In the face of rising commodities costs, 99 Cents Only Stores (NYSE: NDN) has been forced into raising prices -- a difficult proposition given that the company's founders didn't take into account inflation when giving the company the name that has stuck with it for the past 26 years.

In a rambling press release, CEO Eric Schiffer announced that "In response to dramatically rising costs and inflation, 99¢ Only Stores® is forced to raise its price by almost one full penny to 99.99¢, which is still just below a dollar."

Except that, no, it really isn't because U.S. currency does not come in denominations of less than 1/100th of a penny, and 99 Cents Only Stores will be rounding up. Depending on how it calculates the rounding, consumers will have to buy either 50 or 100 products to realize the savings from the 99.99 cent price point versus the $1 one.

I understand that 99 Cents wants to stay true to the name/motto, but this is pretty lame. Why not just raise the price to $1 and not insult people's intelligence by claiming that this is something other than that? It's intellectually dishonest to say that 99.99 cents is different from $1, because almost no one will spend enough in one visit to realize the savings.

With daily reports in the financial press about the collapse of subprime lending, and the precarious position that lower-income Americans are finding themselves in, there's one group of retailers that may be destined to profit: Dollar stores. As people have to scrimp and save more to cover their ballooning mortgage payments, they may look to these discounters for household staples.

In addition, these companies are messing with big box retailers like Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) with competitive pricing and a smaller, more user friendly store-format.

Demographic trends are also helpful. Incomes at the lower-end are growing slowly and, as the baby boomer population ages, budget constraints may make these discounters more attractive.

These companies also tend to have simple business models, high turnover, and fairly predictable cash flows. While the private equity bull market appears to have waned, attractively valued dollar stores may still be attractive to some firms. KKR recently acquired Dollar General for $7.3 billion.

If you think dollar-stores have a bright future, you have a few investment options.