Fakenham store starts £6m sale

Bargain-hunters from across the area will flock to one of Norfolk’s retail giants this week for the biggest sale in its 123-year history.

A whopping £6 million worth of stock will be offered at reduced prices at Aldiss stores in Fakenham and Norwich.

More than 40,000 products will be up for grabs at discounts of up to 70 per cent when the mega sale opens this Friday at 10am.

Managing director Paul Clifford said the store was preparing itself for queues stretching up to a mile to snap up bargains.

The sale is necessary to make room at its Fakenham distribution centre for essential works.

It wants to bring the centre up-to-date to keep abreast of a huge increase in internet trade, and to carry out maintenance and structural works on the building in Norwich Road.

In preparation for the sale, both stores were shut from close of business last Friday until the event.

All the firm’s 170 staff were called in to mark-down prices on the store’s entire inventory of products.

Mr Clifford said every item in every department, including brand names, will be reduced.

“This will be the biggest sale that we have ever done,” he said.

“The one thing no retailer ever wants to do is close its doors.

“I apologise to customers for the inconvenience it will cause, but doing it this way gets it done in the shortest time possible.

“There’s no point in trying to carry out the works to the distribution centre over many weeks as it will only cause more disruption.

“The centre is at the heart of the business, and if anything goes wrong there, the shelves will be empty in the shop.”

He explained that the firm was carrying out the work now before its autumn/winter stock arrives and its busiest time of the year with Christmas.

Mr Clifford also explained that the reason behind the sale was to create space at its distribution centre, ready for changes to be carried out.

He said the growth in internet shopping has brought new challenges not envisaged when the centre was created, with more goods being dispatched direct to customers’ homes and its furniture delivery fleet now covers a huge geographic area.

“The whole retail business is changing out of all recognition and we have to change with it.

“We have got to make sure we constantly improve to give our customers the choice, value and service they want.”