“We love brick and mortar”
CEO Breege O’Donoghue confirmed the news to TextilWirtschaft at the opening of a new 6,400 sqm store in Braunschweig. The 5-floor store is located in the City Point shopping center and follows the opening of another German Primark in Kaiserslautern last week. “As a first step, we will present 70 % of our fall / winter collection, mentioning the price and offering additional information, on Primark.com”, O’Donoghue said. Its current summer collection is barely visible online.
O’Donoghue refused to share a lot of information when asked whether this step would (logically) lead to online sales: “We love brick and mortar”, she said. Primark is one of the few large fashion retailers operating without a web shop, as it feels its prices and profit margins are too low to enable a profit online: “If we deduct the costs of an online channel, we would be left with nothing”, supply chain director Martin White said in 2013.
George Weston, CEO at Primark’s owner Associated British Foods, also said that “communication is more important to Primark than eCommerce”. It does not seem Primark has changed its mind since then: the internet serves as a showroom, to prepare people for a visit to the actual store, but it will not be an additional sales channel (yet).
