Primark is an international clothing retailer. Let’s see some interesting facts and trivia about it!
1.It is a subsidiary of Associated British Foods and is headquartered in Dublin
2. The company’s first store was opened by Arthur Ryan on behalf of the Weston family in June 1969 in Mary Street, Dublin, under the name Penneys.
3. Success in Ireland led to expansion to the United Kingdom, and the company opened a large store in Belfast City Centre in 1971 and one in Derby, England, in 1973.
4. The company could not use the name “Penneys” in Europe outside Ireland because J. C. Penney had the name registered.
5. The name “Primark” was then invented to use outside Ireland.
6. Primark opened its current international headquarters in 2015 in a redeveloped Dublin building, Arthur Ryan House, formerly Chapel House
7. Primark offer a diverse range of products, including newborn and children’s clothing, women’s wear, men’s wear, home ware, accessories, footwear, beauty products and confectionery. The company sells clothes at the low cost end of the market below average prices.
8. 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: amazing trendy clothes at amazingly low prices.
9. The result is a new and even faster kind of fast fashion, which forces consumers to buy heaps of items sometimes even the same ones to use when the first ones worn out, discard them after a few wears and then come back for another batch of new outfits.”
10. Primark have created a cosmetics line called “PS Pro” which has been praised by many beauty bloggers for its high quality and low price.
11. Primark own over 290 stores.
12. The largest Primark store is located on Market Street, Manchester, England, occupying 155,000 sq ft (14,400 m2) of retail space across three floors.
13. Primark expanded rapidly in the UK in the mid-2000s. In 2005 they bought the Littlewoods retail stores for £409m,retaining 40 of the 119 stores and selling the rest.
14. In May 2006, the first Primark store outside Ireland and the United Kingdom opened in Madrid, Spain. After 10 years of constructing a chain around 40 stores in Spain, Primark opened another store in Madrid in October 2015, the second biggest in the chain
15. In December 2008, Primark opened in the Netherlands, followed in 2009 by Portugal, Germany and Belgium. Primark opened its first store in Austria on 27 September 2012 in Innsbruck.
16. Primark operates stores in the following countries:
Country Number of stores
United Kingdom 179
Spain 44
Republic of Ireland 37
Germany 22
Netherlands 18
France 10
Portugal 9
United States 7
Austria 5
Belgium 5
Italy 3
17. In 2006, Primark joined the Ethical Trading Initiative, a collaborative organisation bringing together businesses, trades unions and NGOs to work on labour rights issues in their supply chains.
18. ETI members commit to working towards the implementation of a code of conduct based on the International Labour Organisation’s core conventions.
19. 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.
20. 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.
21. The investigation alleged use of illegal immigrant labour and argued that the workers were paid less than the UK legal minimum wage.
22. 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.
23. 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.
24. 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.
25. In 2011 and 2012, Primark achieved ‘Leader’ status in the Ethical Trading Initiative
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