system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5 how do stores like Poundland manage to maintain a consistent price even through recession or currency changing in value?
gpt
They have a profit margin built into their items, and they are willing to decrease the profit margin in order to keep customers. They'd rather make less money on each sale, than annoy customers and stop selling anything at all.

Sometimes stores also have loss leaders. For example, supermarkets will often have very cheap milk, and lose money on every liter of milk they sell - but people who come in to buy milk will usually also buy other things. So the store's profit margin is not calculated on each item, but on each customer's total shopping basket, or the average shopping basket across every time that customer comes into the shop. (It's worth losing money a couple of times to generate a habit in the customer of shopping at your store, not your competitor's.)

Of course, eventually they do have to raise their prices.