Five Below

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Re: Five Below

Post by Bagels »

Nearly nine years ago, I bought a $5 case for my then-new iPhone 5. The quality wasn’t poor, but it wasn’t good - my phone still ended up with some scratches on it. Obviously today you can purchase high quality cases from Amazon for similar (or less) pricing, but that wasn’t the case (no pun intended) then. But I never had any desire to go into their stores since.

As mentioned, the lion’s share of their product assortment is aimed at kids - $5 backpacks, graphic t’s, etc.

With Dollar Tree entering a similar market, I ponder if it will hurt Five Below. Dollar Tree’s $1 backpacks are just bad, but for $5 they could really make a dent in the market.
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Re: Five Below

Post by BillyGr »

cjd wrote: October 2nd, 2021, 8:53 am We're getting one of these here too along with a Burlington Coat Factory, which are replacing a former Gold's Gym and Books-A-Million. The spaces seem quite large for these stores, although I have never been to either before so I can't say what size of a store Five Below usually is. Seems to be a sort of variety store for young people.
I'd say the Five Below stores I've seen are not that different from a newer/more normal sized Dollar Tree.
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Re: Five Below

Post by bryceleinan »

storewanderer wrote: September 26th, 2021, 6:15 pm
buckguy wrote: September 26th, 2021, 12:30 pm Five Below goes into locations that normally wouldn't rent to a dollar store, like power centers and even "lifestyle" centers. At one time, they apparently targeted "tweens" but the couple stores I've seen seem much broader in their appeal than that. The stores have seemed cleaner and better laid out than the typical dollar store.
Definitely cleaner and better laid out. More labor (just standing around most of the time) also.
The plaza Storewanderer mentioned has a Dollar Tree in it... have not been able to make a direct comparison between the two stores yet, but based on the Dollar Tree where I live outside Carson City and one in Carson City, I think Five Below would be an improvement. They're building another one next to Whole Paycheck in South Reno too, interesting to see how it does.
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Re: Five Below

Post by BillyGr »

bryceleinan wrote: October 4th, 2021, 8:03 pm The plaza Storewanderer mentioned has a Dollar Tree in it... have not been able to make a direct comparison between the two stores yet, but based on the Dollar Tree where I live outside Carson City and one in Carson City, I think Five Below would be an improvement. They're building another one next to Whole Paycheck in South Reno too, interesting to see how it does.
buckguy wrote: September 26th, 2021, 12:30 pm Five Below goes into locations that normally wouldn't rent to a dollar store, like power centers and even "lifestyle" centers. At one time, they apparently targeted "tweens" but the couple stores I've seen seem much broader in their appeal than that. The stores have seemed cleaner and better laid out than the typical dollar store.
Funny enough, in one local area we have Dollar Tree and Five Below in the same shopping plaza. It's one of those "spread out" complexes - the big stores (Walmart, Lowes and Kohl's) are way back from the road. Along one entry driveway, there are two buildings.
The one on the left has the Dollar Tree, TJ Maxx, Petco and a shoe store, while the one on the right has the Five Below and a bunch of smaller shops/services (the only ones I remember that was there was Sports Authority, since closed and a couple things like non chain eating places and maybe one of the chain hair salon/cutters). All things that are smaller storefronts than the Five Below is.
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Re: Five Below

Post by cjd »

Sounds like a powercenter to me. This puts more large/big box retailers into one location, often with a few eateries and smaller spaces strewn in as outparcels or in-line spaces.

Whereas a shopping center would be more with one large retailer like a supermarket with mostly smaller spaces filling the rest of it. And likely less eating options other than take out, Subway or Dominos type places.

The place the Five Below is going in here has a lot of those big boxes, with Bed, Bath Beyond, Ross and Marshalls and Dress Barn. Originally it had the B-A-M, Gold's Gym and Circuit City. There was also one of those small dollar type stores, but it didn't last long. That space was empty for years until Bath and Body Works moved in.

