Too Posh to Pound Shop? Pound Shop Wars

The question I get asked mostly in here, believe it or not,

is "how much is this?"

How much is this!

That is the truth!

How much are these chamois?

They're shops with a magical formula.

It must cost more to make them.

How they do it, I'll never know.

Everything costs a pound.

A pound? Whoa!

Bargain in itself!

And some people have fallen under their spell.

Football!

This the most expensive shop in the centre.

You buy one thing, then you find another and then you find another.

Just so cheap.

I like a bargain.

There's now a pound shop in almost every town and city.

Bloody brilliant!

I love Poundland!

But for Chris Edwards, owner of the Poundworld empire, it's war.

It's an insult to everything we try and stand for.

It's ridiculous.

It's a cut-price, cut-throat battle for survival

against giant pound shop chains and now the supermarket.

It was our best seller and now we haven't got it in again.

Somebody has made a big boob somewhere!

And as customers get more savvy...

Sometimes they are smaller sizes, to cater for the pound customer.

It's a fight to find new tricks to keep the magic alive.

We saved a fraction by not including any underwear.

She doesn't mind, she's got a smile on her face!

This week...

They're chasing everybody's business and they don't when to give up.

The supermarkets are coming after Chris.

They're monsters.

I think it's unfortunate a pound shop has come to Harrogate.

An upmarket town gets pound fever...

We've only got four tills.

People are saying, I am not coming back.

And a new mascot evokes extreme reactions.

Oh, dear!

The pound seems to be scaring children!

In his quest to expand his empire, Chris Edwards has flown to an exotic location.

How are you?

Nice to meet you!

There's obviously a lot of wealth in the island.

It's the last place you'd expect to find a pound shop.

Nice and warm!

Can't wait to get in there.

If somebody said to me two or three years ago that we'd be

considering doing business in Jersey,

I would have said not in a thousand years.

You just think of Jersey and you think of money.

This tax-free haven has nearly 3,000 millionaires.

But local businessman Nigel Robson wants to persuade Chris it's ready for its first Poundworld.

The local stores all seem to have this one-pound price point and they seem to be doing

what the Poundworlds are doing.

Nigel wants to open a new shop

with Chris and is taking him on a fact-finding tour.

-One pound, please.

-Thank you.

Our KitKats come a little bit bigger for a quid!

Just a little!

Chris may have bigger KitKats but if he opens here,

he'll have a fight on his hands.

There are already pound shops in Jersey, and a 99p superstore.

It's full value, isn't it? Look at that.

That's just fantastic value, 99p.

Owners Robert and Andrine Bridgen aren't worried about Poundworld arriving.

They're still a penny more than us and people don't want to pay that.

They've even got what they think is the world's first 99p cafe.

-All our cakes, baguettes, sandwiches...

-99p.

-Chilli con carne and rice.

-99p.

They say more people are shopping with them than ever before.

The pound market is no longer just working class people.

It's everybody. Everybody comes in here.

The stigma's gone completely, I think.

In Britain, one in five pound shoppers are thought to be middle class.

It's a trend Chris wants to cash in on.

When we started, some people wouldn't be seen dead in one of our stores.

Now the middle class is very much our target.

Chris agrees with Nigel that there are opportunities here.

This is the street I'd be looking for.

This is where I would want to be - down this street.

But there's very little available, I believe.

-You'd be able to see to the back of the shop.

-Right.

But the street Nigel has chosen is much quieter.

The expansion in Jersey will have to wait.

But there's a recent shop-opening

in Britain that this former market trader is very proud of.

There's one store I always wanted to have and we've managed to do it.

Peckham. We all know who lived in Peckham.

My hero - Del Boy!

But to grow his empire, he's now targeting places once considered too affluent for a pound shop

and he thinks he's found the perfect spot.

It has like an air of class.

It's not like a city, is it? It's a town.

So it's a lot calmer than where we usually go.

Chris has brought his mum, Alice, to the spa town of Harrogate.

It's so posh, it doesn't even have a pound shop.

Oh, that's nice!

I don't think I've sat down and had a cup of coffee with my son for ten year!

To see him sat in one place and not got his phone in his hand!

Don't get used to it - we're back to the grindstone shortly.

Chris isn't here to relax. He's come to see the new store he's about to open.

I think this is probably a landmark,

because very rare do we come to a town where we haven't got any competitors.

In the past, Chris found it hard to get a site here.

I think it's a bit posh in this centre

so we'll have to be very careful!

But attitudes have changed so much

that this centre has offered them a prime spot.

They open in a week.

No doubt we're going to be here on opening day. Let's see what we get.

I'm sure the response will be first class.

I think it'll do well and I think it will be an asset to the centre.

But old attitudes die hard in this upmarket town

and its success isn't guaranteed.

