​Primark won’t raise prices, no worries over Christmas stock, company promises

By

Nigel TAYLOR

Published
Sep 14, 2021

Primark is standing by its value status. That means there’ll be no prices rises at the clothing and lifestyle retailer despite the inevitable pressure on supply chain costs. That’s according to Primark parent company ABF’s finance boss John Bason.

Bason has reassured shoppers they will not pay more for its clothes despite seeing inflationary pressure as “port and container freight disruption” has caused supply issues when transporting its products made in Asia and other regions.

Although the consumer giant also said it’s experiencing “some delays” to autumn/winter season inventory as a result, Bason said the group has “no worries” about stock levels for Christmas and this is not expected to impact customers.

“There has been supply chain disruption but our team has worked incredibly hard to mitigate this so I don’t anticipate this being an issue for customers,” he confirmed.

“We are definitely seeing a lot of inflationary pressures in different parts of our supply chain, but there is absolutely no intention to put prices up in Primark because of it. Lower staff costs and operating costs have helped us to offset this”.

However, Primark did admit Covid-19 restrictions had “held back” the company’s progress on developing its pipeline of new stores, with difficulties in assessing and evaluating new sites and negotiating with potential landlords, it said.

Despite those problems, the group upgraded its profit guidance on Monday despite sales having been below expectations after Covid isolation affected customer sentiment in July.