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The Sun
24-05-2025
- Business
- The Sun
I shopped at B&M and Home Bargains… but which store had the best bargains for lowest prices?
ON the high street, a battle of the bargains is raging and busy mums can't get enough of discount stores B&M and Home Bargains. Writer and mum-of-three Lynsey Hope compares 15 everyday essentials from each – and reveals which one offers the best value. 1 From baby wipes and toothpaste to crisps and shampoo, discount giant B&M is a treasure trove for families wanting to stock up on everyday essentials. Not only does the budget chain sell cleaning and beauty products at rock-bottom prices, but they also stock oodles of edible goods, such as chocolate and crisps – the sort of snacks most families devour by the bagful. As a busy working mum with three children - Jacob, ten, Olive, eight, and Ivy, five - B&M has become one of my favourite places to pick up a variety of goods I use all the time. As the cost-of-living crisis continues, I'm always on the lookout for best buys for the whole family, whether that's cereal, batteries or washing-up liquid. All of us mums love a bargain and these stores often sell items even cheaper than you would find in the supermarket. But is B&M really the best place for bargains? Its biggest rival, Home Bargains, is experiencing record growth. Profits grew by 34.2 per cent to a record £434million in the year to June 2024. There were a staggering 617 stores across the UK at the end of 2024 — 23 more than the previous year. More Home Bargains outlets are due to open in Watford and Newport this summer, while other retailers struggle. B&M, for example, issued a profit warning last month and said like-for-like sales were down by 3.1 per cent. But they still have 686 stores in the UK with a plan to expand to 1,200 sites in the next few years So, when it comes to B&M versus Home Bargains, which one offers better value? I bought a basket of 15 essentials at each shop and tallied up how much they cost on the day. It's worth noting that these prices can fluctuate, so while this comparison reflects what I paid at the time, costs may vary depending on when you shop. Here's what happened when I took to the aisles to investigate . . . B&M Home Bargains LYNSEY'S VERDICT I WAS really surprised to find that Home Bargains was cheaper than B&M. I shopped around for lots of items and many things like washing up liquid, fabric conditioner and shampoo were the same price in both stores. However, Home Bargains did have some everyday stuff at lower prices. I picked up some sun cream, batteries and baby wipes all a bit cheaper at Home Bargains. It's only a small saving, but given I get through a lot of these, it's definitely a saving worth having. Even a pouch of Quality Street was 51p cheaper than it was at B&M, and one of my favourite sheet masks – a real mum treat – was 30p cheaper. Lots of this stuff was 'on offer', so I'll have to go back to see if these bargain prices continue. I shopped at both stores at around 4pm, so it's possible B&M would have discounted further if I'd gone closer to the 10pm closing time. Food products seemed cheaper at Home Bargains, but the candle I picked up was cheaper at B&M. There was only a penny in it, but they also had a much better selection of gifts and home products, such as photo frames and towels. There was also a better selection of toys. I didn't buy anything this time, but with lots of children's parties coming up, I'd definitely go back to B&M for those. More importantly, both stores offered much lower prices than most supermarkets. The six pack of Walkers crisps was £1.95 in both stores. These would set you back £2.20 at Morrisons and Sainsburys, £2.15 at Tesco and £2 at Asda. And the tiny tin of Vaseline was cheaper here than it would be if you bought it from Sainsbury's, Ocado or Waitrose. The sun cream I chose – £6.49 in Home Bargains – would cost you £7.50 at Boots. WATCH FOR PROMOTIONS CONSUMER expert Helen Dewdney, of says: "BOTH shops usually offer good value for money. However, it really depends on what it is you want to buy as to which one will work for you. "For everyday essential food stuffs, like bread and canned goods, Home Bargains may offer better deals. "Conversely, for household items and toiletries, B&M might provide more savings. "To ensure you are getting the best prices, you have to carefully compare the different items. Neither store has universal pricing across items, so consumers should compare individual items and if you want it buy it before it goes as stock can vary. "Sometimes you have to be lucky as B&M often discounts items later in the day, bringing the price to lower than Home Bargains. Of course, Home Bargains may also discount some food items later in the day. "Both have frequent promotions, but it's only a saving if you need the item – so be careful of buying something just because it is on promotion. "B&M has one advantage over Home Bargains in that it has an app with a barcode scanner where you can uncover discounts in store. Both run promotions, so check on websites and signs. "Be careful of sizes and multi-pack deals which may be cheaper in the supermarket."
