99p Stores trebles year-end profits
Budget retailer 99p Stores is creating 1,200 new jobs after continuing to cash in on the economic downturn. The Northampton-based chain said pre-tax profits trebled from £1.8m to £6.3m for the year ending January 2011.
Alongside a dramatic rise in profit, the company increased its turnover from £183m in its 2010 results to £231m in 2011.
Following the growth, 99p Stores said it now plans to open more than 30 new branches across the UK by January 2012.
Co-founder and commercial director of the company, Hussein Lalani, attributed the rapid increase in revenue to the introduction of "a much wider range of products" in the last year.
Merchandise including the 99p sandwich, milk, dairy, chilled meats, eggs, ready snacks and fresh bread have all been introduced o the nationwide chain over the past 12 months.
Lalani said: "The high street has been selling basics like toothpaste, washing-up liquid, tea and coffee at over the odds for years. Now the public has cottoned on."
"Britons want value – whether they live in mansions or maisonettes. The commuter on her and his way to work and on their lunch break have become a big part of the 99p family of shoppers in the last six months.
"We began as a one-man band opening up in less affluent highly populated parts of the UK. Now we are a national brand with stores in some of the leafiest parts of the country."
He added that the next part of 99p Stores' expansion plan was to open another 31 branches in the next seven months – in places he "wouldn't have imagined opening" a few years ago.
"We were nervous about opening in St Albans, the Cotswolds and the New Forest with the odd high-brow Facebook and newspaper letter comment against us," said Lalani. "Even in Bishops Stortford, where we are opening in September, we have had isolated claims from local business people that the town is too 'posh' for us.
"But wherever we have opened or planned to open we have had shoppers from all sectors of society beating a path to our door. Value has no class boundaries or borders."
The next 99p Stores to open up in locations including Bishops Stortford, Sudbury and Colchester.
