HOW WE DO IT

At Primark we’re proud of our low prices. No matter what your budget, we have a great range of fashion and home accessories at affordable prices. Often we are asked how we can combine low prices with good standards in the supply chain. There’s no secret. Our business is based on doing a few things differently to other brands, which is how we keep prices low:

• We sell a lot of items. This means we’re able to make savings from buying in bulk for all our stores.

• We do very little advertising.

• We design clothes that offer the latest trend but we don’t use expensive hangers, tags or labels.

• We also try to be as efficient as possible when transporting products from factories to stores. This includes things like asking suppliers to pack our t-shirts so they are ready to go straight on shelf.

These decisions mean we make savings at every stage of our supply chain. It’s how we keep prices low. But, the standards we expect are high.

Primark does not own factories and we are very selective about who we work with. The welfare of the people making our products matters to us.

Before we place an order with a new supplier we audit each factory to check whether internationally-recognised standards are being met. Once approved, it’s the job of our Ethical Trade and Environmental Sustainability Team, a group of more than 100 experts based in key sourcing countries, to help factories meet these standards. They audit suppliers at least once a year, sometime more, so that we can get a detailed picture of what conditions are like inside the factory.

As well as working directly with suppliers and their factories, we believe we can play a role alongside other retailers, NGOs and other organisations, to improve ethical and environmental standards in the industry. That’s why we’re a member of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, we committed to Greenpeace’s Detox Campaign in 2014 and are a founding member of the ACT initiative on wages. We’ve also been a member of the Ethical Trading Initiative since 2006 and have achieved the top level ‘leadership’ status since 2011.

Explore this site to find out more.