It seems legit at first, but when you actually run the store. You noticed dollar items won't feed you. Owners will have to increase the prices and started include brand names to attract customers. Also, owners should not apply for so many credit cards. If you don't have the money to open a store, don't do it. read more

DRSS may have opened (they claim) 3,000 dollar stores but do your homework and see how many of them closed within 3 months of opening! When you ask them to give you the names and phone numbers of the stores in and around the city you want to open your store, they can't do it! You need to talk to the store owners to find out what's really going on. DO NOT DO THIS, you will lose everything! You will go bankrupt, all the store owners do. read more

My husband Randy and I got on a zoom call to find out more about opening a dollar store, the so called President of the company John LaFronz mediated the zoom call. After hearing what he had to say, we made the decision to go ahead and send our money in the next day to begin the process for a store. Adam called me up quickly to get my $500 deposit, which by the way instantly was withdrawn from my account. 2 days later, Mario gets with me to do the application for financing and tells us we don't qualify. I asked him about my refund and he said he would initiate it for me and it would take 7-10 business days. It did not take 7-10 business days for them to withdraw my funds from my account so because I was not satisfied, I called and left a message for John LaFronz. He did return my call and also I have an email as well the same day telling me my refund went out on 8/19. I am still waiting on a refund. I will be taking other actions tomorrow. This company should not accept any funds from anyone UNTIL they have reviewed the credit report to see if they can help you or not, this is a total scam and I am going to the news to let everyone know what has been done and to STAY AWAY from something which sounds too good to be true. RUN from this company as quick as you can, they do not honor what is promised. read more

Don't do it!! You may have seen a lot of mom and pop stores around town and think about being your own boss. Then you find DSS and they make you think it's totally possible. I will say that they provide the turnkey service as advertised; however, do not trust the numbers they provide you on profitability. They use "estimates" based on the square foot of the store you are looking to lease. In our experience, sales weren't even close to 1/2 of what they estimated. When you ask for information on the average length their customers remain in business, they give you a line about confidentiality. They do have some stores around Las Vegas that they have you tour, not telling you that they are paying the owners money for each tour. In our case, the tour money became a critical income stream because we certainly weren't making enough money through sales alone. When you initially meet with them, if you have good credit, they will make sure you know they can help you get funding. We asked if that included a business plan to obtain a small business loan and were led to believe this was the case. HOWEVER, when it comes time to actually fund your store, they tell you how hard it is to get a small business loan as a new business (which is true) and then refer to you Seed Capital. You pay them at least $5k so they can secure you various lines of credit (aka credit cards) in your personal name and some in the name of the business. Seed Capital gets you a bunch of promo rates that become 20%+ after the intro period, making the payments unaffordable. But don't worry, they will tell you not to worry about that because you will have the cards paid off well before the intro rate ends. I wish that were the case. According to DSS numbers, it seems possible, but it absolutely is not. End result...bankruptcy. So now you find yourself with horrible credit and you think, "well, maybe now we can salvage the business since we don't have to shell out thousands a month in credit card payments." I hate to say, this too is false. Even with no debt payments, there is still not enough revenue to cover the overhead. In order to survive, we would have needed to have a lease that was 1/2 the price. So the key to success with DSS is to make sure you can personally fund the store up front through your own money, not credit. Secondly, make sure you are in a great location within a great shopping plaza with a low cost lease (below $3k) and at least 2000 sqft. Use some of their merchandising technique, but don't have 4 rows of one product. Find a way to neatly organize a variety of products using less space. Variety is key to sales, but you will find it difficult to sell the volume necessary to generate a profit. Finally, plan on working at the store all day by yourself. Labor and taxes are another costly expense that makes it difficult to pay the bills. I certainly hope other people have a better experience. Hindsight being 20/20, there were things that should have been red flags for me at the time. I was just so blindsided by the chance of growing a business and one day being my own boss. Unless you have the time and money to devote yourself completely, I don't ever seeing this as being a profitable venture for you. If you do have the time and money, I'm still not sure you will see enough returns to make it worth it. As a plus for DSS, I will say the turnkey store they offer does come as promised. But you do not get a POS system; you get a register where you touch a button for each item, as opposed to scanning. DSS also gets you in touch with vendors that do offer product with quality generally as good a Dollar Tree. Margins are sometime slim, and shipping can be crippling, so plan wisely. read more

