On April 11th 2020, the world’s biggest Primark, situated in Birmingham’s Bullring, turned one year old. However, the anniversary was marked with an empty shop floor and deserted tills, a sharp contrast to the bustling atmosphere of the grand opening, a year before. In 2019, at the store’s opening, 5,000 people piled through the doors at 9.45am to celebrate the unveiling of all 160,000 ft and five floors of the biggest Primark store in the world. Now, the doors to the shop remain firmly closed, adorned with a notice stating ‘Store closed until further notice. With the health and wellbeing of our colleagues and customers front of mind, we’ve made the decision to close this store. Thank you for your cooperation. The Primark Team.’

Primark, unlike most highstreet brands, does not offer an online shopping service, and instead relies on people buying clothes from the physical stores. With the stores having to shut due to the national government lockdown, the retailer no doubt will suffer substantial financial losses due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Chloe Collins, senior retail analyst at GlobalData told Drapers, ‘Primark’s lack of a transactional website has placed it under additional pressure in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. The retailer has no way to make up the £650m net sales a month it will lose globally from closed stores.’