In a separate building out front built at the same time is a Starbucks, mattress store and Panera Bread. There are also a few restaurants added later.
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Re: Five Below

Post by cjd »

I've been to Five Below twice now. My feeling is the store looks and feels higher end than a Dollar Tree or other dollar stores. The selection is much smaller though, but the way the items are presented as well as the open layout of the store feels higher end. It has sort of a Bed Bath and Beyond feel in a way. It's somewhat interesting product mix as some of the items seem focused toward kids/teens such as the toys, art supplies, phone accessories and clothing. But there are also cleaning products for sale.

Some of the toy mix and kits remind me of what you see in those Highlights For Kids mail order magazines.
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Re: Five Below

Post by TW-Upstate NY »

cjd wrote: November 25th, 2021, 8:00 am My feeling is the store looks and feels higher end than a Dollar Tree or other dollar stores. The selection is much smaller though, but the way the items are presented as well as the open layout of the store feels higher end.
Only been to one of their stores once and that was some years ago. It was a mall location and I had same impression. There was little if any shelving and the merchandise was displayed on island type tables throughout the store so you really didn't have to reach for anything.
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Re: Five Below

Post by Brian Lutz »

All things considered, "Looks and feels higher end than a Dollar Tree" is a pretty low bar to clear. That said, Daiso stores (which seem to operate in the same space, most items $1.50 with some higher priced merchandise scattered throughout the store up to around $15.00) follow modern Japanese aesthetics, with clean white tile floors, bright lights, backlit shelves in some areas and generally an orderly (if crowded sometimes, not unusal for a Japanese store) appearance, and as a result of this feel much higher end than Dollar Tree stores do even though their merchandise isn't much more expensive.
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Re: Five Below

Post by storewanderer »

Brian Lutz wrote: November 26th, 2021, 8:23 pm All things considered, "Looks and feels higher end than a Dollar Tree" is a pretty low bar to clear. That said, Daiso stores (which seem to operate in the same space, most items $1.50 with some higher priced merchandise scattered throughout the store up to around $15.00) follow modern Japanese aesthetics, with clean white tile floors, bright lights, backlit shelves in some areas and generally an orderly (if crowded sometimes, not unusal for a Japanese store) appearance, and as a result of this feel much higher end than Dollar Tree stores do even though their merchandise isn't much more expensive.
I think Five Below has a better atmosphere than Daiso. But as far as product mix, I am struggling to find anything to buy at Five Below. I never have any problems finding things I am interested in buying when I go into Daiso.

Daiso seems a bit cheap to me. Too many weird store policies that vary by location (do they still require a $5 or $7 or some other random to use a credit card). Their stores feel like a better stocked and more interesting Dollar Tree in terms of how they present the items and the overall feeling of the store. The nicer flooring and having all the lights turned on at Daiso certainly helps in some ways though.
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Re: Five Below

Post by Brian Lutz »

Finally got a chance to check out a Five Below store today near our current temporary home, and it from my first impressions it's basically impossible to make any direct comparison to a Dollar Tree or a Daiso store. For one thing, the store is much smaller than an average Dollar Tree (probably somewhere in the 5000 square foot range, comparable to a mid-sized Daiso in size) The merchandise also seems very different from what you'd find at a Dollar Tree, targeted at a much younger audience. The store seems to be broken down into a few major departments, the main ones being a seasonal department, a toy department, a "tech" department (with a lot of stuff for gamers and streamers,) a "fashion" department with a lot of $5 t-shirts and various beauty items (they seem to be going very much after the same look as a Claire's store in this area), and a large candy department. There's a bit of general merchandise (stuff like cleaning products and office supplies)thrown in between those, but you could miss it easily if you aren't looking for it.

If you're familiar with Zany Brainy you can see the influence of those stores on Five Below. I imagine they are aimed at a similar demographic (probably the exact same people, just around 20 years older now.)
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