Lately news in Canada on the retail front has had a negative tinge—Target Canada’s huge losses after an expansive roll-out nationwide, and Nordstrom’s announcement they were delaying the roll-out of their low-cost Rack stores to Canada. Dollarama flies in the face of all that—they will be opening another 400 stores across the country, including 150 in the next two years. (Sometimes you need a hero, and sometimes that hero offers 30 paper plates for a dollar.)

The reasons? Retail consultant David Ian Gray says they are a “throwback to old school retail,” where success lay in the “logistics of reducing costs, developing a streamlined system or formula to bring stores online,” and little was about customer experience. Technology is key, David says, because managing a large number of geographically dispersed stores, people, inventory and distribution brings its own set of challenges. “Dollarama is noted for the competitive edge it has in its back-end systems and IT,” David says.