I regularly use a stapler around the house for various purposes, mostly in connection with my occasional work as an Avon Representative. When my stapler broke quite recently, I was left in a bit of a panic as I knew I had a large order coming from Avon in the following days and would definitely need a stapler to help in the preparation of making up my customers' orders and attaching the relevant paperwork to them.

I had the idea to pop to the various local pound shops in our town centre (of which there are three in close proximity to each other) as I knew they each stocked a selection of stationery items and so was pretty confident I would get a stapler in one of the stores. The first search - which was in an independent pound shop - proved to be fruitless, as the only staplers on offer were very small, pocket-sized offerings, and I knew that I needed something bigger than that for my own uses, given the thick paper bags that I use for my Avon work.

The next shop I visited was Poundland, and I was more successful in this store. They had two staplers to choose from and the one that I selected looked to be the best quality of the two. Looking through the outer plastic packaging on the item to inspect the plastic, blue-coloured stapler and accompanying items, I could see that the "Office Stapler Set" looked to fit my criteria perfectly.

Firstly, the stapler itself looked to be of a very similar size to my previous model, and so I was quite confident that the vast quantities of staples that I still had at home would not go to waste, and I was fairly sure that they would fit this new stapler.

Secondly, the stapler looked to be fairly robust, and not particularly flimsy which is something I have found to be the case with cheaper staplers that I have purchased before. The handle part of the stapler actually looked to be quite thick and robust and so I was fairly confident that the stapler would withstand a fair amount of use.

I have had the "Office Stapler Set" for a couple of months now and have found that it works very well. The stapler copes well with attaching my order forms to the thick paper bags that I use to package my customers Avon products in, and the whole process takes mere moments which I was pleased about. I have found in the past that some staplers (especially those little 'mini' staplers that I was so keen to avoid) seem to get slightly 'harassed' or 'flustered' if I use it too quickly, or staple too much at one time, and it seems to cause paper jams and squished staples attaching themselves to customer order forms and all kinds of time-consuming mishaps.

The Poundland stapler, in comparison, copes very well with the speed at which I work, and the robust 'body' of the stapler seems to cope well with continuous use and speed, and has never 'crunched' or jammed excessively. I think I have actually only ever encountered a sort of 'staple jam' type scenario once or twice, when the little row or 'cartridge' of staples is nearing the end, and the stapler seems unsure of how to communicate this to me other than to spit out a few unspent staples in distress, or by 'mashing' a couple of staples together and squishing them into a funny shape onto whatever two items I am trying to attach together!

In the case of the latter occurring, I have been equipped with a handy little tool in the Pound land "Office Stapler Set" by way of a plastic "Staple Remover" which is basically a little metal 'gripper' with a spring mechanism and four little metal 'fangs' which fit neatly underneath a squished (or simply unwanted) staple perfectly. There is plastic surrounding the two 'arms' of the metal gripper which provide protection to my fingertips. All you need to do to operate this little gadget is to place two of the 'fangs' underneath the unwanted staple and push down on the plastic ends of the gripper so that the four 'fangs' meet underneath the unwanted staple. This may sound fairly complicated but in fact it is extremely easy to do, and I have managed to remove several staples without incident (or injury..! Which, by the way, is not something that can always be said if I have attempted to remove a staple with my fingernails.. Enough said.!) The spring mechanism in the gripper allows the staple remover to be closed over underneath the staple and when I pull the gripper up, the unwanted staple pops up, out of the paper it has been embedded in. Voila!

The third item that completes the Pound land "Office Stapler Set" is quite simply, a small supply of replacement staples which fit the stapler perfectly, as you would expect. I was not particularly disappointed with the rather small quantity supplied, given that the whole set of three items was so cheap. The only rather negative point I have to comment on in terms of the replacement staples is that I would have preferred it if they had been supplied in a small box or wrapper. As it is, they were supplied 'freely' in the plastic outer packaging that enclosed all three items in the Stapler Set, and as this has of course long been discarded, I now have no way to store the staples, so they have been left to roam about a kitchen drawer.

This is a very minor niggle, and one that I'm happy to overlook, given the overall impression that this little Stapler Set has made. I think it is really fantastic value for money and I am very pleased with my purchase, given it's robustness and ability to cope with my paperwork and workload, particularly in the run up to the Festive season, which is a time of year when I am at my busiest. Therefore, I would wholeheartedly recommend the Poundland Office Stapler Set and think it is a great value item.