Bottom Dollar was created by parent
Delhaize America at the same time as the upscale chain
Bloom in 2004. before the expansion into other states in 2010. The first store in
Philadelphia was opened on April 15, 2011. Some industry analysts believed those markets were already overstored with discount competitors such as
Aldi,
PriceRite and
Save-A-Lot. The restructuring resulted in the Bottom Dollar name disappearing outside of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. In late February 2012, Bottom Dollar expanded into
Pittsburgh and
Youngstown, Ohio, neither of which have the parent Food Lion chain and are dominated by
Giant Eagle. In these markets, Bottom Dollar also competed with various
SuperValu-supplied stores (including low-price
Save-A-Lot),
Aldi, and
Walmart. In spring 2013, in order to cut costs, Bottom Dollar started to require a
quarter to use a
shopping cart. When the quarter was inserted, the cart would be unlocked from the other carts. When the cart was returned, the customer was refunded their coin, effectively costing the customer only the time to return the cart. This was a practice also used by
Aldi. Though ubiquitous in
Europe, where both Aldi and Bottom Dollar's parent company
Delhaize Group are headquartered, it is rare in American stores which often have employees return carts left in parking areas. In August 2014, it was learned that Delhaize wanted to sell all 66 of its remaining Bottom Dollar stores Forty-six of the stores were located in the Delaware Valley and Lehigh Valley in southern New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and 20 in the Pittsburgh-Youngstown corridor of Pennsylvania and Northeast Ohio. Bottom Dollar stores were reported to range in size from 16,848 square feet (Ambler, PA) to 30,352 square feet (Catasaqua Road, Allentown, PA), an average store being about 20,000 square feet, with weekly sales volumes from $296,800 (North Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA) to $103,000 (East Windsor, NJ), the average sales being around $150,000 weekly. The stores were scheduled to close on January 15, 2015, but closed three days early on January 12 due to all the stores selling out their inventory quicker than expected. Delhaize finalized the sale of the shuttered locations to Aldi on March 27, 2015, with plans to reopen 30 of the locations purchased as Aldi, including a location in Pittsburgh's Garfield neighborhood. The remaining locations—all of which were near existing Aldi locations—were either
flipped or
sublet by Aldi. ==Store brands and competitors==