Primark makes online move

Popular affordable high street retailer Primark is making its long-awaited move into online selling

Primark has announced that 2,000 children’s goods will be offered through a click-and-collect trial which will run out of 25 shops in the north west of England.

The retailer’s previous resistance to selling online hit the company hard as stores were forced to close during COVID.

Despite the move, Primark’s parent company has insisted that the trial is not part of a wider plan to enable all of company's products to be sold online.

Consumers

George Weston, chief executive of Associated British Foods (ABF), told the BBC that customers will “never see” the entire Primark range available for click and collect, nor any of it available for home delivery.

Melissa Minkow, director of retail strategy at digital consultancy CI&T, said: “Primark offering online ordering is massive, as the retailer had maintained for a while that it would be strictly brick and mortar. Considering how price-sensitive consumers have been forced to become, an affordable retailer like Primark increasing its accessibility is a helpful move to shoppers. If Primark didn’t innovate to match shoppers’ buying behaviours, the brand would risk obsolescence."