High-Income Shoppers Are Shifting Their Impulse Buys to Discount Stores

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Wealthy shoppers are flocking to Dollar General. On the discount store’s recent first quarter earnings call, its CEO said that Dollar General “is continuing to attract higher income customers who are looking to maximize value while still shopping for items they want.” This echoes comments from Walmart’s recent earnings calls, where they’ve shared that they’re seeing the same trend. 

While all retailers are struggling to navigate the challenges that the here-today-gone-tomorrow tariff policies are creating, at least discount stores and retailers with a strong value-centric reputation have the upside of attracting spendy customers to help make up for the lost business from shoppers who are cutting back on spending entirely.

High-income shoppers are increasingly shopping at dollar stores

Per Morning Consult Intelligence, high-income shoppers have been increasingly including dollar stores in their consideration set since October 2024. We’ve seen an uptick in the share of those consumers who are “absolutely certain” or “very likely” to consider buying a product from Dollar General, Family Dollar or Dollar Tree, growing from 41% to 49%. 

Why the shift? This group’s consumer sentiment trended upward in the same time period, so they’re not doom spending. It’s more likely that they’re feeling the strain of price increases and trying to keep discretionary spending in check. This group is more likely to have kids at home than the overall population of six-figure households, and $100,000 just doesn’t go as far for larger households. 

Discount stores enable guilt-free impulse buys

It’s likely that the cheap and cheerful items available at Dollar General and similar stores are scratching high-income discount store shoppers’ itch for impulse shopping while reducing spending guilt. Here, high-income discount store shoppers are defined as those with six-figure incomes who also are “absolutely certain” or “very likely” to consider purchasing a product from Family Dollar, Dollar Tree or Dollar General. 

More than two-in-five (42%) consumers in this group say they tend to be impulsive, versus 36% of all high-income consumers. They’re also more likely to agree with the statement “you are better off having what you want now, as you never know what tomorrow brings,” building on the profile of an impulse shopper. So, it’s not surprising that they shop via social media more often than other high-income consumers, given the instant gratification of moving from inspiration to checkout in just a few clicks.

That shopping is happening on platforms with strong shopping integrations: High-income discount shoppers use Pinterest and TikTok more often than other high-income consumers (+10 and +8 percentage points, respectively). Both platforms are excellent tools to connect inspiration from other users and influencers to e-commerce sites. 

Dollar General specifically cited positive comparable sales in discretionary categories like seasonal home and apparel, which speak to fun impulse buys. Additionally, they’ve worked to improve the in-store shopping experience and enabled home delivery via DoorDash, which caters to high-income consumers’ shopping expectations.