High Street stores

[TheOstrich]

Poundworld seem to be the latest discount store to be in financial trouble, with store closures in the offing. I think they are mainly based in the north?

Surely, though, they could survive by the simple expedient of raising the base selling price from £1 to say £1.20. I'm quite sure they wouldn't lose a lot of custom if they did, they'd still be undercutting most food retailers …...

[AliasAggers]

Poundland seem to be doing well.

They've just opened a large new store in our home town.

[Workingman]

I think the business model has been stretched too far.

It was fine when there was a Poundland here and a Poundstretcher over there, but now they are all on top of one another. Another thing is the build up of B&M and Home Bargains that are somewhere in the middle, but with many branded goods.

[JoM]

There's a Poundworld Plus in Hednesford, not everything in there is a pound. It's more like Home Bargains and B&M.

We've got three Poundlands, two in the town centre and one a mile out on a retail park. The first one to open was in the old Woolies and they initially used just a quarter of the shopfloor space which Woolies used, I assume the rest is just storage. They also took over what used to be Bewise, another big store but this time they utilised all of the shop floor. In the last year the smaller Poundland has been extended into the storage area so that they can stock clothes whilst the larger one, which always seems devoid of customers, has been more than halved in size. They've knocked down a wall in one and comstructed one in the other.
Surely someone with a business brain would've closed the smaller one and used some of the space in the larger one for clothing. It's no wonder that businesses hit financial problems; there're probably not much more than 200 yards between the two stores.

[manxie]

Our "poundland"shop on the island is part of their Eire chain and called "Dealz" nothing is a £1.........their basic £1 items cost us £1.20 I imagine it is to cover the freight charges to ship the goods out of the UK mainland.

It is however very popular they also took over the old woolworths store and only used the ground floor but now have expanded into the basement as well.
They also sell items dearer than the base £1.20 but the shelves are clearly marked £2 /£4/£5 etc.

Also now on the basement floor they are selling Pep and co clothing as well as hardware petfoods etc

Too many jumped on the bandwagon when they saw the success of "poundland" but slowly we will see the others demise to leave just Poundland left.

Manxie xx

[Suff]

Not everyone has a valid business model and the "me too" copycats are often the first to fall.

This kind of Darwinian evolution is common in the high street.

I shall continue to shop online and go to physical stores when the need arises. We are in a period of change where a goodly portion of our shopping has moved online yet the bricks and mortar are, in general, still in the same configuration.

Eventually we will have less physical stores and less choice in them. For choice we will have to make the bargain of cost and availability against time to deliver and the hassle of having to be there when they do deliver. If you need something right NOW, then the physical stores will be the only choice. Although Amazon is trialling 2 hour delivery by Drone in larger cities.

[JoM]

I had an Amazon 2 hour delivery last week, delivered by courier and all very efficient. As soon as I placed the order I was directed to a map on which I could track my item from the depot near Gravelly Hill to here.

[miasmum]

Our Amazon deliveries just get left in the porch. We have deliveries most days so if I had to wait in, Id never go anywhere.

[Suff]

I'm currently staying in an apartment which is in a small set of flats. No porch...

I either have it sent to work or use the Amazon lockers at the Morrisons across the road. However that is limited to size and free space at the time.

There will always be a place for physical shops. Their role will just change. For instance I was buying £1 reading glasses in poundland. Great and they lasted about 2-3 months until they started to fall apart. Then they changed the wire frames to plastic legs. Which can break in a day and usually within 2 weeks. After several months of this, I finally bought a set of 10 reading glasses from eBay, sent to work. £16 the lot. Significantly better than even the wire framed one's from Poundland. Strike one more reason for going to Poundland.

[JoM]

I can now get things delivered to the post office in the village, it's only a 5 minute walk away and is open from 6.30am-10.30pm but not all items can be delivered there. There's only Morrison's with lockers in the town centre and whenever I've tried to use that in the past they've been unavailable due to being full.

I very rarely buy clothes online so will always go to the high street for those. I like to look at things properly and try them on; I can't be doing with the faff of returning things.