MIAMI TWP., Montgomery County — Ollie’s Bargain Outlet, a discount store from Pennsylvania, will open a new store here today, its first in the Dayton area.

Located at 221 Springboro Pike near the Dayton Mall, the store opens at 10 a.m.

The Harrisburg, Pa.-based company’s sells surplus, closeout and salvage merchandise.

“It changes all the time,” said Dan Haines, vice president of marketing and advertising. “You never know what you’re going to find.”

Haines said the Dayton-area store employs more than 50 people and will operate seven days a week.

Established in 1982, the Harrisburg, Pa.-based company has 16 other locations in Ohio, including Cincinnati, Columbus and Springfield. It operates nearly 100 stores in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, New York, North Carolina and New Jersey.

Haines said the company plans to have 200 stores by 2015. The company recently opened a warehouse in York, Pa., equipping it to serve a bigger roster of stores, Haines said.

He attributes some of the company’s growth to the difficult economy.

“Everyone has always loved a bargain,” he said. “But in today’s economy, they need a bargain.”

Frank Badillo, senior retail economist with Kantar Retail, said dollar and closeout stores as a category have done well during the last couple of years as recession-battered consumers sought bargains.

While the outlook for that segment remains good, the question long term is how well these retailers will fare as the economy continues to improve, he said.

They will find themselves faced with two issues: consumers returning to the stores they shopped pre-recession and greater competition from discount stores such as Walmart who are wooing customers from this segment, Badillo said.