Primark is set to lose a further £1 billion in sales by the end of February 2021 write Jolly and Wood (2021) and I can think of one main reason for its huge losses. NO E-COMMERCE. The retail giant even refused to put its product line online for people to shop during the lockdown.
John Bason, the finance director of Associated British Foods (ABF) which is the owner of Primark, said “You can’t get what we offer elsewhere, we are giving people what they want” – which is true. Another store does not exactly spring to mind when I think of a fashionable and low-priced clothing retailer, leaving Primark as the only one, which is why it has done so well.
Statista gave some interesting insight into e-commerce in the UK (I will leave a downloadable link below). The document stated that in the UK fashion e-commerce was down 27% in November 2020 but also went on to say how 56% of the UK population shifted to online purchasing. Primark do not use e-commerce because it aims to keep and maintain its low prices for its customers, and it has never needed to diversify into an online store. The shift of the UK population throughout the global pandemic (which resulted in 84% of the UK shifting to online shopping) should have provided some ‘food for thought’ for the retail giant as it most likely would not have incurred such a hit in sales.
The Digital Marketing Institute write about the benefits of e-commerce and the main point which stood out to me was ‘Staying Competitive’ – ironic right? Primark is a global retailer! If you were in Bason’s shoes would you invest more into Primark’s e-commerce presence? Let us know.
Another quick point I want to highlight is that in a guardian article by Jolly and Butler (2020) they write how Primark will reopen all of its brick-and-mortar stores on June 15th – what do you think? Lets speak in the comments!
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