Two-poundland

[groovyjon]

We all know the pound shops and 99p stores. But does anyone know of a fixed price shop selling everything at £2 or even £3?

 

[Jet Virtual]

not that I know of but why? 99p is more enticing

 

[David A]

99p is more enticing

Not to me.

Whenever I see a shop with a plethora of x.99p prices, I immediately think 'cheap and shoddy'

If you have a Hungry Horse nearby, look at their menu. EVERY SINGLE ITEM now ends in something and 9p. Even their Smallest Desert has gone from 60p to 79p

 

[groovyjon]

It's not so much the way of presenting the prices I'm concerned about, it's the higher price points - 2 or 3 times higher. Anyone seen that?

 

[Doodle-Noodle]

There's been a couple of (ladies/teen-girls) clothes shops in Basingstoke where "everything's a fiver!" is splattered all over the front windows. One of them disappeared fairly shortly after it opened, the other has been there for about 8 months - some of the stuff is quite nice and definitely a bargain, an awful lot of it is absolute cack though, you can get better in Primark for less.

 

[groovyjon]

Thanks Doodle that's interesting. Anyone seen an example selling anything and everything?

 

[Dave.F]

How about 'Two4Pound'

Then you could sell items for £1 or £2 or £4

 

[DannyLewis]

This isn't going to help at all but not far from where I used to live in the midlands there was a shop in Brierley Hill (close to merry hill shopping centre) that sold items for £2. I can't remember the name and I never went in there in my life (only use poundland for AA + AAA batteries, nothing else!). I think it has since closed down.

 

[easiprint]

It will come I'm sure, but not yet. Back when I was at school, I used to work in a local shop on Saturdays called 'The 50p Shop'. Yes, everything was 50p, and it sold all the same stuff the pound shops now sell. That was about 20 years ago now, so with inflation as it is, maybe 20 years from now it will be TwoPoundLand? Aside from the mickey taking at school, it really was the best job I've ever had... happy days!

 

[Doodle-Noodle]

It's an interesting idea - you could probably quite rightly advertise yourself as "twice as posh as poundland" with a £2 shop! I love a bargain and am always rooting around places like that - amazing what you can find! There was a documentary on telly last week about the battle of the pound stores, made very interesting viewing.

 

[TotallySport]

there are a few for £5 and £10

 

Thanks OP this thread has given me an idea!

 

[Fred_the_frog]

If I was shopping for clothes I wouldn't go into a shop that was "All garments under £5" or "Everything £10 or less" cause it sounds like cheap bad quality stuff.

Think about it- if there was a top priced at £8.99 in 'Primark' and '£10 Or Under!' then you're going to get it from Primark.

 

[Talay]

£1 shops use an awful lot of impulse buys to shift stock, with the punter knowing their taking a chance on that piece of crap is only going to cost them £1. The same wouldn't work for £5 or £10 because that sum is meaningful and translates directly something tangible.

 

[10032012]

£2 shop wont work. Poundland works as a single price point retailer because its bang on the lowest whole unit of currency... you think its cheap... but majority of the items in there you can get cheaper elsewhere... you used to get some "bargains" amongst the usual cheap stuff but these days its full of 40-85p retail items at £1...

next door to my local poundland you have a 99p store... forget the 1p "saving" per item... amongst the like-for-like concept being the same as poundland (single price point) as an (large) independent store it goes through stages where it acquires liquidation stock etc. which results in very affordable items. Something a chain of stores like poundland cannot offer and compete with.

A £5 or £10 "gadget" shop could work but its likely if you aren't overpricing things, you are selling most £5 items at cost (or loss) hoping to make back on some big mark up £10 items. A very dangerous test trading experience...

 

[TOKN]

Best thing I ever saw in the pound land were HDMI leads. For a pound, which is mad. Then comet were trying to push for twenty smackeroos for the same lead.

Which retailer just appointed the administrators?

 

[Talay]

At £5 and £10 you enter into the world of Amazon with guarantees and safe returns and no-one beats Amazon, not even John Lewis.

 

[DateinaDash]

It already exists http://www.poundor2plus.com/ this is near where I live and it's massive.

 

[groovyjon]

It already exists http://www.poundor2plus.com/ this is near where I live and it's massive.

I had seen that one, but I still don't think that's quite what I'm after - I just saw a photo of their shop on their homepage that showed a sign for £5.99!

So is there no shop in the land offering a fixed price point of £2?

 

[PrestonLad]

I had seen that one, but I still don't think that's quite what I'm after - I just saw a photo of their shop on their homepage that showed a sign for £5.99!

So is there no shop in the land offering a fixed price point of £2?

I guess you saw the TV programme that doodles mentioned. It was shown on 7th November, so you've a couple of days to catch it on iPlayer http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01nts9x/Pound_Shop_Wars/

It's terribly melodramatic in places, but you'd find it really interesting if you didn't see it. Talks about tactics, appears to disclose margins (but always wonder how much stage-management there is there), but shows how the big players have the edge, with offices in China, buying direct, in huge quantities etc.

Also explains why you see HDMI leads for a quid... they just occasionally hoover up bankrupt stock, and sell it for little profit.... not much profit but then you get people coming on forums, or talking in the pubs about the fantastic bargains available in their shops. It creates a buzz. But you won't find the HDMI leads there the next week, because there's no ongoing supply. But it's a win-win for shop and customer.

TwoPoundLand - would it work? It might. If you are looking to break into the market big time, the pound price point is pretty much saturated, so at least you'd have more of a niche at two quid.

The biggest trouble I forsee is that when you go in such shops, there are some items you'd like to see (let's say Washing Up Liquid) - but don't want to spend 2 quid on it. So what are you going to do? Selotape two bottles together? But if you do this with 10 items, your shopping bags will be too heavy to carry.

Can you find a way to do the branding about the 2 pound price point, but make it clear that many items are a pound (e.g. allowing the customer to buy that washing bottles individucally could be marketed as super customer service!). That 1 pound or 2 pound pricing would give you so much more flexibility - and could make or break the business.

 

[groovyjon]

Thanks PrestonLad, you've echoed many of my thoughts. We already buy from China regularly for an existing business we have so that would be an avenue for us.

In the first instance, I'd just like to visit another store selling at £2 and see what they're stocking and how busy they are, hence my question on here. But maybe such a thing doesn't exist.