Poundland has outlined more details of its plan to double the number of stores in the UK in which its Pep&Co fashion brand will be available this year.
Pep&Co is currently sold in 175 UK locations, including more than 135 Poundlands, selling 95% of its clothes for less than £10 and some items for as low as £1.
Another 30 of the ‘shop-in-shop’ fashion stores will open in England before Easter: five in Scotland, one in Wales, one in Northern Ireland and 10 in the Irish Republic.
The openings will begin rollout in February to take the brand to more than 300 locations by the end of 2018.
The Irish concessions will open in Poundland’s Dealz stores - the first in Blanchardstown, Dublin, on 23 February.
They will also be introduced to five Dealz stores in France.
“This Christmas we sold over a million more items than we did in our whole first year of trading from standalone stores,” said Pep&Co managing director Adrian Mountford.
“Thanks to our partnership with Poundland - and now Dealz in the Republic of Ireland - we’re set to double in size over the coming year, helping us to drive economies of scale to keep prices low.”
A Poundland spokeswoman added that the five-year plan was to continue to grow the shop-in-shop offer.
“We believe the opportunity to bring the combination of grocery, general merchandise, and clothing offers us an opportunity to differentiate us on the high street.”
Poundland staff will operate the concessions, supported by the Pep&Co team.
The average shop-in-shop ranges from 50 to 90 bays of 1.2 metres each - about 25% of the Poundland square footage.
News of the openings comes hard on the heels of Poundland’s announcement last week that it had struck deals with big-name fmcg suppliers, including Mondelez, Haribo, Reckitt Benckiser, Britvic, GSK, P&G and Mars.
Poundland owner Pepkor Europe secured a new two-year loan facility of £180m from UK investment firm Davidson Kempner independent of troubled parent company Steinhoff International earlier this month.
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