Primark set for US launch

Primark – the UK’s most successful retailer of cheap clothing – will open its first US store in Boston next week.

With 287 stores across the UK and Ireland – and in several continental European countries – the UK’s biggest discounter is looking to the US to maintain its stellar growth rate – not that it is too shabby right now, with sales up 12 per cent in the latest quarter.

Primark is confident American consumers will embrace its $10 jeans and $3.50 tshirts as eagerly as their contemporaries on the other side of the Atlantic.

The Boston store will open on September 10, to be followed by another seven in the northeastern US. Connecticut, Staten Island in New York and the King of Prussia mall in Pennsylvania are on the immediate list.

“We deliberately located these first stores in locations where there’s a high footfall already, because we are aware that the consumer awareness of Primark is low,” said John Bason, CFO of Primark’s parent Associated British Foods.

Some of the new Primark stores will be located in space formerly occupied by struggling department store network Sears. But while Primark has taken over space, its stores will be standalone premises with their own entrances, not concessions in Sears stores.

Bason says taking over Sears space allowed it to get footprints of more than 70,000 sqft.

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