A Shelter shop in Ashford that opened earlier this year
The housing charity plans to increase its network to 220, including its first stores in south-west England and Birmingham
The housing and homelessness charity Shelter is aiming to double the number of its shops over the next two years.
The charity hopes to increase its retail network to 220 stores by September 2014. In April this year, it had 110 shops.
Shelter will target cities where it is either under-represented or has no presence. The charity is currently looking for premises in Bristol and Birmingham – neither area currently has an outlet.
Since April, the charity has opened 12 shops, including adding four new stores to the existing three in Glasgow and six new shops in London. It has also opened three more units in both Manchester and Leeds.
Richard Sweet, managing director of trading at Shelter, said it was expanding its network of shops to help increase income. It also intends to explore ways of providing advice from its stores. "It’s an ongoing process and we will continue to make decisions based on the success of our existing and new stores, and research new, viable sites over the next two years," he said.
The technology company Fujitsu will be working with Shelter to help modernise its tills and hardware.
