Poundland buys Poundshop to drive e-commerce rollout

By

Nigel TAYLOR

Published
Mar 1, 2022

Pepco’s British budget retailer Poundland has acquired online peer Poundshop.com and said the purchase would “power a national rollout of its own pilot e-commerce operation”.

It paid an undisclosed sum for the business and said it’s another step in its transformation. That transformation is also including the rollout of megastores at present with more space given over to the Pep&Co fashion line.

The deal includes Poundshop.com’s intellectual property, “its tried and tested online platform, the picking and fulfilment operations in Wednesbury and its customer database”.

All of the current Poundshop.com staff will be retained.

Poundshop.com chairman Steve Smith, and CEO Chris Maddox will act as advisers “to help smooth the integration, which will be led by Poundland retail and transformation director Austin Cooke who in turn will lead the day-to-day operation of Poundland’s online business”.

The company has expanded rapidly of late and last year alone saw sales more than double. It will continue trading under its own brand for now “and will benefit from Poundland’s extended range and purchasing power”.

Meanwhile Poundland has launched its own pilot online operation in selected postcodes in Birmingham and Walsall and this has now been extended across the Midlands and into South Yorkshire. The company said it “plans to build on the experience of Poundshop.com to develop further and scale up
its own online operation”.

It will widen its online offer, adding Pep&Co clothing and homewares, and extending beyond the UK as it will offer a Dealz online service for The Republic of Ireland.

Founded in 2014, Poundshop.com has grown to be the UK’s largest online-only value e-tailer. It has almost 400,000 customers across the UK and 65 staff at its distribution centre and head office in Wednesbury, West Midlands, not far from Poundland’s own customer support centre in Walsall.