Fancy this MASSIVE bag of crisps for a quid? There are enough to make you really ill for days. How about a mop? You can never have too many staple guns, that's what my mum always told me.

For at Poundland you can get a simply bewildering range of items for, well, a pound. And it's great news because it's forcing down mainstream shop prices.

Over the last couple of years we have been flocking to Poundland as well as their undercutting nemesis, 99p Stores.

A couple of weeks ago, a Poundland opened near me. It sits about 10m from Lidl, a shop not known for its top-of-the-range products. These chains are expanding like nobody's business as we search for bargains in skint times.

The number of £1 shops has doubled in 10 years. Poundland intends to open a new store every week for the next year.

Lidl is also riding the crest of a wave. It often has weird lines – my local branch often knocks out Scuba diving equipment, horse-riding gear and movies from two years ago seen by fewer people than you can fit on a moped.

But the shoppers seem to love the cheap'n'cheerful approach that sees tins piled up on every square centimetre of space and sold at knock-down prices.

There is a theory that internet bargain-shopping has whet our appetites for low-cost high street shopping. And Poundland, Lidl, Netto and Aldi are the winners.

Poundland, 99p Stores Poundstretcher and Pound Shop have also picked up cheap premises from high street shops that have gone bust, such as Woolworths.

For instance, 99p Stores alone took over 53 old Woolworths stores. Cheap clothes stores Primark and Peacocks have also cashed in.

Poundland has started doing food and has forced retailers such as Asda and Tesco to look at or drop their prices for items such as milk.

But it is shops such as Superdrug, WH Smith, Clinton Cards and Boots The Chemist that are most nervous and looking at ways to cut their own prices.

It's all good news for consumers looking for a bargain.