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Food products sold at Poundland are of a smaller size than say Tesco. For example, chocolate bars are less than 200g to comply with the ?1 price.

Sorry Jim - its a lot more complicated than just competition based on price.
One issue is tax which accounts for 20% of the price of most products sold in retail in the UK. In the states, for example Florida that same tax is only 6.5%.

Their glue is crap and the pens arent worth buying but a lot of the goods are a bargain...

Yes you are correct, but I remember some years ago when I lived in Miami, I was told that the major retailers, like Walmart, operate on a very low markup, at the time I think it was between 3 and 10% of wholesale. Over here a typical average markup WAS 30%. However in recent years the major retailers have crushed the prices of the suppliers especially in fresh foodstuffs, but HAVEN'T lowered retail prices accordingly, so their makeups now are huge. This is why an avacado in a market is about 30 pence and in Sainsbury's one the same size and from the dame country, will be over ?1.00. Or a normal brand of mineral water in Lidl is 24 pence and in Sainsburys 85 pence.

Americans are very canny with prices and simply wont tolerate being ripped off. In Britain we love to be shafted, from Itunes to coffee to cars to food, we are fucked over, it's being goig on for decades and now the major retailers and utility companies have got it to a fine art! "The Art Of Ripping off The Brits"