I have been looking for a good business to invest in for over a year. After doing a lot of research and looking into multiple types of franchise business opportunities, I decided it would be best to open a dollar store. I spent a number of months looking at my options, and I have to say that after doing all my due diligence...Dollar Store Services is hands down the best place to go if you want to know the best way how to start a dollar store. read more

The experience I had with DRSS training staff from Miko Hall to Veronica was top notch and highly helpful. I don't want to forget about the finance team,real estate team and all the wonderful people at DRSS. Looking forward to my dollar store opening. THANKS EVERYBODY AT DRSS TOMMY R WARREN read more

The worst. I opened a store, in Feb 2013 and closed it, in Sept 2013. I had to go to bankruptcy, to avoid losing everything. The store was nice, but most of the products were too cheap for you to have a decent profit. Was forced to accept a location, without a major anchor store. Nice area, but not foot traffic enough to attract enough customers. Tried some local advertising and coupons (recommended by DSS) but not help. I won't make enough money to pay the utilities, much less to pay the leasing of the local, which was $2500 for a 1200 ft local. It didn't matter, sometimes I won't see a customer going by for hours. I was glad that I could go into bankruptcy and save a property in Las Vegas, where I could live. I couldn't afford the house in CA, anymore, so I did a short sale. At first I thought that they were going to finance the store, but not, they were getting credit cards left and right, for me, using Seed Capital. Later I found out that they were lying about my net worth to the leaser of the store, and I guess to the credit cards companies. Was losing my pants on these one, but got out of it on time. Was looking to the store, for something to do and income, after I was forced to retire, but what a nightmare. read more

Do your research this company has a 95% fail rate ,hey but don't believe me ask them ,then ask them for a store listing ,or try to find them ,then they don't tell you the vendor's that they use send you the merchandise they can't sell ,and duplicate merchandise instead of giving you variety ,then this is the worst thing! Then the few items that you can sell try to re-order them, you can't and another super-big thing what ever you do ,Do not believe there BBB rating REMEMBER the BBB is not a government, or city or county regulated agency most of them work on a pay-to-play system, but don't believe me google it yourself ,I'm sure would believe a state attorney General. read more

I've been open since Nov 2013 and DRSS really helped me through the process of finding a location, financing, my leasing contract, merchandising, ordering and building/setting up my store and many other things. Unlike owning a franchise, I felt I had a say in every step of the process and at any point IF I wanted to I could've stopped and said No to anything I didn't like/agree with. Some owners might not like having a merchandise package pre-set for their 1st order/opening but it's truly the best way. No one knows based on your location what is gonna be hot or not. Just because it's hot in many other locations it might not be the hot item for your store. So after the initial opening, you have 100% freedom to re order an item or choose something different based on customer feedback. This isn't a franchise, do what you want. There is no sure thing in anything you do. I've learned for my particular store to have a small amount of an item but have lots of variety and it has been great for me. Some vendors might not be so flexible with having smaller case sizes for what you want and we've learned that there are SO many choices/other vendors to order from out there that we typically end up much happier than getting stuck with lots of something that didn't end up selling. DRSS is very helpful anytime I need to call and ask for advice with a product or vendor or a display or anything at all. Remember it's advice, it's not a franchise, do what you want. Some things work out great, others don't. You really just have to keep talking to your customers and find out what is popular for your location. I also HIGHLY recommend attending trade shows like toyfest and ASD here in Las Vegas (they are here twice a year). This gives you a chance to meet with current and new vendors, touch and play with new merchandise that might interest you and you can do this on your own or a representative of DRSS can spend time with you to help you as well, it's totally your choice. All I can end with is what you get out of your business depends on the effort you put into it. It doesn't run itself. Thank you DRSS for what you've helped me with and the flexibility to do what I want with my own business. read more

Dollar Retail Store Services or DRSS is nothing but big scam. You guys ruined our good credit and character by getting us in 200K of dollars in debts. I quit my high paying salary job for your internet scams. Run away please. They pretend to help you but instead they liquidated all funds And leave you with nothing but a lot of promises. They shipped us expired food merchandise and 30boxes of useless fixture nails. And charged us over 67k and signed us a shit store lease for 3yrs over 120k total our debt to be over 200k. We sell $ 35 to $50 day that is not even enough to pay for the utilities bills not including the rent which is $2800 a month please Run away and do not do any business with DRSS or Dollar Services. This is internet scam!!!!! They work with unsecured funding source which they are another scammer to get the funds then they all take funds for themselves and leave you to pay. They have no kind of business plan set up. They are scammers and liars run away. read more