n Save – that at one point a call was placed to 911 asking for help with coordinating the vehicle flow.

A large sign in front of the store proclaims “Going Out of Business” and racks of clothes and other goods bearing sale tags are being displayed on the sidewalk. All items were being sold at 50% off.

A representative of the store told The Inter-Mountain Tuesday morning that the store would close “once the inventory is all sold.”

It was announced earlier this month that Dollar Tree, which owns Family Dollar, plans to close about 600 Family Dollar stores in the first half of this year and 370 Family Dollar and 30 Dollar Tree stores over the next several years. That number equates to nearly 12% of the current Family Dollar locations, an analyst told the Associated Press.

Dollar Tree bought Family Dollar for more than $8 billion in 2015, hoping to team up to compete with bigger retailers like Dollar General and Walmart.

Dollar Tree swung to a surprise fourth-quarter loss. Earlier in March, Dollar Tree said that it would record a $950 million impairment against the trade name Family Dollar, on top of a $1.07 billion goodwill charge. Family Dollar will spend more than $594 million closing or rebranding stores, essentially erasing profits from the holiday season.

This year, the discount chain was hit with a record 41-and-a-half million dollar fine, for violating product safety standards.

For the three months ended Feb. 3, Dollar Tree lost $1.71 billion, or $7.85 per share. A year earlier the Chesapeake, Virginia, company earned $452.2 million, or $2.04 per share. 

Stripping out certain items, earnings were $2.55 per share, which is still short of the per-share earnings of $2.67 expected on Wall Street, according to a survey by Zacks Investment Research. 

Revenue climbed to $8.64 billion from $7.72 billion, a bit below Wall Street’s estimate of $8.67 billion.

Dollar Tree has been attracting consumers that have been stung by inflation as they seek to cut spending. During the quarter, sales at Dollar Tree stores open at least a year climbed 6.3%, with traffic up 7.1%. While more shoppers were heading to stores, they were closely watching how much they spent, with average ticket down 0.7%.

At Family Dollar, sales at stores open at least a year slipped 1.2%. Traffic edged up 0.7%, but average ticket fell 2%.

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