High street fashion retailer Primark has announced it is extending its click-and-collect trial to London.
Following a successful trial where the service was launched in 25 stores last year, shoppers in London will be able to browse through the high street retailers’ range of childrenswear online and collect from one of its 32 stores.
“We’re really encouraged by how the trial has landed with customers, who tell us they value the choice and convenience click-and-collect is offering them,” Primark CEO Paul Marchant said.
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“We’re also seeing strong demand for the service outside the trial region and it’s helping us reach new customers too.
“This gives us the confidence to take this trial to the next level and expand it further to more stores to understand how the service can work for a broader range of customers. We’ll continue to monitor the trial closely as we look to complement the experience and offer we have in our stores.”
The click-and-collect trial service brings Primark’s total number of trial stores to 57.
This comes as Primark saw a 19% rise in sales in its first half of the year, claiming it saw “very good footfall and margin better than expected”.
In the 24 weeks to 4 March 2023, the company saw “strong” like-for-like sales driven by price and volume. It also saw an adjusted operating profit of £351 million for the period, as it increased its operating profit margin to 8.3%.
The fast-fashion retailer added: “At Primark, we remain cautious about the resilience of consumer spending in the face of ongoing inflation in the cost of living and higher interest rates.
“We chose not to recover all the input cost inflation in Primark and actions on price in our food businesses lagged input cost inflation as usual, and margin declined in the first half as a result.
“Given the extent of inflation, this was to be expected and we regard this level of profitability as satisfactory in the circumstances while acknowledging that there is more work to do on margin recovery.”
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