Primark

Primark Stores Limited (; trading as Penneys in the Republic of Ireland) is an Irish multinational fast fashion retailer with headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. It has stores across Europe and in the United States. The Penneys brand is not used outside of Ireland because it is owned elsewhere by American retailer J. C. Penney.

History

The company's first store, named Penneys and still in operation, was established by Arthur Ryan in June 1969 on behalf of the Weston family (who had founded Associated British Foods in 1935) at 47 Mary Street in Dublin. Success in the Republic of Ireland led to expansion into Northern Ireland, with Penneys opening a large store in Belfast city centre in 1971.

The company subsequently expanded outside of Ireland with a Primark store in Derby, England, in 1973. The company could not use the name "Penneys" in Europe outside Ireland, as it was registered by J. C. Penney. The name "Primark" was then invented to use outside Ireland.

Primark opened its current headquarters in 2015 in a redeveloped Dublin building, Arthur Ryan House, formerly Chapel House."Primark officially opens redeveloped Dublin HQ"
''RTÉ News'', 17 September 2015

In 2019, Primark opened its new flagship store in the former Pavilions Shopping Centre site in Birmingham, England. It is the world’s biggest Primark store at , and across its five floors includes a beauty salon, Disney-themed café and a barbershop. This was supplemented with the world's largest Greggs bakery (trading as ‘Tasty by Greggs’) in February 2022.

In 2021, Primark unveiled a sustainability strategy that sets targets to reduce textile waste, halving CO2 emissions and improving the life of Primark workers.

In November 2022, Primark announced it was going online with a new click-and-collect service. This announcement came after the company lost more than £1 billion in sales during the pandemic, when its stores had to be closed, while the competitors with online stores had smaller or no financial losses. The click-and-collect service was launched as a trial in 25 stores in north-west England, Yorkshire and north Wales for children's products only. However, on the day of launch of the new service, the company's website crashed, causing the issues for people trying to access it.

Products

Primark offers a diverse range of products, including: baby and children's clothing, womenswear, menswear, homeware, accessories, footwear, beauty products and confectionery. The chain sells clothes at prices below those typically charged.

From 2014, Primark began selling makeup products. Primark started selling vegan snacks from January 2018. Laura O' Sullivan, co-founder of Primark, expressed her support of the new snacks.

Along with retailers such as Zara and H&M, Primark contributes to the contemporary fast fashion trend. According to an article about Primark in ''The Economist'', "For many shoppers, Primark has an irresistible offer: trendy clothes at astonishingly low prices. The result is a new and even faster kind of fast fashion, which encourages consumers to buy heaps of items, discard them after a few wears and then come back for another batch of new outfits."

In 2020, Primark launched their Wellness collection which includes 80 eco-conscious products. All of the products are made of organic, sustainable or recycled materials. This is part of the retailer's commitment to be more responsible for its footprint.

Stores

, Primark operates 398 stores in 14 countries.

The company's first store, still in operation, was opened in June 1969 on 47 Mary Street, Dublin under the Penneys brand, which continues to be the company's trading name in the Republic of Ireland. Penneys opened its first store in Northern Ireland in 1971, with a large store in Belfast city centre. The company opened its first store outside of the island of Ireland in Derby, England, in 1973, under the new Primark brand. The company expanded rapidly in the UK in the mid-2000s. In 2005, it bought the Littlewoods retail stores for £409 million, retaining 40 of the 119 stores and selling the rest.

In May 2006, the first Primark store in mainland Europe opened in Madrid, Spain. In December 2008, Primark opened in the Netherlands, followed by Portugal, Germany and Belgium in 2009. Primark opened its first store in Austria on 27 September 2012, in Innsbruck. It expanded to France in 2013, in Marseille. The first Italian store opened in 2014.

In 2015, Primark opened its first United States store in Downtown Crossing, Boston, in the location that was once the flagship store of Filene's, later New York City, Philadelphia, and Danbury.

After 10 years of constructing a chain of around 40 stores in Spain, Primark opened another store in Madrid in October 2015, the second biggest in the chain. In July 2018, it was announced that Primark would open a store in Poland. The largest Primark store opened in Birmingham on 11 April 2019, occupying the former Pavilions Shopping Centre of . On 13 June 2019 Primark expanded to Slovenia with a store in Ljubljana. It has signed a lease for its first stores in Warsaw, Poland, Prague, the Czech Republic, and Bratislava, Slovakia.

In July 2019, Primark announced its U.S. market expansion to Chicago with a three-level flagship location on State Street. The location opened in March 2021 and was its first store in Illinois.