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Ross Stores (ROST) Q1 Earnings and Revenues Top Estimates
Ross Stores (ROST) came out with quarterly earnings of $1.47 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.43 per share. This compares to earnings of $1.46 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items. This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of 2.80%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this discount retailer would post earnings of $1.65 per share when it actually produced earnings of $1.79, delivering a surprise of 8.48%. Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus EPS estimates four times. Ross Stores , which belongs to the Zacks Retail - Discount Stores industry, posted revenues of $4.98 billion for the quarter ended April 2025, surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 0.35%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $4.86 billion. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates two times over the last four quarters. The sustainability of the stock's immediate price movement based on the recently-released numbers and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's commentary on the earnings call. Ross Stores shares have added about 0.9% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's decline of -0.6%. While Ross Stores has outperformed the market so far this year, the question that comes to investors' minds is: what's next for the stock? There are no easy answers to this key question, but one reliable measure that can help investors address this is the company's earnings outlook. Not only does this include current consensus earnings expectations for the coming quarter(s), but also how these expectations have changed lately. Empirical research shows a strong correlation between near-term stock movements and trends in earnings estimate revisions. Investors can track such revisions by themselves or rely on a tried-and-tested rating tool like the Zacks Rank, which has an impressive track record of harnessing the power of earnings estimate revisions. Ahead of this earnings release, the estimate revisions trend for Ross Stores: favorable. While the magnitude and direction of estimate revisions could change following the company's just-released earnings report, the current status translates into a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) for the stock. So, the shares are expected to outperform the market in the near future. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. It will be interesting to see how estimates for the coming quarters and current fiscal year change in the days ahead. The current consensus EPS estimate is $1.64 on $5.49 billion in revenues for the coming quarter and $6.43 on $21.93 billion in revenues for the current fiscal year. Investors should be mindful of the fact that the outlook for the industry can have a material impact on the performance of the stock as well. In terms of the Zacks Industry Rank, Retail - Discount Stores is currently in the bottom 39% of the 250 plus Zacks industries. Our research shows that the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1. Another stock from the same industry, Costco (COST), has yet to report results for the quarter ended May 2025. The results are expected to be released on May 29. This warehouse club operator is expected to post quarterly earnings of $4.25 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a year-over-year change of +12.4%. The consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has been revised 0.1% higher over the last 30 days to the current level. Costco's revenues are expected to be $63.14 billion, up 7.9% from the year-ago quarter. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Ross Stores, Inc. (ROST) : Free Stock Analysis Report Costco Wholesale Corporation (COST) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research ( Zacks Investment Research Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
10-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Dollar General and Dollar Tree Are Both Dollar Stores, but They're Actually Very Different. Here's What That Means for Investors.
Dollar General sells considerably more consumables to rural shoppers with few options for a price trade-down. Dollar Tree, meanwhile, sells a lot of dirt-cheap discretionary items to a more urban crowd. These two stocks' differing recent performances could both reverse course soon, if the economic backdrop doesn't actually change. 10 stocks we like better than Dollar Tree › At first sight, the two discount store chains appear similar enough. Sure, Dollar Tree's (NASDAQ: DLTR) distinguishing feature is a retail price point of $1.25 for at least most of its merchandise. It and Dollar General (NYSE: DG) are still both categorized as dollar stores, however, and certainly compete with one another for consumers' dollars. These two companies are actually quite different from one another, though, so much so that their stocks aren't likely to move in tandem for the long haul. Here's what investors need to know. Dollar General is still the titan of the business, operating 20,594 total stores peppered across most of the United States. Some of those are more experimental stores called pOpshelf, but by and large these locales operate under the Dollar General banner. This company did $40.6 billion worth of business last year, selling goods at a typical range of price points you'd expect from a discounter. Dollar Tree's structure is different. It's actually the combination of 8,881 Dollar Tree stores and 7,622 Family Dollar stores, although the entirety of the latter chain is soon going to be sold to a private equity outfit. While this sale will essentially cut Dollar Tree's physical footprint in half, the remainder may be better off with this severing. The pairing never achieved the synergies investors were hoping it would when it was first formed back in 2015. The two separate units ended up operating quite independently of one another, with the Family Dollar arm simply devolving into dead weight that couldn't quite compete with more than a little head-to-head rivalry like Dollar General, but also outfits like Ollie's and Big Lots. Still, the Dollar Tree brand itself enjoys enough scale -- $17.6 billion in sales last fiscal year -- and enough presence so that its eventual smaller size won't prevent it from effectively competing with Dollar General. Nevertheless, there are differences investors will want to keep in mind. Giving credit where it's due, consumer market research outfit Numerator dug up most of the data on the table below, while the two companies themselves