“The crisis in purchasing power confirms our business model,” said Christine Loizy, the managing director of the Irish clothing discounter Primark in France, on the occasion of the opening of a 3,500 square meter store in Saint-Etienne.
“Things are going very well for us in this very difficult time for everyone, although the crisis has now lasted for a year.[…] We’re winning back customers who can no longer afford more expensive products,” she told AFP. In the 2022 financial year, which ended in mid-September, the subsidiary of Associated British Food (ABF) increased its sales by 8 percent worldwide, according to its own figures.
“There is no end in sight to this development, as our offer appeals to people who are very careful with their budget and still have to dress and who want fashionable products,” says the France managing director.
“Brexit is not affecting us, things are going very well in Ireland and we are having very good results in England […] as well as in Italy, Spain and France where we are gaining market share because customers are more budget conscious,” she added. A “small-margin, big-volume strategy,” “lean” operating account, no ad spend, and responsive sales “linked to fashion trends” are the “secrets” of the Primark model, she explained.
“After the doldrums due to the pandemic, our manufacturing companies, which are based in Southeast Asia like the entire global textile industry, have resumed a fast pace,” she said. The Saint-Étienne location is the twenty-third that Primark has opened in France in less than ten years. It cost 12 million euros and employs 140 people. By the end of 2023, four more branches are planned in France (in Mulhouse, Rouen, Grenoble and Nantes) and the area of the store in Lyon will be doubled to 6,000 square meters, according to management.
On Friday, around 1,500 people poured through the doors of the Saint-Etienne store in the first 30 minutes after it opened. Around 20 environmental activists demonstrated outside the doors against Primark’s fast fashion model. They criticized the textile discounter for “its environmentally harmful textiles of poor quality”, and the “wage conditions of workers on the Indian subcontinent” and the “destruction of local trade in the fragile ready-made clothing industry”. (AFP)
This article was published on FashionUnited.fr. Translation and editing: Barbara Russ