Dollarama

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Dollarama is a franchise retail chain of over 300 dollar stores across Canada. The company is headquartered in Montreal and is one of Canada's largest operators of dollar stores. Most of its stores are located in the province of Quebec where the chain has expanded from scratch.

In the English provinces, virtually all the Dollarama stores are located where there once were Bi-Way stores, a now defunct chain of Canadian discount retail operations intended to compete with retailers such as Zellers, Kmart, and Wal-Mart. The Bi-Way chain closed after a series of dubious financial transactions involving a new owner of the parent operation. The Dollarama stores are located in Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, Maritimes and Newfoundland.

To help keep costs low, Dollarama stores do not accept automated or credit card payments, and nearly all items are priced at $1 to eliminate the need for the cost and time associated with price-tagging. Notable exceptions to this policy include chocolate bars, which are currently sold for $0.65 per unit.

Lawrence Rossy was the head of the parent company of Dollarama, S. Rossy Group. He founded the privately held chain in 1992 and created a profitable business that became successful due to the increase in the popularity of extreme value stores.

In November 2004 the chain was sold for $850 million USD, to a private equity fund, Bain Capital, of Boston, Massachusetts.