Jun 11, 2018
Discount crisis?
Pound shops have been on the UK's high streets since 1990, when father and son entrepreneurs Keith and Steve Smith opened their first store in Burton on Trent. Many pound shop groups are so large that they can deal directly with the manufacturers, plenty of which are perfectly willing to make smaller versions of their normal products to keep the price under a pound. Any shop owner can visit the city, order a dozen different kinds of vases, teddy bears or fishing nets, anything they want and which can be made for under a pound, fill a container and have it shipped back to the UK. But the sharp fall in the pound has pushed up the cost of these imports, and, with margins already very thin indeed, pound shops have almost no room to maintain profit levels. Pound shops are no longer just competing with each other. Retail research firm The Local Data Company has provided figures showing the number of pound shops has almost doubled since 2010.
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