99p shops - where is stock coming from?

[yemmie]

Do anyone have an idea where 99p shops get their stocks cos am planning on taking the ideal abroad..

any advice and input will be greatly appreciated...

cheers.

 

[faradaykeynes]

china i guess

 

[yemmie]

Thanks for your interest in my question...I mean are there any links or infos about those selling the products in china anyone could give me on this forum.I would like a link this is been tried and tested that have ideal of what the products are..

Cheers onces again.

 

[Talay]

There was / is an interview with the founder / someone in the founding family of these stores from a couple of years ago. Perhaps on a torrent / newsgroup / youtube site ?

A couple of key points I seem to remember were the fact that they didn't look at anything where there wasn't at least a 20% margin. They also discussed Toblerone, where the volumes they sold allowed them (perhaps in conjunction with Poundland) to dictate product size changes to retain the 99p price point. I believe the topic rounded on the removal of one piece of chocolate from the bar.

I used to have one near me. I used it for Red Mountain coffee which I like as an instant and for Mcleans toothpaste in a pump which I was also using at he time. Asda was charging over £2 for each and the door of Asda faced the door of the 99p shop.

I think a lot of their stuff is crap, aimed at the unemployed / low income customers. They also must market to the stupid as quite a few of their items are actually more expensive than the equivalent in mainstream supermarkets. I think they thrive on that customer inertia.

Japan already had JPY 100 shops decades ago. Also JPY 200 as well I seem to remember.

 

[Banned]

Do anyone have an idea where 99p shops get their stocks

50p shops.

 

[Jayser100]

Since 99p shops are franchises, the parent company might be buying bulk goods from Chinese factories for next to nothing and then offering them at almost next to nothing prices to their franchisees. Only guessing, but that would be the obvious way. With regard to the branded goods (food etc.) sometimes their prices don't actually work out cheaper than the supermarkets - people just presume they do because of the shop's concept.

 

[Fred_the_frog]

I thought they got them from big superstores like ASDA and Tesco.

For example, its almost Christmas and ASDA order thousands/millions of Toblerones that have' Happy Christmas' on. After Christmas, any stock that hasn't sold they will sell to the 99p stores just to get rid of it as they need the space for other products. That's why you some times see products with Christmas messages on in those kind of shops.

Or Tesco orders millions of tubes of travel toothpaste in summer, people buy them for their holidays, then the ones that haven't sold are sold very cheaply to 99p stores.

Also you get those products that are branded very closely to the majors brands but are much cheaper.

 

[businessfunding]

I agree with Talay (that's a first)

The 'big boys' primary sources are:

- Use their buying power to dictate changes in sizing, spec or packaging to meet their margins.

- Discontinued lines.

- Cheap crap (I bought some screwdrivers once!)

- Stuff that is actually more expensive than elsewhere.

 

[The Panda]

As far as I know a good bulk of their products come from liquidated stock and end of line stuff. They pick it up cheap. They also have their normal mainstay stuff that is worked to give them a profit margin as has already been suggested.
They have massive spending power and to compete with their model would be very difficult unless you too have pots of cash to buy in cheap.

 

[Jayser100]

Fred the Frog, that is the supply chain which feeds cheap market stalls that sell produce close to its sell-by date, but the 99p store is mainly full of hardware and that must be coming from elsewhere. The 'cheap screwdrivers' mentioned above will be coming from a Chinese factory and costing about 10p to make.

The food produce they sell is often more expensive, or at the same price, as the supermarkets and shoppers need to work out whether they really are getting a bargain or not.

 

[dedwardp]

They also must market to the stupid as quite a few of their items are actually more expensive than the equivalent in mainstream supermarkets. I think they thrive on that customer inertia.

Indeed, saw a woman chuck in a packet of polos to her basket once in Poundland for an additional £1, must be twice as much as most places.

 

[Talay]

I thought they got them from big superstores like ASDA and Tesco.

For example, its almost Christmas and ASDA order thousands/millions of Toblerones that have' Happy Christmas' on. After Christmas, any stock that hasn't sold they will sell to the 99p stores just to get rid of it as they need the space for other products. That's why you some times see products with Christmas messages on in those kind of shops.

Or Tesco orders millions of tubes of travel toothpaste in summer, people buy them for their holidays, then the ones that haven't sold are sold very cheaply to 99p stores.

Also you get those products that are branded very closely to the majors brands but are much cheaper.

I think that was perhaps the case when Poundland and those following started out but just look at the size of the boxes of After Eight Mints in these shops. Much smaller than a regular one and again aimed at the 99p / £1 price point. Yet 10/20 years ago After Eight Mints were far more upmarket and perhaps even aspirational.

I don't think any manufacturer can afford to hold out against them and deny themselves that marketplace. However, when you look at toothpaste, the versions available in these shops are the ones in the cash cows in marketing speak, the ones where the R&D was repaid long ago and where the cost of production is very low and there is no or very little marketing spend. Examples would be Macleans and on razor blades, the Sensor Excel, long since surpassed as the latest invention but now a huge profit centre for the manufacturers.

 

[kulture]

The 99p stores, like poundland, will have buyers looking for stock which they can sell. The buyers will have contacts with supermarkets, manufacturers, distributors, bankrupcy administrators etc etc. They will take almost anything on price. I would not mind betting that they buy pallets of stock with no idea what is in it, just so long as the price is right.

 

[businessfunding]

As an aside it is worth noting that both Woolworths an M & S started out with effecively this model

 

[Talay]

The 99p stores, like poundland, will have buyers looking for stock which they can sell. The buyers will have contacts with supermarkets, manufacturers, distributors, bankrupcy administrators etc etc. They will take almost anything on price. I would not mind betting that they buy pallets of stock with no idea what is in it, just so long as the price is right.

I agree for some items but these shops now have high percentages of permanent lines which could not be represented by random availability through the misfortune of other companies. Though these failures will always present additional purchase opportunities, the sheer volumes of permanent lines must be indicative of a direct supply chain from the manufacturer or at least regular wholesaler. Given the sometimes European labelling with multiple languages, which sets some products aside from their traditionally labelled UK variants, it would also be reasonable to assume that some supply chains come from stock originally destined for mainland Europe or more perversely, exported from the UK and then reimported !

 

[TheJacko]

Well, they get there household products from china.

 

[Chunkford]

Don't ask why but this thread popped into my head when I saw an advert for Dispatches on Channel4 about the secrets of poundland.... thought others might be interested

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/articles/home