Primark are one of the few high street retailers that don’t sell online. They have a website, but it’s viewing only. The only thing you can buy from Primark online is a gift voucher. Now, Primark have taken to twitter saying please don’t buy on Amazon in response to a story in the press suggesting that shoppers should buy online.
We do not have a commercial partnership with Amazon and any Primark products which appear on the site are being re-sold by third parties, at higher prices. We encourage our customers to visit us in our stores to find the best value.
— Primark (@Primark) October 15, 2019
Primark state that they don’t have a direct agreement with Amazon and products offered for sale on Amazon are from merchants, typically with higher prices than products available in store.
As always there are two sides to every story – Primark often sell out of popular products pretty fast and that’s especially true of their Disney range. Plus not everyone lives within spitting distance of a Primark store and they don’t even offer click and collect, your only option is to find your nearest store, drive there, and hope what you want to purchase is in stock.
Merchants offering Primark goods are naturally offering them at a mark up but some consumers are happy to pay more to avoid going to the high street, searching a store and then joining the inevitable long queue to pay. A couple of clicks online and you can secure your purchase and it’ll arrive shortly at home. Other consumers will be outraged that merchants charge a premium for the service and it’s true that many will wipe a store clean of product in order to secure enough stock to make it worthwhile to sell online – especially Primark’s Disney range.
The press has missed one point though, most of the Primark products you can buy on Amazon are also available on eBay… just at slightly lower prices although still more than the products originally cost in store.
3 Responses
Correct me if I am wrong but is it not against Amazon selling policy to buy items and sell them like that.
If so could Primark not simply get the items delisted?
Primark (as do numerous other High Street Fashion / Clothing chains also offers their overstocks, end of ranges / seasons etc to legitimate UK Wholesalers whom specialise in supplying the smaller trader including Amazon and eBay third party sellers.
The usual proviso is that before resale branding/labels must be removed to prevent return to the stores where originally sold.
Some items may still be live stock available still in branches and can often be sold 3p cheaper than the original price instore!!
Correction – can often be sold cheaper than the original price instore (don’t know where the 3p crept in)!!