Wolverhampton Poundland makes £100,000 in one bumper Christmas week
Black Country-based discount retail giant Poundland has revealed its best-ever set of Christmas figures as millions of shoppers flooded through its tills.
Its flagship store in Wolverhampton was one of 121 nationwide that racked up sales of £100,000 in a single week.
Over the festive period bargain-hunting shoppers stripped Poundland's shelves of more than five million rolls of wrapping paper, a million units of tinsel; over 26 million Christmas Cards and 28 million Christmas tree baubles.
And the Willenhall-headquartered company hailed its controversial "Elf Behaving Badly" social media campaign, saying it had pulled in 'significant numbers of shoppers' during the final week, with more than 200,000 'bad' elves sold alongside a million elf accessories.
Other best-sellers included a range of light-up wine bottles, novelty £1 mugs and almost 250,000 items from Poundland's new Nooky range of sex toys.
Poundland sold out of its 500,000 own label chocolate bar Twin Peaks while sales of Toblerone's also rose to 3.3 million over the three months to Christmas Eve – enough to stretch up and down the M6 2.5 times. Total confectionery sales increased by nine per cent, or £3.5 million.
Barry Williams, Poundland’s UK & Ireland managing director thanked colleagues and suppliers for their efforts over the holiday: “This Christmas, sales have even exceeded our high expectations – which is why I want to thank the efforts of both colleagues and suppliers alike over the past few weeks.
“Poundland is buzzing, significantly outperforming the market, entering the new year with great confidence.”
It has been the strongest Christmas sales performance in Poundland's 27 year history, since it was founded by father and son Steve and Keith Smith. The duo later sold the business for £50 million.
Over Christmas sales this year grew by 5.6 per cent and hit a record £59 million in the last week, up 20 per cent on last year thanks to an extra day's trading.
The good news comes as Poundland and its parent company Pepkor Europe secured a £180 million finance deal to replace planned investment from Steinhoff, the South African retail giant that bought Poundland for £610m last year but is now caught up in an accounting scandal.
Meanwhile over Christmas 570 Poundland stores achieved record sales in the week before Christmas while the new Pep&Co budget fashion outlets within Poundland stores added 11 per cent to sales, shifting 3m pairs of socks, 1m hat and glove sets and 500,000 pairs of leggings and jeggings.
