Bargain retailer Poundland has announced that it will be shutting down its online store to focus more fully on its bricks and mortar outlets in the coming months.
Poundland’s Barry Williams said the closure was part of a “tidying up” programme that will focus on their High Street operations. He said: “The amount of customers wasn’t that great that were using it as a proposition and the amount of returning customers wasn’t as high as we would have liked to have seen. We will keep the poundland.co.uk site to act as a window into the stores.”
It’s perhaps not surprising that this enterprise hasn’t been a huge success. The pound shop model is aimed at the lower end of the market and the average basket size is doubtless much smaller than a supermarket, say. Additionally, postage costs coming on top of the purchase price will have made many shops rather unattractive price wise, especially to price sensitive buyers.
And there is something about the shopping experience at a pound shop that is hard to replicate online. It’s often a case that you’ll pop in there to grab a specific item (shampoo say) and then something else will catch your eye as you peruse the aisles. And, often, you have to be flexible on brands because they seldom stock the whole range.
One Response
I thought Poundland online was a brilliant idea as my nearest Poundland is about 15 miles away.
I placed an order for £50 but was extremely disappointed with all aspects of the service. Firstly only one box arrived, so I called CS who couldn’t seem to grasp that the order had been sent in multiple boxes and was quite unhelpful.
Once all boxes had arrived there were two broken items and some missing items and also items I hadn’t ordered. The packaging was non-existent except for the flimsy oversized boxes they arrived in, literally all items had just been chucked in.
I gave up trying to resolve the problems as the best advice I received was ‘Take the items to your nearest Poundland and the store will sort it out for you.’, which was so very unhelpful.