Bargain Buys opened their first store in November 2013, in Walsall, in the West Midlands. The brainchild of the father/son partnership that created the Poundworld chain, its purpose was to enhance their already established single-price stores (Poundworld), with stores offering a large range of goods at heavily discounted prices. Designed to compete with the big players such as Poundstretcher, Home Bargains and B&M Bargains, by 2015 the budget chain boasted 41 outlets across the UK.
High growth was forecast, with talk of doubling the Bargain Buys outlets by 2016, and adding an additional 100 stores by 2018. Nonetheless, in the same year (2015), a majority shareholding in both the Poundworld and Bargain Buys brands were sold to an American private equity company for £150-million. In 2018, after failed talks with Poundstretcher, both brands went into liquidation, before being sold-on to a UK property company by the name of New Money.
Although having pulled out of the original take-over talks, it seems Poundstretcher has crept in through the back door, and taken over the Bargain Buys brand. Middlesbrough’s old Bargain Buys outlet was the first to be re-opened by Poundstretcher in December 2018, and a second store opened in early 2019 at Penicuik, near Edinburgh. With the three stores open around the Bristol area, it appears the Bargain Buys brand is undergoing something of a revival.
Certainly Poundstretcher believes the high street climate in places like Stoke Gifford has improved in the last twelve months. Many property owners and councils have finally begun to realise that, unless rents and business rates are reduced, high streets up and down the country will become derelict areas.
Stoke Gifford is already well advanced with reviving its own shopping precincts, with a large number of UK national brands already well established. The new Stoke Gifford, Bargain Buys store, will carry around 8,000 lines, covering everything from non-perishable groceries, toiletries and grooming aids, home and garden care products, electrical goods and accessories, and pet and wildlife foods and treatments.
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Shoppers in Kent may be happy to hear that the budget retailer Primark have confirmed their plans to open a store in Bluewater shopping center, adding to their current seven stores in Kent.
As of April 2017, M&S had 979 stores throughout the UK. Considering the fact that this massive conglomerate was first established in 1884, many consumers will be surprised to learn that they are planning to close no fewer than 100 stores by the year 2022.
