Guest 690- Registered: 10 Oct 2009
- Posts: 4,150
#1
The former Deal Woolworths is now a Poundshop, I found out this morning, and just coming up to it`s fourth week in business. A staff member tells me their doing very well, and there were a number of shopper`s in there this morning. Everything plain and simple, one pound each, or two for a pound etc, and they`re all branded goods. The sort of shop we could do with slap bang in the middle of town. Again, a very pleasant town Deal, and we could learn alot from looking at what they`ve done. Those hanging basket`s on the sea front should give lots of encouragement to David H and any other`s wishing to do the same here. Like my other visit`s, unable to spot one p***head, or anyone resembling one.
Tell them that I came, and no one answered.
Guest 651- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 5,673
#2
Thanks Colin, not spotted that it was open now
Been nice knowing you :)
Guest 675- Registered: 30 Jun 2008
- Posts: 1,610
#3
They have also taken over the former Woolworths shop in Canterbury. As Woolworths got started as a cheap 'one-price' shop it could be worth watching.
Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.
Richard Armour
#4
Hey, Scientific Calculator £1. Non Polish logic but so what. How come you can afford a mobile phone but not a calculator?? A teacher writes.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#5
poundland have an outlet in folkestone that does incredible business.
last time i was in there four tills were going full blast and still long queues.
Guest 690- Registered: 10 Oct 2009
- Posts: 4,150
#6
Would be interesting to know as to why they didn`t come here. If we did, it could answer a few question`s methinks, as to why store`s are reluctant to set up here.
Tell them that I came, and no one answered.
#7
Colin, we've been tiold countless times that Dover has no money and that is why only supermarkets want to come here.
Once the weekly wage has been spent up at Whitfield there is no money left for splashing out in a pound shop.
The good folks of Deal and elsewhere are more frugal in their taste and consequently have the odd pound coin rattling around in their shopping bag.
It's all scientifically worked out by mathematicians and the like. Bob can explain as he is part of the East Kent intelligencia.
Guest 695- Registered: 30 Mar 2010
- Posts: 426
#8
The reason for stores such as Poundland and 99p Stores not being in Dover could possibly be due to the high amount of rates charged. Both of these successful businesses operate in many towns proving there is room for both of them.
They stock a lot of the same product lines. Much of the stock is made up of production over-runs from the likes of Procter & Gamble. There buying power is strong enough to purchase massive amounts of stock which is delivered to one central hub then dispatched round the country by their own delivery fleet.
Some products may seem cheap enough for the pound/99p price charged some are over-priced compared to other stores. Customers buy into the mindset of thinking it is cheaper than available anywhere else.
I don't know what the average customer transaction value is but it's higher than a pound for sure.
Superdrug and Savers are another two stores which have very different price structuring in place yet are owned by the same company. You'll quite often find Savers offer much larger savings on products (excuse the pun).
We have both Superdrug and Savers in Dover so there would be room for both Poundland and 99p Stores here. With Deal and Folkestone in close proximity and both probably offering more realistic rates perhaps that's the reason Dover was overlooked.
Guest 684- Registered: 26 Feb 2009
- Posts: 635
#9
I personally think what puts businesses off setting up in Dover is a combination of the heavy - and deliberate - tilt towards that dreadful retail planet Whitfield, the prohibitive and regeneration-choking business rates in the town centre plus the appalling prevalence of p*ssheads, skagheads and general scrounging ne're-do-wells strutting, shuffling and lying around the town centre, making it a deeply unpleasant place to spend much time (the front of the Eight Bells, Pencester and the Market Square being three major cases in point).
Saying that, though, Deal has its own (un)fair share of precinct-dwelling Asbo-chavs, Toc H-dim teenage pondlife and p*ssheads too, although it's generally got a nicer feel to it than my poor old hometown.
Guest 695- Registered: 30 Mar 2010
- Posts: 426
#10
You should pay a visit to Basildon Andrew, it'll make you feel much better.
Basildon has both Poundland and 99p Stores. The former relocated to the vacant Woolworths and I imagine it is one of their bigger retailing units. Both of those shops do very well because they offer a range of products that people want.
I see no reason, therefore, apart from already having shops in Deal and Folkestone, why they wouldn't do well in Dover. I believe business rates in Dover do curtail stores from opening.
Guest 684- Registered: 26 Feb 2009
- Posts: 635
#11
Thanks Tony. I agree: Poundland (which is Europe's biggest discount retailer, by the way, with more than 250 stores) would do very well in Dover.
Speaking of Basildon and its ilk, I had the great misfortune last year to spend a bit of time in Harlow and also Walton in Liverpool. Harlow makes Dover town centre feel like St Tropez and Walton makes Dover look like Monte Carlo. Honest!
Things are never as bad as they seem. However, that's no excuse for institutionalised inertia and decade upon decade of vision-free planning.
Guest 666- Registered: 25 Mar 2008
- Posts: 323
#12
I've noticed x3 types of these stores in Ramsgate within a few yards of each other and all packed and bustling, no reason Dover could not do it maybe it is the rates for there was a Pound type shop near Savers if I recall correctly and it shut up real fast.
Oh Boy!, That'll be the day.........
Guest 651- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 5,673
#13
I thought Vic crystal ball said that some sort of cheap shop was appearing in the Charton Centre ??
Been nice knowing you :)
Guest 684- Registered: 26 Feb 2009
- Posts: 635
#14
Poundland in Deal is a pretty good store - not just a one-off cheapjack bargain shop, but a chain that's here to stay, I reckon.
In fact, the Deal branch has virtually the same look and feel as Woolies. Perfect for Dover and the new realities of our economy.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
#15
Colin, Woolworths went the way it did: each a glimpse and gone ...
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
#16
Guest 690- Registered: 10 Oct 2009
- Posts: 4,150
#17
I think Alexander, Woolworths were known as the 6d store? Maybe a pound store is good value now, relative to what the 6d store was many year`s ago? `Each a glimpse and gone forever` though refers to a brief sighting in Robert Louis Stevenson`s original piece of verse, from a railway carriage. Not sure that it would apply to Woolies though.
Tell them that I came, and no one answered.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#18
woolworths are still alive, there left over merchandise graces many a discount store up and down the country.
last time i was in the pound whatever next to farmfoods they were knocking out woolies kettles and irons.
#19
So that must have been in the winter then Howard if they were knocking out woolies?
Guest 641- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 2,335
#20
Whilst in Staines & Brentford two weeks back, I spied 99 pence, 98 pence and 97 pence shops and they were all doing well, I glanced in and quite a few of the products were good quality nowhere near their sell by dates. Obviously there was some tat mostly England football memorabilia.
