A new location of upstart retailer pOpshelf is closing this week after little more than two years in business. The roughly 10,000 square foot store, located in Roswell Village Shopping Center (653 Holcomb Bridge Road), opened in late 2021 and will close as of Friday, April 5, according to employees at the store.
While the store seemingly never performed financially, it did garner some devoted fans, many of whom were not pleased to hear of the planned conversion.
The Roswell store, located in an affluent part of Fulton County, never performed, was the weakest in the state, and among the weakest units chainwide, according to a retail source with knowledge of the retailer's metrics. A separate retail source told ToNeTo Atlanta that the company is also closing an even newer store in El Campo, Texas and converting it to Dollar General, too.
Popshelf's target customers are women who live in suburban areas and have an annual household income between $50,000 and $125,000, according to the company. Dollar General customers, however, tend to live in rural areas, have a tighter budget with annual household incomes of $40,000 or less, and skew slightly older. Considering this, the pOpshelf store should have done well in Roswell and it makes little sense to think Dollar General will perform better.
Roswell Village was acquired by Sterling Organization in 2014 when it was just 31% leased. Having added Starbucks, Crunch Fitness, Marshalls, pOpshelf, Ross, and others, the center is currently 97% leased and is being marketed for sale. In the sales offering, JLL, who is handling the listing, states: "The Property benefits from a highly affluent customer base with average household incomes of over $160,000 in the surrounding submarket."
Dollar General introduced pOpshef in October 2020 with stores in Tennessee, also its home state. The brand came to Georgia in early 2021 with a unit in McDonough. Since its Georgia debut, the company has expanded to 26 stores across the state, inclusive of the Roswell store. Many of the Georgia pOpshelf stores are located in the suburbs with the retailer's closest "intown" unit on Hugh Howell Road in Tucker.
In creating pOpshelf, Dollar General was looking to capture some of the market being taken by Five Below. The premise of pOpshelf was that the majority of items were priced $5 and below with some items as much as $10, but little beyond that price point. The store differed from Dollar General in that it featured more discretionary items like decor, party supplies, seasonal items, and housewares, rather than necessities and staples like toilet paper and food.
There are currently about 200 pOpshelf stores, a far cry from the 1,000 units the company previously stated it planned to have open by the end of fiscal year 2025.
Are you surprised to hear that pOpshelf struggled to find an audience in Roswell? Does Dollar General replacing pOpshelf in Roswell make sense to you? What is your favorite "discount" store?
Please share your thoughts below.
8 comments:
On the surface I would think being in a well leased shopping center would help it. I don't love that shopping center though. I think it's hectic to get in and out of it. I love PopShelf & Dollar General. I hope the PopShelf in Tucker stays open. I've heard several people say they don't know what PopShelf is and that may be a problem for the brand.
Love love love popshelf but fear they won’t succeed due to lack of advertising. There’s no awareness. It’s Target meets 5 below yet no one knows about them. They deserve a Bucees type of cult following awareness has been zilch.
pOpshelf is a terrible name. Much as the previous commenter suggested, I have mentioned this store to many people in the past and none of them recognize the name or had any understanding of what type of retail concept it is. Maybe that is why they have slowed their expansion so drastically.
I really loved popself when it first opened and Dolar ageneral isnt nothing lkke it. I can get grocries cheaper at Kroger’s! I’ll miss poopself and hope they keep others open.
I hate both dollar general and popshelf. Cheap crap, temu garbage. Please don't put a dollar general there! How about Eataly?
Where exactly is the pop shelf in Tucker? I don’t live anywhere near by once in a blue moon. I will end up there by chance. Also, the last post there’s a really great miss spelling there someone wrote poop self instead of pop shelf. I bet you can get diapers at Pop shelf.
It is at 4351 Hugh Howell Rd. Tucker. It is near where Lawrenceville Highway and Hugh Howell intersect. It's an awkward location and if I didn't live in the area I wouldn't know about it. Can't really see it from the road. It is right next to a fairly busy Staples.
How about MGM Grand? Or the Eiffel Tower? The space must be huge if it can hold Eataly , so why not splurge?
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