VOCABLE Du 11 juillet au 4 septembre 2019 • 25
- “When people say the high street is dying, actu-
ally the high street is continually innovating,” says
Tim Kelly, the company’s director of new business
development. And while other brands are ex-
perimenting along similar lines, getting custom-
ers physically through the doors matters for Pri-
mark because the economics of selling online are
not in its favour. When a £2.50 T-shirt could cost
three times that to deliver, it
needs the customer to come to
the product, which means its
stores must be enticing. But
experiences are not the only
thing Primark is trialling here. - There is a recycling bin on
every floor, encouraging cus-
tomers to deposit old clothes
for recycling or resale. There
are free water fountains, and a
new denim range made from
sustainable cotton grown with less water, pesti-
cide and fertiliser. For the festival season, the store
is pushing eco-friendly glitter because the ordi-
nary kind creates plastic pollution. The message
is that you can still have fun with fashion, and
they will take care of the guilt for you.
ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS
- When the House of Commons environmental
audit committee published a report on sustainable
fashion last year, examining what big retailers
were doing to limit their impact on the environ-
ment, Primark was ranked alongside M&S in its
top category for engaging with environmental
concerns. Shoppers may not always have time to
decipher labels, but they want to feel their brands
are ethical, and in Birmingham everything from
the “People. Respect. Planet” posters above tills to
“When people
say the high
street is dying,
actually the
high street is
continually
innovating.”
the branded brown paper carriers seems designed
to reassure. All of which leaves the perennial
question: if not by cutting corners, then how does
Primark keep prices so low? KEEPING PRICES LOW
- Kelly says the secret lies in doing things differ-
ently. “We don’t do big marketing campaigns,” he
says. “We don’t have online
shopping, or the cost of a deliv-
ery network that goes with it.
We save on small stuff – our
packaging is quite simple –
and we do believe that all the
way through our supply chain
we do make a difference. Our
focus has always been on our
customer, on our pricing.”
9. It may sound suspiciously
like corporate greenwashing,
but Primark is no cowboy operator, says the retail
analyst Richard Hyman. Having started in 1969
with one store in Dublin, where it is known as
Penneys, it has grown its empire of 371 stores
across Britain, Europe and the US slowly and
cautiously. “It is a carefully managed business. It
would be easy to assume that it’s ‘pile-it-high,
sel l-it-cheap’. But it is not any of those things. It’s
careful about what it does, and it knows exactly
what it’s doing.” l - Judging by the number of branded brown paper
bags swinging from arms or hooked over push-
chair handles in Birmingham city centre, she is
not alone. If the high street is dying, then Pri-
mark, which celebrated 50 years in business in
June, appears to be immortal. Sales rose by 4% in
the six months to March, even as established
brands, such as Debenhams and LK Bennett, were
going to the wall. And it is remarkable that the
biggest British fashion retailer in Britain by vol-
ume (if not by value) has done it all without ven-
turing into online shopping. If you want Primark,
you still have to get off the sofa and buy it – and
millions happily oblige.
“EXPERIENTIAL RETAIL”
- Behind a sliding door at one end of a chang-
ing room lies the Birmingham store’s “snap-
and-share” room. Groups of friends can take in
as many clothes as they want, set the lighting
and music, and then film and photograph
themselves on their phones before uploading it
all to social media. - It is free marketing for Primark, essentially
using customers as influencers, but it is also
about putting sociability back into shopping. Hen
parties love it, but so, apparently, do gaggles of
older women, from a generation that grew up
killing hours messing around a Boots makeup
counter with their mates. The store is designed
to feel like somewhere you could linger on for
lunch or to get your nails done in the in-store
salon. Welcome to “experiential retail”, or shop-
ping reinvented for people who want to do more
than just click a button. - branded marked with a logo (here, the name of the
shop) / to swing, swung, swung to move from side to
side / to hook over to suspend on / pushchair baby
buggy, stroller / handle part of an object used to hold/
carry/open/push it / high street main shopping street in a
town / then in that case / to appear (to) to seem / to
rise, rose, risen to increase / even as while at the same
time / established well-known, reputable, famous / such
as like (for example)... / to go, went, gone to the wall to
go bankrupt / to venture into to start a business
enterprise in / to get, got, got off to leave, to get up from
/ to oblige to indulge, to do sth with enthusiasm. - sliding door automatic door / changing room space in
a shop for trying on clothes / to lie, lay, lain to be /
snap-and-share here, for taking photos and posting
them on social media / to set, set, set to arrange, to
adjust, to choose / to upload to put online. - customer client / to be about to be a question of / to
put, put, put back into to bring back, to reintegrate / so
[...] do... also / gaggle (noisy) group / to mess around to
play around, here, to look around and try various beauty
products / Boots large health/beauty/pharmacy chain in
the UK / makeup cosmetics / counter here, section of a
shop / mate friend / to design to plan out architecturally,
to organise / to linger on to wait around / to get, got,
got one’s nails done to have a manicure.
5. actually in reality, in fact / while at the same time as /
along similar lines in a similar way / to get, got, got
through the doors to convince sb to come into shops / to
matter to be important / economics financial
considerations / to deliver to transport (goods) to a client
/ enticing attractive / to trial to test.
6. bin container / denim made of the material used to
make jeans / range collection / sustainable ecological /
fertiliser substance with nitrates which makes soil more
fertile / to push to promote / eco-friendly ecological /
glitter miniscule pieces of sparkly decorative material /
ordinary regular, normal / kind sort / they will take care
of the guilt for you they will remove the feeling of
culpability for you.
7. concern worry, anxiety / (the) House of Commons
lower house of Parliament in the UK / report study / to
rank to class, to position / alongside next to / M&S =
Marks & Spencer major British chain of shops / to
engage with to become involved in / to decipher to
decode / label paper attached to a product with
information on it / above over / till cashbox to register
transactions in a shop /
to seem to appear / perennial perpetual, recurrent / to
cut, cut, cut corners to do sth in the quickest and least
expensive way.- network system of linked things / to save to
economise / packaging materials used to wrap goods /
quite really / all the way through from the start to the
finish of / supply chain distribution channel / focus
priority. - to sound to seem / suspiciously strangely, curiously,
dubiously / corporate greenwashing marketing to make a
company appear more ecological than it really is / cowboy
operator dishonest company with an unscrupulous way of
doing business / across all over / cautiously hesitatingly,
prudently / carefully with caution / to assume to suppose,
to presume / pile-it-high, sell-it-cheap selling large
amounts of products at low prices.
To go on a hen night /
to have a hen party
(§ 1) une soirée entre femmes ou
filles, surtout avant le mariage pour
enterrer sa vie de jeune fille
Et pour les hommes et les garçons,
on dira to have a stag night / a
stag party.SUR LE BOUT DE LA LANGUEUne suggestion? Ecrivez-nous sur [email protected]Primark outlet in Chelmsford, Essex. (High Level/REX/Shutterstock/SIPA)
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