Dollarama Reshapes 28 Reject Shop Stores in Australia
Dollarama has started reshaping The Reject Shop in Australia, with 28 of the chain’s 410 stores using the Dollarama layout and fixtures by the end of the quarter. The conversion is moving store by store, not all at once, which means the new look is already visible in a small but growing slice of the chain.
Neil Rossy said the company had begun its "transformation road map in earnest" after Dollarama bought The Reject Shop for $259 million in July last year. For shoppers, that means some stores are already carrying new layouts and new ranges, while the broader rebrand waits on renovation work.
28 Stores, 410 in Scope
28 stores now operate with the Dollarama layout and fixtures, equal to nearly 7 per cent of The Reject Shop’s network. That pace shows how the rollout is being staged across a national chain of 410 stores, with each conversion depending on the renovation schedule rather than a blanket change across the estate.
13 stores were fully renovated during the quarter, and Dollarama opened eight net new stores. The company said the first Dollarama-sourced products started reaching shelves after quarter-end, giving the reworked stores a more visible shift in merchandise as well as appearance.
SKU by SKU in Australia
Dollarama expects between 60 and 80 Reject Shop stores to be renovated by the end of the year, before pushing toward a longer target of 400 stores over the next four years. Rossy said, "As a reminder, this will be a gradual rollout as we work SKU by SKU (referring to the inventory term Stock-Keeping Unit) to introduce even more compelling value to Australian consumers, leveraging our proven low-price-point, value-oriented product offering."
That sequence matters for customers because the chain is not flipping branding first and sorting out the assortment later. Rossy said, "From the perspective of re-bannering, we will never re-banner a store until it has been renovated or unless it's a new store, and there's not going to be a specific SKU count that's going to trigger that," and added, "For certain, it will not change until the shop feels like a Dollarama shop."
Dollarama’s 21.4% Sales Lift
21.4 per cent growth in Dollarama’s first-quarter sales, to nearly $CAN1.9 billion, gives management room to keep funding the Australian rollout while it transitions import products and store formats. Rossy said, "We don't expect to reach a critical mass of Dollarama import products before year-end, by which time we expect to have about half of our import products transitioned."
That leaves the next phase tied to execution rather than a single launch date: Dollarama is already changing fixtures in 28 stores, importing new products after quarter-end, and holding back the new brand name until each location looks and trades like the chain wants it to. Rossy said customer interest and reception to the new layouts and import SKUs have been encouraging, but the sample is still small.
