Primark targets June 15 reopening for majority of stores

Primark, which has already opened shops in other countries as coronavirus lockdowns have been lifted, said that performance in those branches has been “reassuring and encouraging”, although they are still down like for like.

At present, Primark is trading in 112 branches, which account for 34% of selling space. Parent ABF reported: “Primark is now working to reopen all its stores in England on June 15, following the recent announcement by the UK government.

“At that date we expect to be operating from 281 stores representing 79% of total selling space. We await further guidance for the stores in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland, and anticipate openings in late June.”

The retailer said: “Trading in our reopened stores has been both reassuring and encouraging, with customer queues outside most stores and, once in store, spending on larger basket sizes.

“However, the trading results since reopening were delivered over a very short period, will have been influenced by a number of specific factors and may not be indicative of a long-term pattern.

“Cumulative sales since reopening, on a like-for-like basis, were down on the same period last year in aggregate.”

Primark has introduced a variety of health and safety measures in stores, such as social distancing. The retailer said that, as long as social distancing is necessary, it will “restrict the capacity of our busiest stores from achieving their aggregate pre-Covid-19 sales densities”.

Checkouts are a particular bottleneck, but Primark said: “Our initial view is that the implementation of social distancing could only affect sales to some extent in higher-density stores, which represented some 10 to 20% of pre-Covid-19 total sales.”