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.



LVMH Posts 3% Drop in Sales as Core Business Slumps

The logo of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton is seen in front of the LVMH luxury group headquarters in Paris, France, April 14, 2025. (Reuters)
The logo of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton is seen in front of the LVMH luxury group headquarters in Paris, France, April 14, 2025. (Reuters)
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LVMH Posts 3% Drop in Sales as Core Business Slumps

The logo of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton is seen in front of the LVMH luxury group headquarters in Paris, France, April 14, 2025. (Reuters)
The logo of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton is seen in front of the LVMH luxury group headquarters in Paris, France, April 14, 2025. (Reuters)

LVMH, the world's largest luxury group, said on Monday sales fell 3% over the first quarter, missing expectations and confirming a sector slowdown as shoppers held back on purchases of designer fashion in a choppy economic environment.

The French company behind high-end labels including fashion houses Louis Vuitton and Dior, jewellery brand Bulgari and Hennessy cognac, reported sales for the three months to the end of March of 20.3 billion euros ($23.08 billion).

The result compares with 1% growth in the fourth quarter and analyst expectations for 2% growth in the first quarter of 2025, according to a VisibleAlpha consensus estimates.

The fashion and leather goods division, home to Louis Vuitton and Dior and accounting for nearly half of group sales and over three quarters of operating profit, posted a 5% fall in sales, well below expectations for a flat performance.

LVMH said fashion and leather goods sales saw a "slight decline" in the US while Japan was weaker than the comparable quarter a year ago when Chinese led growth in spending there.

Europe's luxury players were counting on wealthy Americans to reignite growth for the sector at the start of this year as the outlook for China, another crucial market, remained bleak.

But as fears of a US recession are on the rise after President Donald Trump's recent tariff announcements sent stock markets and the dollar plunging, the sector is bracing for what could be its longest slump in years.

The luxury sector, selling prized items to rich shoppers at high margins, is better positioned than other industries to use its pricing power to shield profits against Trump's tariffs, which would include a 20% charge on European fashion and leather goods and 31% for Swiss-produced watches if fully applied.

Last week, Trump paused most of his tariffs for 90 days, setting a general 10% duty rate instead.