To not be surprised that Poundland is failing. (Another 14 stores to close.)

Our poundland closed today :( It's by far the most local and convenient place to pick up short supply items, things we run out of like crisps, kid toothbrushses or mini white chocolate bars. They also had a lot of fluffy clothes for dd. I will miss it! We'll have to go the extra distance to b&m (a newcomer last year) instead for these bits, but of course they dont have clothes.

I hate the snobbery around shops like this. There was a lovely lady who has watched my youngest grow from bump until almost 4 there! I feel bad for the job losses :(

I found that over timd they shifted from "cheap & good value" to simply "cheap & crap".

There becomes a point where things being cheaper and cheaper makes them go from being good value to poor value.

These shops often sell a lot of absolute rubbish

Bucket shop selling tat. No great loss. 👍

It it does keep the riff-raff out of Waitrose though, so it does serve a purpose.

😂

The Poundland in my town is good, staff are always lovely. I go in there for bits and bobs. It’s a rarity because they actually have checkouts with checkout operators instead of the annoying self-service tills that Poundland elsewhere have adopted.

I think they could probably save themselves if they rebranded to threepoundland or fourpoundland and sold everything for that price or under. Even toothpaste can be £5+ these days. As PPs say, the whole point was that you knew the price and would often pick up extra bits you didn’t need as it was “only” a pound. If everything is different prices then why would someone go to Poundland versus buying things in the shop they’re already in (like a supermarket) or shopping online where they can compare prices. I’m not really surprised they’re not doing well

They dropped the "everything's a pound" ages ago though.
The name "Poundland" can be interpreted as "a place where you go and spend your £s" - it hasn't advertised itself as "everything's a pound" for a long time.
People have managed to understand that "Poundstretcher" has different prices for the 40 odd years they've been around.

Yeah, I don't find them much cheaper than other discount stores, and as our local one is small, not much choice. What really annoys me is that they bought up a local chain of discount food shops called Jack Fultons, which was BRILLIANT and I used a lot, they often had really good stuff on short dates which was super value. They then closed all the JF shops. Poundland said they would be incorporating the same type of stuff into their shops, but zilch. They were different types of shops and not competitors, why buy them just to close them?

I love the place. There’s one in the deprived area where I work. I reckon there’d be rioting if it closed down!

😆

Living in a small town with very few and ever declining retail options available without getting into a car, my visits to my local Poundland have become more frequent. Specifically because now I've identified some essentials sold there.

I think I got to the doorway once. Chance of a kicking 8/10

As any John finnemore fan will know, you should expect everything to be sold BY the pound not FOR a pound in such shops.

In our local one they kept turning the self serve machines off then would wait till a massive queue at the one person till before putting them back on then as soon as the queue was gone they would run to shut the self serve tills again .
That one has now shut and a massive savers has had it .

In the town they have a huge one that has no self serve at all and one day there was nearly 20 people in the queue with one on the till . It makes no sense . If you’re not gonna have self serve tills then you need to employ the staff to run the tills . I walked out and so did a few of other people . They are losing so much trade. You can get what they sell anywhere else now and sometimes cheaper so they don’t own the market like they used to .

I won’t miss it when it’s gone .

Pound shops were big in the 90s and early 2000s. Do people have such little understanding of inflation that they still expect shops to be able to stock a wide range of quality products and sell them for £1 whilst making profit in 2025?!

I go in all the time, pretty much every time I go shopping as it’s one of the only useful shops on our high street, most are just vape shops, fish markets, butchers, bubble tea, phone shops, so it’s pretty much one of the only shops I go in when I go to my town centre, the likes of B&M and home bargains are quite some distance away from me and usually only in retail parks where I am anyway so I rarely go to them so it’s a shame as I use Poundland a lot.

😂😂😂

My nearest one wasn't on the closure list..... and then it bloody burned down 😭😭😭😭

...

I often go in there for bits and bobs.

Doesn't look like ours is in the list of ones closing down though