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I'm David Brown, and this is Business Wars.

I'm David Brown, and this is Business Wars. You know, dollar stores can be extremely handy.

If you need some party supplies in a pinch,

you might just run over to your local dollar tree to pile some birthday candles and noisemakers into the cart.

And for a lot of people, they offer a convenient and affordable way to get groceries and other staples.

But lately, Dollar Store chains are trying to change their perception with customers and lure in more affluent shoppers.

One of the big chains, Dollar General, launched a new store format geared towards shoppers who would typically turn to a target or even a

T.J. Max for beauty, home decor and office supplies. It's called Popsshelf, and its stores are

filled with on-trend and higher-priced merchandise. There's another trend that's changing the profile

of dollar store shoppers. Shoppers looking for dupes, short for duplicates of high-end brands, or finding themselves

headed to the dollar stores, where you might find a face cream with identical ingredients to some

brand that cost nearly 30 times as much. Anne-Marie Conte is the deputy editor at Wirecutter,

where she reviews consumer products to help readers figure out which ones are worth the investment.

She's written a lot about dollar stores.

Her mom is a huge fan.

And Anne-Marie has become an expert at understanding which dollar store products to buy and which ones to leave on the shelf.

Anne-Marie will help us navigate the aisles of the dollar store to understand who's shopping there if there's still real value and where they

fit in under this new era of tariffs, trade wars, and shifting consumer habits. Later on, Chantal

...