Poundland promises third-party deals in new general merchandise ranges

The discount retailer announced this week that it is undergoing its “biggest makeover in general merchandise”, which will see an elevated offering.

A Poundland spokesperson told Retail Week that replacing its current general merchandise stock with parent company Pepco’s will offer something “fresh and brand new” to Poundland customers.

They said: “The way Pepco operates is that they change their product a lot more often than Poundland used to do.

“One of the big changes is that Poundland customers will see new ranges much more regularly than they did before in general merchandise.”

Poundland has been adding and expanding Pepco products to its stores and website over the past 18 months, most notably in clothing.

The group has been expanding its fashion options to over 560 stores in the UK, with double the amount of space for clothing available to babywear and kidswear, as well as third-party brands.

“Pepco is very good at licence deals and we can see that already in clothing,” the spokesperson said.

“We’ll be able to bring some of the licence deals with Disney and Warner to general merchandise over time as the ranges build up.”

The plans to expand and elevate the group’s general merchandise offering have been in the works for the last eight months but there are no plans to add any new product categories to Poundland.

Some of its larger stores now sell fresh fruit and veg along with meal deals but the variety of ranges on offer depends on certain factors.

“One of the interesting things about Poundland is that it has quite a mix of store sizes, depending on location,” the spokesperson said.

“It operates on high streets, shopping centres and retail parks so it’s getting much more flexible about what it is offering in different stores.”