At Dollar Tree’s investor day this month, the discount retailer gave a peek into how it’s catching up with the times — and AI is playing a key role.
If one thing is certain, CEO Mike Creedon told investors, it’s that Dollar Tree must evolve.
“And we are, from a single price point model to a multi-price assortment, from an aging store base to a fleet of refreshed stores, from underinvestment in technology to an AI-enabled enterprise, from inconsistent execution to a culture of excellence and accountability,” the executive said.
Older legacy systems — some of which were decades old — at the company are being replaced with AI-enabled platforms, he added. This is helping with everything from assortment planning to improved inventory visibility and workforce management.
In Creedon’s view, this marks “a cultural shift” for a company with roots stemming back to the 1980s.
Creedon gave insight into how its helping with hiring new employees.
“I don't know if you know this, we hire thousands of people a week, just given the nature of our stores,” Creedon said. “We're looking at agentics to do the first three levels of screening. .... [N]ow we'll go through three levels with agentics and only the final interview gets done by the store manager.”
Overall, Dollar Tree’s investor day helped to quell at least some analysts’ minds.
“Dollar Tree’s investor meeting increased our confidence in the multi-year growth story,” Telsey Advisory Group analysts led by Joseph Feldman said in an Oct. 16 note. “Following the sale of Family Dollar in July 2025, the stand-alone Dollar Tree has a clear vision of growth and renewed energy to drive the business ... Looking ahead, Dollar Tree should be able to attract customers by offering a more relevant assortment, with a broader selection of multi-price point products that are complementary and high quality at value prices.”
The retailer’s strategic plan centers around a multi-price point strategy, new store growth and renovations, and its technological transformation.
“We walked away from DLTR's investor day positive despite market skepticism,” Wells Fargo analysts said in an Oct. 15 note shared with Retail Dive. That market skepticism, for example, can be seen in a downgrade to underperform from Jefferies on Oct. 7.
Jefferies analysts said that “inflation, management decisions, and tariffs have turned a simple business model into a complex one,” adding that store checks found “red-dot stickers over old price tags, missing signage, and shopper confusion” in relation to multi-price point shifts.
However, Creedon was quick to clarify pricing during the investor day event.
“Some observers have begun to conflate two distinctly different activities taking place in our stores,” the executive said. “The first is our ongoing multi-price strategy and the second item is the restickering, which is directly tied to near-term cost mitigation. These are not the same thing. They serve entirely different purposes and time horizons. ... We fully acknowledge the retail execution behind restickering isn't ideal, and it doesn't make working in our stores easier. But I can assure you it's short term and will primarily phase out by the end of our current fiscal year.”
Still, Jefferies analysts in a follow-up note on Monday said “execution of the MPP has been confusing to customers, which we fear will alienate its core customers.”
