NEW YORK – Dollar stores, drug stores and club stores are on track to outperform other retail formats within five years, Supermarket News reports. According to research by Kantar Retail, those three channels will grow at a faster pace than the estimated 4.5% rate of overall sales growth by 2018. Grocery stores will increase sales around 4.4% during the next half decade.

“One reason club stores and dollar stores will be successful is that they both do a good job curating product,” said Bryan Gildenberg, chief knowledge officer at Kantar Retail. 

With a $15 billion predicted bump in prescription drug spending next year because of the Affordable Care Act, drug stores find themselves in a “sweet spot.” That format is predicted to increase sales around 4.8% between now and 2018.

The health-care reform will also bring in more business to in-store clinics, most of which are housed within drug stores. Gildenberg noted that 30 million additional Americans will have health insurance starting Jan. 1 — with no bump in the number of physicians available. “In-store clinics will become a much bigger deal,” he said.

Overall, brick-and-mortar retail sales will increase at a 3.5% clip, he said. Those numbers exclude online sales. Kantar also estimated that retail square footage will increase around 1.5% over the next five years, with 60% of that jump for small-footprint stores such as convenience stores, drug stores and dollar stores.