supplied the rest. Take a look, noting that Numerator's numbers for Dollar Tree only apply to Dollar Tree, and do not reflect Family Dollar's presence in the marketplace. (Dollar Tree's sales mix data at the bottom of the table, however, comes from these two companies themselves, and does include Family Dollar's portion of Dollar Tree's total sales.) Metric Dollar General Dollar Tree Locations Rural 42% 30% Suburb 38% 38% Urban 19% 32% Demographics Lower income (<$40K) 27% 26% Middle income ($40K-$125K) 49% 48% Higher Income (>$125K) 24% 26% Penetration/Reach Average annual spend $522 $290 Household penetration 60% 79% Purchase frequency (annual) 20x 27x Repeat rate 85% 80% Sales mix Consumables 82.7% 48.8% Discretionary (seasonal, home, etc.) 17.3% 51.2% Sales-mix data comes from each respective company. All other data provided by Numerator. Much of this was already known, or at least broadly understood. Dollar General, for instance, has frequently touted the fact that roughly three-fourths of its stores are found in towns with populations of less than 20,000. According to Numerator, rural customers, despite shopping less often, contribute significantly due to higher spending per trip. It's also arguable that Numerator's income breakdown understates just how many lower-income consumers depend on Dollar General. With above-average exposure to rural markets where incomes tend to be less than what they are in more urban settings, Dollar General's average customer lives in households with annual incomes believed to be right around the $40,000-per-year threshold Numerator is using at the low end of its middle range. Perhaps the most eye-opening data point here, however, is how much consumables (food, cleaning supplies, etc.) Dollar General sells as opposed to Dollar Tree. More than 80% of Dollar General's sales are consumables, in fact, while a little less than half of Dollar Tree's are. And remember, this sales-mix data includes Family Dollar's revenue, which presumably is more like Dollar General than not. Once Family Dollar's sales are taken out of the mix, look for Dollar Tree's sales mix to shift to an even greater proportion of discretionary goods. Great, but what does this mean for current and would-be investors of either stock? It seems counterintuitive at first, but Dollar General's significant exposure to consumables is a problem when inflation lingers at relatively high levels, as it has since soared in 2021 and 2022. Not only does this pump up the retailer's costs on goods that already sport paper-thin margins, but in many cases struggling consumers simply stop making these purchases rather than shopping around for a cheaper alternative. As CEO Todd Vasos said last August following a disappointing Q2 report that preceded a cut to full-year guidance, "this lower-end consumer continues to be very much financially strapped, especially as it relates to her ability to feed her families and support her families." That message was reiterated in March this year. The graphic below quantifies Vasos' qualitative assessment. Dollar General's same-store sales growth in 2022 is only the result of 2021's steep declines. This improvement withered in 2023, and has yet to be restored in earnest. In contrast, Dollar Tree's discretionary business is arguably a competitive edge when inflation is chipping away at consumers' buying power. This also initially seems counterintuitive. Think bigger-picture though. In a normal, decent economic environment, consumers might splurge modestly on décor, kitchenware, toys and the like with purchases at Walmart, Target, or Amazon. When forced to really pinch pennies though, these "splurges" increasingly happen at Dollar Tree at an affordable starting price point of $1.25. In other words, Dollar Tree is the spending downgrade that Dollar General can't be. The comparison below supports this argument. Not only have Dollar Tree's same-store sales consistently outgrown those of Dollar General since inflation was catapulted in 2021, Dollar Tree appears to have actually thrived when Dollar General couldn't specifically because of this lingering inflation. The opposite situation will, of course, lead to the opposite outcome. That is to say, if and when inflation finally cools and rekindled economic strength takes hold -- improving household incomes even in rural areas -- that plays to Dollar General's strengths. That wouldn't necessarily put Dollar Tree at a troubling disadvantage though, to be clear. Dollar Tree's greater exposure to more urban shoppers and at least slightly bigger household incomes keeps its business relatively steady. There will also always be at least some demand for an affordable "treasure hunt" that only Dollar Tree can offer. Still, an improving economy would set the stage for a shift in the competitive dynamic between these two dollar store chains, which could ultimately make a difference in their underlying stocks' performances. And that may be what the market's betting on happening sooner rather than later, in light of Dollar General stock's recent market-beating run-up. In the meantime, Dollar Tree shares are underperforming at least partly due to its Family Dollar drama. Even if it will be shedding this problematic arm soon, it's disruptive. Some investors may also be sensing a brewing shift toward economic health despite fallout from newly imposed tariffs that Dollar Tree is far more vulnerable to than Dollar General. If you don't think the U.S. economy is actually out of the woods yet though (particularly as it pertains to consumers' buying power), beaten-down Dollar Tree shares are still arguably your better bet. Dollar General's more modest exposure to higher tariff costs still isn't enough to offset its disadvantageous mix of shopper demographics and its heavy reliance on lower-margin consumables. Before you buy stock in Dollar Tree, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Dollar Tree wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $614,911!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $714,958!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 907% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 163% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of May 5, 2025 John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. James Brumley has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Target, and Walmart. The Motley Fool recommends Ollie's Bargain Outlet. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Dollar General and Dollar Tree Are Both Dollar Stores, but They're Actually Very Different. Here's What That Means for Investors. was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
