Dollar General enjoyed a highly successful 2015, sparked by enterprise resource planning software for its supply chain. Dollar General CEO Todd Vasos said during the company’s March 10 fourth-quarter conference call that the ERP software is helping propel customer satisfaction and brand loyalty.
“In 2015, we accomplished the multi-year rollout of our enterprise resource planning software for our supply chain,” Vasos said, according to Seeking Alpha. “This technology platform represents a significant improvement with enhanced integration to allow for demand forecasting from the vendor to shelf. Importantly, the team executed this initiative without disruption to our business. The rollout of our targeted labor investment has been implemented across more than 3,100 stores. Since the rollout of this initiative, in the second quarter, we have continued to see same-store sales growth for our stores gain traction. Phase 1 and Phase 2 stores have been on the program long enough to see an impact. We are pleased that they are delivering on our return expectations. Specifically, in these stores, the key metrics of same-store sales, transactions, average basket, and customer satisfaction scores all are showing significant improvement.”
For 2015, sales at Dollar General rose 7.7%, to a record $20.4 billion. Same-store sales for the year increased by 2.8%, marking its 26th consecutive year of same-store sales growth.
“2015 was an exciting year for Dollar General as we reached over $20 billion in sales and celebrated the milestone of opening our 12,000th store location,” Vasos said. “For the year, we had our most balanced financial growth since 2011 and delivered results that are in line with the long-term financial model that we announced today. The team is energized by the strong performance in 2015 and is focused on capturing the significant long-term growth opportunities that lie ahead.”
Dollar General opened 730 new stores in 2015, increasing its selling square footage by 6% and exceeded its combined remodels and relocation targets with 881 stores.
“We also had continuing success in improving our shrink performance,” Vasos added. “Shrink improvement has been and continues to be one of our largest long-term gross margin opportunities. We remain committed to reducing our shrink on a store-by-store basis. This progress continues to be broad-based, with shrink declining across nearly 70% of our product departments for the year. Going forward, our teams continue to be focused on leveraging our defensive merchandising tools, technology, and training to further reduce shrink.”