Poundland is now trialling its long-anticipated online home delivery, with a range of more than 2,000 products available for both staff and trial partners to order.
The pilot has been running since the end of February, it emerged this week, with 18,000 Poundland staff and ‘selected guests’ able to order from a range of food and general merchandise for home delivery.
“As promised, we began piloting a poundland.co.uk online delivery service some weeks ago, initially based out of our new online fulfilment centre in Cannock,” says a Poundland spokesperson.
“We’re delighted with this initial phase of testing and we’ll be opening up to the public in due course.”
The launch of the pilot online service is part of company transformation plans that it says will offer new ranges and new services to customers that enable them to do more of the day-to-day shopping with Poundland.
The retailer is also understood to be planning to trial click and collect later this year.
Poundland first said it would trial online delivery last July.
Since then it has been working to convert one of its three shops in Cannock into an online fulfilment centre before starting the trials earlier this year.
Commenting, David Jinks, head of consumer research at ParcelHero, says: “Poundland has belatedly woken up and smelled its discounted coffee. Although the initial trial is low-key, it is taking ecommerce seriously. At a press conference this week, Poundland revealed it will be trialling a series of online models this year. This will include in-store click and collect, monetarising its own website and using a shared marketplace to keep operating costs down.
“For now, it is just a limited trial of 2,000 lines for staff and guests, including food and general merchandise. However, expect to see a far greater selection when the service is launched nationally; we believe that is likely to be within months.”