The 100 Fastest-Growing Cross-Channel Retailers

By The Retail Online Integration Staff

#39 The Vitamin Shoppe
With more than 150 million people in the United States taking dietary supplements every day, there's plenty of opportunity for a retailer of vitamins, minerals, herbs, supplements, sports nutrition, and other health and wellness products to capture market share. The Vitamin Shoppe did just that in 2011.

Selling its products via 528 brick-and-mortar stores in 40 states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, as well as online and by catalog enables The Vitamin Shoppe to engage its customers and prospects on a continual basis. The one-to-one relationships created in these interactions helps The Vitamin Shoppe target its customers and prospects with a variety of products that aren't readily available at other specialty vitamin retailers or mass merchants, such as drugstore chains and supermarkets.

That personal service has paid off. Last year was just the latest in a long line of successful years for The Vitamin Shoppe.

In fact, the retailer has grown its net sales from $436.5 million in fiscal 2005 to $856.6 million in fiscal 2011, while achieving positive comparable store sales for 18 consecutive years. Here are some highlights from The Vitamin Shoppe's 2011 fiscal year:

comparable store sales grew 7.4 percent on a 52-week basis;
operating income rose 28.8 percent; and
the company opened 48 stores during the year

The Vitamin Shoppe is looking forward to yet another successful year in fiscal year 2012. The company plans to open 52 new stores and is expecting comparable store sales growth in the mid-single digits, along with continued improvement in operating income margin and capital expenditures of $32 million — Joe Keenan

#48 Dollar Tree
Some retail categories are doing well in spite of the current economic issues Americans are facing. One such category is dollar stores — those variety stores that sell inexpensive items, often charging the same price per unit for all of the store's merchandise. One company in the dollar store category that did well in 2011 is Dollar Tree, Inc. Headquartered in Chesapeake, Va., Dollar Tree is the largest single price-point retailer in the country, operating an e-commerce site as well as 4,351 stores and nine distribution centers in 48 U.S. states and five Canadian provinces.

"For the full year 2011, as planned, we opened 278 new stores and relocated and expanded 91 stores for a total of 369 projects," said Bob Sasser, president and CEO of Dollar Tree, in a company press release. "Selling square footage increased 6.9 percent, and we ended the year with 4,351 stores. Our plan for 2012 includes approximately 315 new stores and 75 relocations or expansions for a total of 390 projects in the U.S. and Canada."

Dollar Tree is also adding distribution capacity to support its growth. The company is developing new retail formats as well. Dollar Tree's new "Deal$" stores, for example, offer a new multipriced format where not everything is $1 but is still value-priced.

"By lifting the restriction of the $1 price point, we can serve even more customers with more products and more categories," Sasser said. "We opened 28 new Deal$ stores in 2011 and ended the year with a net total of 182 Deal$ stores. We plan to continue this growth rate in 2012." Other highlights of Dollar Tree's 2011 fiscal year include the following:

comparable store sales increased 6 percent; and
diluted earnings per share were $4.03, an increase of 30 percent from diluted earnings per share of $3.10 in 2010. — Melissa Campanelli