MULTINATIONALS GO CHEAP

I was shocked how many chain stores, cheap either in price or quality or both, are multinationals. Only Home Bargains¹ or Poundworld² are UK only.  You are better off in the small shops like Ali’s Cave Emporium on Lothian Rd or the new hardware store on Portobello High Street if you are looking for objects in the hardware/home ware categories.  Neither of these have a website so I am guessing they are not part of multinationals. (Please tell me if you have different information, I am willing to stand corrected!)

B&M³ was founded in Blackpool but has now taken over a similar shop in Germany called JA Woll and this qualifies them a multinational.

Poundland⁴ has had an overseas supply office in Hong Kong since 1996 and moved into Ireland in 2013.

Poundstretcher’s^5&6 at first glance seems to be UK only but according to Wikipedia a Poundstretcher opened in Dubai in 2012, however given that all the information about it is from 2012 I am not totally sure it still exists.  I will get back to you if I find anything more about it.

Moving on to cheap clothing:-

Matlan^7,8&9 has lots of overseas suppliers, as you would guess and in 2009 opened a shop in Amman, Jordan.  It also has 6 overseas franchises’. So it is definitely a multinational 

H & M¹⁰ has stores worldwide, Russia, Peru and India are just some of those I noticed in its whole page of stores.

Primark¹¹ opened in Eire in the 1960’s under the name Penney’s, which it still uses there, however it has 290 stores over 10 European countries and the United States.

New Look¹² also opened in the 60’s but in the UK and now has 569 shops in UK and 200 across Europe, China and Asia.

I swithered about putting Topshop/Top Man^13/14 in this list as although the quality is not the best the prices are not so cheap, eventually deciding it qualified.  It is definitely a multinational as it has shops all over Europe, the US, Australia and New Zealand.

Another store I swithered about was TKMaxx¹⁵ but any shop that reminds me of a jumble sale deserves to be in a post about cheap shops.  I am not a fan, as you can tell. It too is a multinational with shops in Ireland, Germany and Poland and its parent company TJX¹⁶ is in the US and Canada also.

I think I will be shopping in Ali’s Cave quite a lot from now on.  Apparently they have a store in Musselburgh too but although that is in East Lothian I don’t think it qualifies for the multinational title!

30/10/2015

Just found out Primark is a subsidiary of Associated British Foods.¹⁷

 

References

1. http://www.homebargains.co.uk/
2. http://www.poundworldplus.co.uk/index/about-us_360.htm
3. http://www.bandmretail.com/about-us/at-a-glance.aspx
4. http://www.poundland.co.uk/about-us/our-history/
5. http://www.poundstretcher.co.uk/about-us
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poundstretcher
7. http://www.matalan.co.uk/corporate/Ethical-Sourcing-Policy
8. http://www.retail-week.com/stores/first-overseas-matalan-store-opens/5004145.article
9. http://www.just-style.com/news/matalan-focuses-on-price-as-q1-sales-fall_id111658.aspx
10. http://www.hm.com/entrance.ahtml?orguri=/
11. http://www.primark.com/en-us/about-us/about-primark
12. http://www.newlookgroup.com/who-are-we?page=1002
13. http://www.topshop.com/?geoip=home
14. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topshop
15. http://www.tkmaxx.com/page/about
16. http://www.tjx.com/index.html
17. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associated_British_Foods