This Saturday, on 4th February, Black Pound Day will be opening the doors to their second London store, located in Westfield Stratford City, Europe’s biggest shopping and leisure destination. This follows the launch of their first ever permanent store in Westfield in White City last June.
The pop-up store will be open for a limited time only, and will enable more than 50 black owned businesses to sell to East London shoppers and tourists alike, with a range of quality products within skincare, haircare, books, toys, homewares, cosmetics, accessories and a variety of other sectors.
With the strong commitment to increasing the visibility of Black brands and creating cultural shopping experiences tailored to the Black cultural experience, Black Pound Day aims to get both brands and shoppers back onto the high street. The pop-up store will offer a department store-like experience for consumers to support established as well as up-and-coming Black-owned businesses including Present Your Joy, Beard Gang Members and Xay and Mama.
The site opening will be making a significant change to the accessibility of black owned businesses, allowing Londoners to shop without having to spend an endless amount of time browsing the shelves to find the brand and products they are looking for.
Founded by award-winning UK music artist and So Solid Crew member Swiss, Black Pound Day aims to encourage people to shop from and spend money with local and online UK Black-owned businesses, by replacing your usual purchases with services and products from Black-owned businesses. The platform currently has over 1500 businesses on their directory and has done a remarkable job of raising awareness of Black-led businesses up and down the country since its launch.
Black Pound Day Founder, Swiss, said: “Black Pound Day has always been rooted in what our community needs by increasing the visibility of Black-owned businesses. The opening of our second store in Westfield Stratford City is our response to calls from our community to continue this work. We are excited to bring the Black Pound Day shopping experience to East London in partnership with the Westfield team who continually support the movement.”
Alyson Hodkinson, General Manager of Westfield Stratford City said: “We’re proud to welcome Black Pound Day store to Westfield Stratford City and offer our customers the opportunity to support the grassroots movement and discover products from a diverse range of haircare, homeware, fashion and beauty brands. We firmly believe that diversity and inclusion is vital to our business and we have a responsibility to ensure our offer mirrors the incredible diversity of customers visiting our centre every day.”
The solution-based initiative was created to support the growth of the UK Black economy, with a mission to address the economic inequalities and imbalances affecting Black businesses and entrepreneurs in the country such as the discovery that to every pound a white household makes, Black Caribbean’s earn just 20p whilst Black Africans reportedly earn 10p.
The Black Pound Day pop-up store will be located on the ground floor of Westfield Stratford City, Unit 1066A – opposite Hugo Boss.
