My bruises have bruises. I'm blaming the cheerleading. Review writing is a whole lot less dangerous....
My bruises have bruises. I'm blaming the cheerleading. Review writing is a whole lot less dangerous.
Member since:08.07.2001
Reviews:594
Members who trust:255
Arrggh, need a ? or two there...
Primark is a part of Associated British Foods plc. (ABF), a company whose other constituents include Allied Bakeries Limited, British Sugar Plc, R Twining & Company Limited, and The Ryvita Company Limited. Why they took it upon themselves to include a fashion store in their portfolio I’ll never know.
My local branch is the Manchester Market Street one, and it was there that I found myself last week. In most Primark stores you’ll find the following departments :
Womenswear, childrenswear and menswear offer the same types of items, although naturally tailored to the relevant body shape and size. There are formal items and casual items, sportswear and going-out wear, all presented in a wide range of sizes (generally 10 – 20 for womenswear I believe) and colours. Prices were nice and reasonable – jeans
for £10 or less, tops from £4 or £5. Lingerie includes ridiculously cheap separates and sets - bras from £2.50, knickers from less than £1 - although some of the designs leave a little to be desired. Footwear (posh word for shoes) is a section I wouldn’t buy from for fear that the chosen items would fall apart a week later, but the hosiery section is lovely and cheap – 5 pairs of trainer socks for £2.50 being just one of the offers I took advantage of. Household textiles is jut a homewear department, offering vases and photo frames and soap dishes to tart up your house with and guess what, yet again we’re looking at low prices. Accessories include scarves, jewelry and hair accessories, but I speak from experience when I say you shouldn’t buy the 50p butterfly clips.
Is there a catch? Yep. I used to work in a shop directly opposite Lewises. When they closed, the building wasn’t empty all that long before Primark moved in, but our store manager didn’t mind at all. In fact, in an annual report on our trading levels he commented on how good it was the Lewises had left and been replaced by Primark who, after all, were hardly going to be competition to us…… This is one area that could be the chain’s downfall. Within 2 weeks of opening, the townsfolk were already nattering about the debatable quality of their stock. True or not, you only have to have enough people saying it to lose a lot of your customers.
Primark’s supposed target audience is the “young fashion conscious under 35's”. This is all fine apart from the distinct lack of fashionable items they have in stock. For parents and grandparents they have a decent enough selection of cardies and skirts, but for teenagers – late 20 year olds, they’re hardly *the* place to go shopping.
Despite this, I do shop there occasionally. Last week I got 11 items for £12 in total – and you can’t deny that’s good value. The socks should last, and if the other things fall apart in 6 months or a year, I won’t really mind as it’ll give me an excuse to go shopping again. Primark don’t have huge sales though, so despite being January none of this was reduced. I’d been looking at some Jasper Conran stuff in Debs a quarter of an hour earlier and would have shelled out the whole £6 (£20 item reduced, blue crossed and then staff discounted) had they had my size. Primark’s stuff fitted though, in fact they had ample supplies of all sizes although they do do that annoying “10-12, 14-16” thing rather than having individually sized items.
The store near here is well laid out, but then they have a decent sized building to work with. When I went each of the displays was immaculate, with jeans neatly folded and tops in size order. While this is a good thing, it seems they aren’t quit sure how to distribute their staff, since there were 4 times as many sorting and folding as there were serving at the tills and dressing rooms.
They have a website (primark.co.uk) but it’s pretty unimpressive, basically listing what you need to get onto their management trainee scheme, and a store locator to find the one nearest to you.
It’s a case of hit and miss as far as the styles are concerned – some make the 60s look modern, but some are ok, and one thing I bought even earned a “that’s pretty sexy” this morning, although it was followed by the words “even if it is from Primark”. It’s Matalan or TK Max without the big brand names, and with a fraction of the quality, but at the prices you pay you can’t really complain.
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They have a few fashionable things in there, yest they had lots of the gypsy skirts n really nice going out tops, all under £10 obviously, so you don't mind if they only last the summer xx
purebitch 07.03.2002 16:24
I recently went to Primark and bought a whole outfit, for £24.00. That was a bargain. Handbag and shoes included. I wrote an op on Etam, but I didn't have enough money to go there. I was impressed with Primark. Your op was good, well done.
MRSCANADA 03.03.2002 09:27
I wanted to tell you I enjoyed reading your first page of reviews.
LL
Feb 6th, 2002
(Mar 2nd, 2002)
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