There must come a point in time where inflation dictates that pound shops will cease to exist, because they can't buy enough stuff at a stock price of less than a pound to make it a viable concern.
It will take a while yet I guess.A long while now I think of it. The first Poundland opened in 1990 (according to wikipedia - I don't store that as my dinner party ice breaker or anything) when a pound, in today's money, was worth £1.70.
Advances in manufacturing technology, market forces and all that jazz will have enabled them to, say, sell four rolls of sticky tape for £1 just as they did in 1990, but we will surely reach a point in the future where it becomes impossible to sell at that price, and still make a profit. Of course you'd start by taking rolls of tape out of the packet, so that you end up selling just one roll for £1. Your manufacturer is also cutting costs in order to meet your pricing demands, so the product also becomes less
Now this is nothing new of course, it's happening now and has always happened - random example being the shrinking Mars Bar.
But, while it's not going to matter to us in 25 years time if we're paying double for a Mars Bar so long as we're getting paid double, when every single conceivable product costs more than £1 wholesale, Poundland is going to have to change its name.
But to what? Twopoundland? Onepoundfiftyland? They can just adopt a generic bargain shoppish type name of course, but that's exactly my point. They will be forced to lose the power of the pound slogan, like Dime Stores died the death for the same reason. But Amercians still have the Dollar to fall back on as a well known monetary term. But after the pound goes, what are we left with?
*two months later...why didn't I post this? It's got everything - sex, violence, murder, a link to the Daily Mail. Let's do it...*
