Poundland Unveils Major Transformation Programme

Poundland today announced the biggest transformation programme in its history as it helps lead the recovery of Britain’s town centres. 

At a time when many high street names are battening down the hatches, the country’s most popular discount retailer has unveiled a package of measures that will bring customers even more choice and outstanding value for money.  

The transformation plans, internally dubbed Project Diamond, include changes to stores, pricing, and the overall breadth of the offer:  

Investing in stores & systems  

• Refreshing and refurbishing stores, from the smallest convenience stores to larger destination stores.
• Pressing ahead with new stores and re-sites to bring Poundland to new towns such as Ingoldmells in Lincolnshire and expand in existing towns such as Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham. Three Dealz stores open today in the Republic of Ireland in Rathfarnham, Buncrana and Clonakilty.
• Investing in new back office technology, through its Oracle/ERP programme and making wi-fi available in every store.  

Completing move from single to simple price retailer  

• Completing the simple pricing roll-out across the whole store by the autumn, meaning every category will have extended ranges at prices above and below £1. 

Broadening the Offer  

• Accelerating the rollout of chilled and frozen food to 60 stores and extending it to more later in the year.
• Building on the success of Poundland’s PEP&CO fashion brand by opening six additional compact ‘shop-in-shops’ bringing a confident clothing offer to more than 310 locations.
• Launching a brand new ‘shop-in-shop’ concept later in the summer that will step-change its general merchandise offer.
• Piloting a poundland.co.uk home delivery service early next year from a new online fulfilment centre in Cannock. 

Project Diamond is set to bring the widest offer to Poundland and Dealz stores in the UK & Ireland through a revamp of stores and the tailoring of the offer for three types of store: 

1. Destination stores offering the fullest range of products including food, homeware, health and beauty and clothing.
2. Core stores offering a wide range of products on high streets customers love.
3. Convenience stores offering “grab and go” easy shopping. 

The latest Diamond stores to go live this month stretch from Consett, Newcastle and Cleveland in the North East to Slough, Thurrock, Pitsea and Borehamwood in the South East, all offering the new chilled and frozen ranges. By the end of July more than half of the planned 60 stores will have the new offer, with the remainder completed by early September.  

PEP&CO celebrated its fifth birthday this month and its full range of family fashion is now on offer in over 300 Poundland stores. To bring its amazing value to even more customers, a new compact shop-in-shop format has been developed for smaller stores, taking up a third of the space and still offering a comprehensive range. Trialled in five stores last year, the new format has already been extended to another three this year, with six more to be converted in July and August alone.  

The shift from a single price to a simple price retailer is also picking up. Three quarters of products are still sold at the core £1 price point, but prices from 50p to £5 have allowed Poundland to widen the range of products in health and beauty, household and grocery. The simple price rollout will be completed by October – one year after it was launched.  

As well as investing in stores, Poundland’s transformation plan also includes the launch of a pilot online service using one of its three stores in Cannock which will close this Saturday and begin its conversion into an online fulfilment centre.  

Barry Williams, Poundland managing director, said: “We’re stepping up to support high streets after the impact of the coronavirus by being customer-focused, people-led and tech-enabled.  

“This is the biggest transformation in our history as we look to secure our future for another thirty years.”

Source : Poundland

Image : nrqemi / Shutterstock.com 1223281819 

For all the very latest news and intelligence on the UK's largest home improvement and garden retailers, sign up for the Insight DIY weekly newsletter.