PHILADELPHIA (CAP) - The Federal Trade Commission has confirmed reports that specialty merchandise store Five Below is purchasing the much sought after Family Dollar franchise and opening a new chain of stores under the name Two Fiddy. Everything in the stores will sell for less than $2.50.
Five Below officials called the deal a culmination of years of market research, "and a little bit of math." They believe the new store targets a segment of the population previously ignored by traditional retailers.
"You've got those who are not quite at the poverty level of a dollar store shopper, but can't afford to splurge at Five Below," said Executive Chairman David Schlessinger. "That's our target market.
"It's a portion of middle-class America we can no longer ignore," he added.
The new store will sell knockoffs of knockoffs in order to keep the price point below $2.50, along with damaged merchandise from Five Below that can be marked down and hot sellers from Family Dollar that can be jacked up. Schlessinger said the merged company's goal is to commandeer the mid-level trinket market.
"We will eventually branch out into more than just useless kitchen crap," he said. "But right now we're concentrating on one room at a time. Useless crap for your foyer may be a ways out, but we'll get there."
Schlessinger said they want to remain focused on "every day fair to middlin' prices" and not get caught up in the hype too often associated with low-end bargain shopping.
In related news, Dollar Tree, Dollar General, and The Dollar Store have announced a three-way partnership that they say allows them to leverage each other's assets in order to compete in the burgeoning lower middle-class mid-tier consumer market. Their new venture, Three Dollah, is expected to compete heavily with Two Fiddy for market share throughout the Northeast.
- CAP News Staff