H&M competitor turns: from a store – to an online store without a buy button

British clothing giant Primark, which sells fashion clothes at low prices, has long hated e-commerce. The company said it cannot keep prices low via e-commerce. without customers having to go to physical stores. Logistics with picking, packing and returns are supposed to be expensive compared to merchandise prices.

However, in January 2019, we received the first indications that the management at Primark was beginning to think in other directions. The company admitted that it was considering an online project in some form.

Also Read: Primark Discount Series Rethink – Think E-Commerce Now

Later that year, Primark came out and pleaded with its customers not to buy their clothes through Amazon. The company’s feeling that e-commerce was blowing them in the neck was pretty palpable. Amazon’s third-party sellers position and sell Primark clothing online. The clothes seemed to leave the virtual shelves even though the prices were higher than in the physical stores.

Launch a virtual store window

In May during the pandemic year 2020, Primark sales were also reported to drop from nearly SEK 8 billion per month to zero per month, as all physical stores were forced to close. An unfortunate development, of course, and something that probably made management miss once again the lack of an e-commerce channel to access, despite any higher costs.

And now, on April 7, 2022, the news is that Primark has launched a “virtual window shop”. They still avoid full-blown e-commerce and what they launched is not a working online store. But it is not far from now.

This new location and new features represent an important step forward for our business and represent a change in what digital technology means to Primark. The new site also gives us a great opportunity to reach a whole new set of customers, enabling us to showcase a wide range of products we offer when they are browsing the internet to help them attract more into our stores, Primarks CEO Paul Marchant says in a comment on the new site.

Enabled for the first time

The company thus refuses to continue e-commerce but at the same time announces that new functions such as customer accounts and the ability to log in and create wish lists will soon be introduced. The site will also roll out to all of the company’s markets this year, but where it started is in the UK.

Which Browse the new site Maybe he thinks it’s e-commerce. But this is not the case. When an item is checked out, the user is only met by a button to view the stock balance in the store.

We know our customers want to browse the latest collections online and be able to check availability, which our new website is making possible for the first time, says Paul Marchant.

Primark has 400 stores in 14 countries around the world with more than 65,000 employees. The first store opened in 1969 in Dublin, Ireland.

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