I think it's a little bit unfortunate that a pound shop has come to Harrogate.

I suppose people would think...I can see why they would think it would lower the tone, but...

I don't like...they pile them high, stack them up.

Scrummaging kind of shops.

I'd rather be somewhere more salubrious to walk around!

And it's not just attitudes Chris is fighting.

With slick £1 ads and deep pockets, Tesco and the other big supermarkets

have entered the pound-shop wars, with guns blazing.

'Every little helps.'

It's causing Chris sleepless nights.

Basically, you're going head-to-head with these people.

I work 12 hours a day but that's not enough.

If I could stay awake any longer, I would.

It's impossible. You've got to sleep at times.

I mean, this is a phenomenal business.

You don't compete with anybody bigger than these people.

They're monsters and they just don't know when to give up.

Survival of the fittest.

If you fail, them lads are just ready to take you out.

But he's created a new weapon to fight back.

There we go. We're all set!

Meet Percy Pound!

It's going to be good, especially for the kids.

Area manager Nathan is convinced the kids will love him.

Once you get the kids in, they'll drag the parents in.

Right, let's go!

Side-step and you're free!

The mascot is being deployed

at the grand launch of a West Bromwich shopping centre,

where Chris is opening alongside one of the biggest Tescos ever built.

Can we just go outside Tescos, cos we've got a grand opening at ten o'clock.

Do anything you can - get the people up.

Go for it! Run free!

Hello, everybody!

I'm a pound. A very good pound!

Everything is a pound at the pound store today!

Tesco is touting for customers too.

Their leafleters are out in force.

Their £1 signs are primed and they've even got their own mascot.

Hello! I'm a pound.

Mr Pound's efforts soon attract attention.

Help!

Hoi!

This coin is going to turn into a fistful of dollars in a minute.

Seeing that doesn't make you want to go into the store at all.

He's not the only one who's not impressed.

TODDLER CRIES

Oh, dear!

We've got a bit of a situation.

The pound seems to be scaring children.

We'll persevere until it stops scaring children or they get used to it - one or the other.

At the minute, it's not looking great.

Chris's search for new markets is taking him to another unlikely place.

With director Mark Ward, he's on his way

to meet someone who should be a sworn enemy.

We're on our way to see Steve Smith.

He's the originator of the Poundland chain.

Poundland is Britain's biggest pound-shop chain and Poundworld's arch rival.

Steve sold the chain over ten years ago

and now he works from an office in the grounds of his estate.

-Hi, Steve, How are you doing?

-Hello, mate.

-Nice to see you again. How we doing?

-OK. Good to see you.

It's quite ironic that at one point, arch enemies - and now we're in bed together! Eh?

Would you like to look around what we're

-going?

-Chris thinks Steve is offering to take him

somewhere no pound shop has ever been before.

Cyberspace.

Pound shops are closed at six o'clock at night and this is open.

We're going to make money when we're sleeping - is that what you're trying to say?

I was starting to believe you!

It is exciting. I am optimistic it is win, win, win.

But there's a problem.

Last week, Steve surprised Chris by putting a page

of the website online, with a countdown to their opening.

As you can see, the clock's ticking away.

Right. What have I got less? Seven days, seven hours! Bloody hell!

And a lot to do!

50,000 people have registered for the launch

and Chris doesn't want to disappoint them.

Setting that clock ticking has put us under a lot of pressure.

But what's done is done and we're going to try and meet it.

But it's going to be touch and go.

I've only got half the photos in a state where they can go on the website.

I've got no bar codes, I've got no descriptions.

We're working flat out in there but it's really pushing it now.

I keep looking at Steve's face and he's looking increasingly worried.

At the grand opening of the West Brom arcade,

the fight to attract customers continues.

Oh, bless you! Oh!

I just got a cuddle!

The pound's won over the children

but now there's another problem threatening to sideline it.

The shopping centre has brought in a local celebrity - ex-West Brom footballer Cyril Regis.

Nathan sees a chance to get in the news.

We've got all the press down here,

so we're going to go and get the pound mascot and he's going to photo-bomb this!

Come, come, come! We're going to photo-bomb this.

All the press are on this side so let's try and get them round here.

Operation photo-bomb!

We have no boundaries.

Unfortunately for Nathan, the centre's PR does.

I'm organising this on the PR side.

We don't want Poundland in just this one picture.

-Where d'you want the deputy mayor?

-On the stage, please.

But as they set up shop, Nathan pushes his luck.

Just jump in the picture. In for a penny, in for a pound.

Put one leg up on there.

But the centre's PR lady wasn't born yesterday.

Remember what I said just for this one photograph?

Could you just move to the side? That's not a lot to ask.

OK, we'll try. We'll try.

Nathan's missed the big shot.

Let's go to the next one.

