Fashion Chain Primark Puts Click-And-Collect on Radar as Expansion Gathers Pace

Customers walks with shopping bags, as retail store Primark in Birmingham, Britain reopens its doors after a third lockdown imposed in early January due to the ongoing coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, April 12, 2021. REUTERS/Carl Recine
Customers walks with shopping bags, as retail store Primark in Birmingham, Britain reopens its doors after a third lockdown imposed in early January due to the ongoing coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, April 12, 2021. REUTERS/Carl Recine
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Fashion Chain Primark Puts Click-And-Collect on Radar as Expansion Gathers Pace

Customers walks with shopping bags, as retail store Primark in Birmingham, Britain reopens its doors after a third lockdown imposed in early January due to the ongoing coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, April 12, 2021. REUTERS/Carl Recine
Customers walks with shopping bags, as retail store Primark in Birmingham, Britain reopens its doors after a third lockdown imposed in early January due to the ongoing coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, April 12, 2021. REUTERS/Carl Recine

Budget fashion chain Primark, which has shunned the extra cost of home delivery, could add click-and-collect services to its revamped website over time, but still sees new stores in markets such as Italy and the United States as it main growth driver.

The chain, whose trendy clothes at rock-bottom prices have taken British and European shoppers by storm over the last decade, will launch a new website in the United Kingdom by the end of March, and across its 13 other markets by the autumn.

That will better showcase its 10,000 products, provide customers with near real-time information on product availability by store and enable Primark to mine the data of its over 24 million active "engagers".

"We’re making the digital move forward in a very big way in both the UK and the rest of Europe. That will generate sales and profits for us," John Bason, finance director of Primark's owner, Associated British Foods (ABF.L), told Reuters.

"Does this give us a capability to move further forward? Well let’s have a look at that," he said in an interview.

"If there was an e-commerce opportunity for us, it will probably be more in the area of click-and-collect," he said, referring to products ordered online and picked up in store.

But Bason said home delivery remained off Primark's agenda as the economics don't stack-up for its low price points.

"You can’t get our value by delivery to home, it’s as simple as that," said the 23-year veteran of AB Foods, which also owns major sugar, grocery, ingredients and agricultural businesses.

Founded by the late Arthur Ryan in Dublin in 1969 under the Penneys brand, Primark trades from 402 stores. It turned over 7.8 billion pounds ($10.2 billion) before the COVID-19 pandemic, which hit it hard as its stores were forced to close.

In November, AB Foods targeted an expansion of Primark to 530 stores over the next five years, accelerating growth in the major markets of the United States, France, Italy and Iberia. read more

But 530 is "not the end of the line," said Bason. "There’s a long way to go with this business in terms of adding space.”

Primark is confident its model can succeed in a US market that has been a graveyard for some of Britain's biggest retailers, including Marks & Spencer, Tesco and Philip Green's Topshop.

Bason said the five-year plan would take it from 13 US stores to about 60 - all to the east of the Mississippi River.

That still leave vast swathes of the United States unserved by Primark, including key states such as California.

“Without me being sort of categoric, you can see how you’d move into other geographies," said Bason. “There is huge potential in the United States, there really is."

He also believes Italy provides a "massive runway," noting Primark recently opened its first store in Sicily, a market that has more people than the island of Ireland - Primark's longest standing market. Primark currently has eight stores in Italy.

"In Spain and Iberia we have 65 stores. There’s no reason why Italy shouldn’t be that scale and go beyond that," Bason said.

Primark has also dipped its toe into central and eastern Europe, opening stores in Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia. A first store in Romania is slated for 2022.

Bason said its plans for this region had not been altered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.



UK Fashion Group ASOS Confident on Growth amid Tariff Uncertainty

FILE PHOTO: A woman stands at an InPost locker with an ASOS package at her feet in Hackney, London, Britain, January 26, 2021. REUTERS/Simon Newman/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A woman stands at an InPost locker with an ASOS package at her feet in Hackney, London, Britain, January 26, 2021. REUTERS/Simon Newman/File Photo
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UK Fashion Group ASOS Confident on Growth amid Tariff Uncertainty

FILE PHOTO: A woman stands at an InPost locker with an ASOS package at her feet in Hackney, London, Britain, January 26, 2021. REUTERS/Simon Newman/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A woman stands at an InPost locker with an ASOS package at her feet in Hackney, London, Britain, January 26, 2021. REUTERS/Simon Newman/File Photo

British online fashion retailer ASOS reported half-year earnings ahead of expectations and forecast further growth in 2025, adding that it could also switch sourcing and distribution if needed to avoid the fallout from US tariffs.
While the jump in earnings on Thursday showed ASOS's long-term plan to return to growth and rebuild its fast fashion credentials with its 20-something customer base was starting to work, the retailer faces a new threat from global tariffs, Reuters reported.
The company said its more agile commercial model, which focuses on providing shoppers with new styles more quickly, put it in good shape to respond to the upheaval in global trade.
"We continue to closely monitor the evolving US tariff outlook and see opportunity to respond as necessary through improved agility and flexibility of our sourcing and distribution model," ASOS said in its statement.
For the 26 weeks to March 2, ASOS posted half-year adjusted earnings (EBITDA) of 42.5 million pounds ($56.43 million), higher than the 34 million pounds consensus forecast, and said it was on track for annual earnings to come in at between 130 million pounds to 150 million pounds.
ASOS, which is facing growing competition from Chinese-founded fast fashion giant Shein and Chinese online retailer Temu, in January said it would mothball its US warehouse, meaning most US sales are shipped from Britain in individual packages.
Analysts expect its US business to generate about 300 million pounds of revenue in the current financial year, or about 10% of total sales.