While retail news in Canada lately has had a negative tinge—Target's losses after an expansive roll-out nationwide and Nordstrom’s announcement it was delaying the roll-out of low-cost Rack stores. But Dollarama flies in the face of all that, announcing it'll open another 400 stores across the country, including 150 in the next two years. Retail consultant David Ian Gray says it's a “throwback to old-school retail."

That means success depends on reducing costs and developing a streamlined system or formula to bring stores online and little is 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, he says.