Time for Operation Celebrity Endorsement.

Cyril! Can we get one with the pound?

The pound! The pound!

Poundworld.

Yes.

Sorry.

Thank you, Cyril.

-Oh, that's lovely.

-Cyril's not too interested in the pound.

So...

It hasn't gone very well but there is some good news.

The pound is attracting more attention than anything else.

You see!

Everybody loves the pound!

The pound charm-offensive has won people over.

Three beautiful young ladies. Thank you!

Chris's new shop has been full all day.

The pound has done well, apart from scaring kids at the start.

Really good. Really, really good.

The Pound Coin has come home!

Back at HQ, there's a problem.

Chris's plan to open the first online pound shop has been made public -

but not by him.

There's been an article about the online situation.

I am going to get on to our PR people and we'll make sure we put a cap on it straight away.

I think we need a word with Steve to say our press release has come through us.

Steve Smith, the man who's supposed to take them online is in the papers.

Steve's come out in the open and did a few press releases without our knowledge.

Our competitors may well see this and want to be the first

and we want to be the first online.

Now Chris is pulling out all the stops to make sure they hit the deadline.

But at the other end of the country, there's trouble brewing.

"Poundland founder to open Britain's only single-price online shop."

Chris's worst fears have come true. The publicity has alerted the enemy.

He won't be first.

When is he planning to go?

At the moment, the 5th of February.

These Devon businesswomen are also setting up an online pound shop.

And the news of Chris's opening has given them a new deadline.

It's huge, isn't it? It's a huge packet.

These working mums think getting online before Chris

will give them a marketing edge.

The first women leading a business like this.

-The first out into the marketplace.

-Yeah. Yeah.

-It has just got a nice kudos about it, hasn't it?

-Yeah.

So many Mr Pounds, we need some Mrs Pounds.

-Mrs Pounds!

-Yeah.

But beating the boys won't be easy.

We need to make sure that the warehouse

is going to operate as it should.

The MD, Donna, already runs another online store

but she's never run a pound shop.

We've more products coming in today.

We thought it would be a good idea for Molly and George to get used to the picking and packing process.

Do you want to have a quick look around the pound lines?

We've hopefully organised it as best we can.

Warehouse manager Adam has to bring his new team up to speed.

I'm just showing them the ropes at the moment,

so they know where everything is.

It's all right. Some things aren't clearly labelled.

So it's just sort of trying to guess.

It says "jumbo" but we've got "mega jumbo".

I'm pretty sure this is the mega jumbo.

It says jumbo. And it's a pound.

It probably is these. It's just best to confirm in the office.

Just to make sure. Is that the mega jumbo?

There's an awful lot to put in place.

It's just a case of having a quick look.

I know where it is but I'd have to go through the boxes a little bit.

Making sure the systems are in place there,

which we're sort of implementing at the moment.

Sparkling green...

-Do you want me to go and ask the office?

-Probably the best thing.

There are a lot of things that can go wrong.

The Mister Men ones, I'm not sure where they've gone.

-Could they be mixed with kids stuff?

-They could be round the other side.

Watch this space, basically!

Chris's ambition to be the first online may be under threat

but there's one place he's definitely breaking new ground.

You're on that till! Corrine, could you stand up front, please?

He's about to open the first pound shop in affluent Harrogate.

Kirsty, you're on this till.

When we open, go round there and offer the customer a basket.

Some people aren't happy there's a pound shop coming here

so Chris is pulling out all the stops to win the town over.

-Good luck. You can't go wrong, can you?

-I hope not.

He's even got the poshest person in Harrogate waiting to open the store.

-Looking forward to it.

-Yeah, yeah.

And he isn't just relying on the mayor.

-HE LAUGHS

-Is that another one?

Are there any more? Are we having a fiver's worth then?

-And cut!

-HE LAUGHS

APPLAUSE

We're just down to earth, everyday people. We need a pound shop.

There'll be a lot of people that are very pleased.

I do work in ASDA, they won't be very happy, will they?

With the store doing a brisk trade, the mascots hit the town.

Soon there's a one pound frenzy.

The queues are just queueing all up our aisles.

I have never seen an opening day like it.

If people said that Harrogate is too posh for a Poundworld...

I bet we've got some millionaires in there.

But just when it couldn't be going any better...

-Sorry?

-They've been down five minutes.

They're not taking cards.

-All the card machines are down.

-Right. Thank you for that.

-Do we know about that?

-My card was just refused.

-We're sorting it out now.

-Sorting it out now.

-My purchase was refused.

-Sorry about that.

Kick his ass and tell him to make it a priority.

We need an engineer. We need one here.

We're just trying to correct it now, as fast as we can.

-They're on the phone now.

-Sorry about the wait today.

Hopefully people don't get the wrong impression.

