Eyes on US prize, Primark considers Central American suppliers

LONDON: Confident it can crack the US$300 billion U.S. clothing and shoes market where many other foreign retailers have failed, Britain's Primark is ready to raise its bet on the country by securing new sources of fast fashion in central America.

"I believe that the U.S. will be a winner for Primark," John Bason, AB Foods' finance director, told Reuters.AdvertisementPrimark currently sources all its clothes for the United States from its traditional supplier countries of China, India, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Vietnam and Turkey - a costly exercise as stock is freighted across the Pacific, through the Panama Canal and up the U.S eastern seaboard.

Founded by the late Arthur Ryan in Dublin in 1969, Primark trades from 373 stores in 12 countries, turning over 7.5 billion pounds and making 843 million pounds of profit in its 2017-18 financial year, a near fourfold increase in ten years - all achieved without venturing into online shopping. That would threaten value fashion retailers like Old Navy, American Eagle and Target on their own turf, and pitch it against Sweden's H&M, which trades from 578 stores in the United States, and Spain's Inditex, which has 102.

Bason said a decision to downsize three Primark stores - Freehold Raceway in New Jersey, Danbury Fair in Connecticut and King of Prussia in Pennsylvania - was critical to fine tuning its U.S. model.

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