On 23 March 2020, the company announced that they would be closing their 189 UK stores until further notice, as a result of government lockdown during the COVID-19 outbreak. The chain's 153 stores in England re-opened on 15 June 2020. As a result of the lockdown, the company reported a sales loss of £430 million.

On 10 August 2020, Primark opened the first store in Poland in Galeria Młociny, Warsaw, marking the 13th international market for the company. In 2021, Primark opened their second store in Poznań.

In December 2020, Primark said it would lose an additional £220 million in sales as more stores are forced to close under new restrictions to control the spread of COVID-19 in the UK. In January 2021, this figure was raised to over £1 billion.

In June 2021, Primark opened the first store in the Czech Republic in Prague, making it the fourteenth market that Primark has entered. Occupying the area of in the Flow Building on the Wenceslas Square, this store also serves as a flagship store for the region of Central and Eastern Europe. This is also the only store in the region located on a high street instead of a shopping centre.

On 14 September 2022 Primark has opened its second store in Brno, Czechia. This marks the brands 406th store worldwide.

On 15 December 2022 Primark is set to open the first store in Romania in ParkLake Shopping Centre, Bucharest making it the fifteenth market.

The new store in Bratislava, Slovakia was due to open in 2022, however it has been delayed until 2 April 2023. This will be Primark's sixteenth market.

Primark is to open 8 new stores in Italy by the end of 2022.

In 2023, Primark is scheduled to open four more stores in the cities Krakow, Katowice, Wroclaw and Lodz in Poland.

Primark announced that it would invest 100 million euros in Spain and create 1,000 jobs with the opening of at least eight new stores, including one in Toledo, and the enlargement of an existing store within the next two years.

Working practices

In 2006, Primark joined the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), a collaborative organisation bringing together businesses, trades unions and NGOs to work on labour rights issues in their supply chains. ETI members commit to working towards the implementation of a code of conduct based on the International Labour Organization's core conventions.

In December 2008, the UK charity War on Want launched a new report, Fashion Victims II, that showed conditions had not improved in Bangladeshi factories supplying Primark, two years after the charity first visited them.

On 9 January 2009, a supplier was forced by ETI to remove its branding from Primark stores and websites following a BBC/''The Observer'' investigation into the employment practices. The investigation alleged the use of illegal immigrant labour and argued that the workers were paid less than the UK legal minimum wage.

On 16 June 2011, the BBC Trust's Editorial Standards Committee (ESC) published its findings into a ''Panorama'' programme "Primark: On the Rack", broadcast in June 2008. The programme was an undercover investigative documentary examining poor working conditions in Indian factories supplying Primark. Although Primark subsequently stopped doing business with the Indian supplier, the ESC concluded that footage in the programme was 'more likely than not' to have been fabricated. The ESC directed the BBC to make an on-air apology and to ensure that the programme was not repeated or sold to other broadcasters. Primark created a specific website to deal with the issues around the programme.

In 2011 and 2012, Primark achieved 'Leader' status in the Ethical Trading Initiative.

Alleged SOS messages

In June 2013, two labels both stitched with alleged SOS messages were separately found in garments purchased from a store in Swansea, Wales. Primark argued the supply chain showed these label messages were a hoax.

Also in June 2014, a customer from Ireland allegedly found an SOS note wrapped in a prison ID card in the pocket of trousers purchased from a Primark store several years earlier. The letter was written in Chinese and said to report that prisoners were forced to work "like oxen" making fashion clothes for export for 15 hours per day and that the food they were given would not be fit for animals.

A year and a half later an alleged SOS note from a Chinese torture victim was found in socks purchased from Primark.

In December 2018, a bone was found by a customer in a sock purchased in the shop's Colchester branch.

Gallery

File:Edificio Madrid-París (Madrid) 08.jpg, Primark store at Gran Vía in Madrid, Spain, the second largest in the chain
File:Former Lewis's Building, Mosley Street.jpg, Primark in the Former Lewis's Building in Manchester city centre, Manchester, England
File:2017-12-01 Primark, Aqua Shopping Centre, Portimão.JPG, Primark in Aqua Shopping Centre, Portimão, Algarve region, Portugal
File:Interior of the Ridings Centre, Wakefield, West Yorkshire (8th December 2020) 004.jpg, Primark in the Ridings Centre, Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England
File:Primark, The Hague (2019) 02.jpg, alt=, Primark store in The Hague, Netherlands
File:PrimarkMadryt.jpg, alt=, Inside the Primark store at Gran Vía in Madrid.

References

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Associated British Foods
Clothing retailers of Ireland
Clothing companies established in 1969
Retail companies established in 1969
Irish brands
1969 establishments in Ireland