Sorry about your wait, sir.

The problem is fixed, but it's soon clear

there aren't enough tills to cope with demand.

I think we've been in there about 20 minutes queueing.

Others lose patience.

There's easily £100 there. It's obviously lost sales.

They're the ones that you can see.

You don't know how many people have walked in and straight back out.

People are saying, "I'm not coming back."

I'm saying, "It's the first day. It's the first day." But...

We've only got four tills - that's the problem.

-Can't do without you.

-Yeah, yeah.

-God bless.

-Thank you.

Despite the problems, people spend so much money

that Harrogate is one of Chris's most successful openings ever.

From our point of view, we've had an absolutely fantastic response.

Overnight there'll be two more tills put in.

It's 24 hours before Chris's launch into cyberspace.

And the ladies in Devon look set to beat him.

It's terrible rain and wind outside.

For online shopping, that's a good thing cos obviously,

you don't want to go out to your high street.

But there are already problems emerging.

The website at 9am was not up at all - there was an error message.

The web company are confident everything will be fine for 11am.

We'll put our faith in them. We'll see, though, see what happens.

It is a bit nerve-racking. There's no telling what will happen.

We hope it's going to be busy.

Are we good to go? Right! All live! THEY CLAP

CHEERING

Anyone looking for hereforapound.com now can get onto the site.

We're online and we're open for business.

They think they're the first online pound shop.

But when will they get their first paying customer?

It'll be great to have a few today

so we can just get on with the process.

An hour later and the virtual shelves are still full.

No orders yet, no.

It's quite slow starting. A bit nervous, to be honest with you.

If we get a few, you know, five or six, so we can get moving.

Come on folks, 30 minutes left.

In Shropshire, Chris is also about to step into the unknown.

Needs more than this to make me totally excited.

But I am reasonably excited.

A virtual queue is already forming.

300 people a second are trying to get on to the site.

338 per second.

I didn't know Steve had that many relatives!

-THEY LAUGH

-350.

-310.

-Let's hope they all put an order in and we're laughing.

Oh, 378.

-Going up and up and up.

-Right, looking forward to this!

So is it...is it 2pm now? It must be! Switch it on now.

There's a few problems with the emails but we've sorted.

Ready to go then!

It's like watching for blast-off! STAR TREK THEME

-It's not working! It's stopped working!

-I'm staying calm.

The guys are on it! The guys are on it. They're in control!

Unfortunately for Chris, that's not the case.

Too many people are trying to get on to the site.

There's a lot of customers on there at the moment.

They keep on pressing refresh.

6,000 people all trying to get in at the same time -

that's why it's having the difficulty to open it.

To Chris, that's 6,000 paying customers.

It's tense, hey?

The fear is today it's everybody trying to get on,

tomorrow there's nobody.

-Can you give us a second? We've a real problem.

-Yeah.

OK. We'll come back in a minute.

Worst case scenario, we are looking at five to six days

to get a new server, probably, that can handle the traffic.

I thought it was going to be a disaster

if we were half an hour or an hour late,

but one or two days late, what happens then?

There's nothing to do but go home and wait.

The hardware you've presented really needs to process it...

-See you. See you later. Bye.

-Bye, bye.

-Poundshop.com hasn't launched today.

-Excellent.

-We're definitely...

-We're the first.

-Really good news for us.

And the good news doesn't stop there.

Adam, we've got the first paying orders out.

To have had the first order, which is great!

-OK. Yeah?

-Someone has spent £30.

That's 30 items for the team to pick,

from bleach to a mega jumbo roll.

That should be, I believe, around here!

Good shot of you guys!

Express and Echo, the London Evening Standard.

That's a good one, isn't it?

The press picking up on the story brings in more customers.

The first 24 hours, there's over 1,000 items been purchased.

It's a great start for the business.

Couldn't really ask for much more.

-Should have more later for you, I think.

-So far, so good!

It's the morning after the failed launch

and Chris's search for new marketplaces

has made him think about the past.

On the market it seemed complicated.

When I think back, it was so simple.

You bought it, you sold it. Weather was your only enemy.

Sometimes when I think about it I do wish I was back on the market.

But not today, not when it's raining and blowing.

The website is now up and running

but since they and the Devon ladies launched,

other sites have come forward claiming to be first.

Mark and Chris are putting on a brave face.

We're certainly the first online out of the retailers.

-Can we still say we we're the first?

-I would say so.

-I'll go with that.

While they aren't the first pound shop online,

they seem to be in high demand.

They say 12,000 items were sold in the first 24 hours.

The pound shop wars aren't over.

In a small corner of cyberspace, they've only just begun!

Gum shield in, shin pad pads on. Into battle!

At least Chris will always have his mum Alice by his side.

And I know just how he likes his coffee.