[PHOTO] Looking into the Dollarama, Bloor and Bathurst, June 2012

One of the newest outposts of the Canadian Dollarama chain of dollar stores opened up last summer on the western fringes of The Annex, in a location at Bloor and Bathurst formerly belonging to music store Sonic Boom. (Sonic Boom's landlords apparently wanted too much rent, so the store moved into a corner of Honest Ed's just a block away.) This store's front windows had been covered with paper while the merchandise and equipment were being moved into this store in June, but some of it had been torn away.

This new store's opening marked, for me, Dollarama's successes: from a single store in eastern Québec two decades ago, Dollarama has become a national store with nearly a thousand stores open across Canada. The chain's sustained high growth has been traced by some to a pretty good business model: efficient management, well-trained staff, and a careful management of product to include only the sorts of products that will actually sell to its target markets. Since this particular store's opening, it has consistently done very good business.