Primark’s Paul Marchant: Anyone who thinks shopping in person is over is naïve

Marchant said that claiming covid-19 has “speeded up an inevitable and permanent switch” to online shopping was “wrong” and oversimplified “a complex issue”.

He added: “Anyone who thinks that shopping in person is over or outdated would be naive.”

Primark suffered tumbling sales during the two national lockdowns as it suffered from its lack of a transactional online business. During the period its stores were closed, the fashion giant lost around £375m a month in revenues, but it has continually refused to launch an ecommerce operation.

Following the crisis, the retailer has commissioned research from policy and research company Public First to highlight the role of high streets in peoples’ lives. The survey showed that consumers were “desperate to see their towns and high streets thrive again” and that funding must be directed to rejuvenate high streets, Marchant said.

Writing in The Times today, Marchant said: “If the lockdowns have any silver lining, it has been helping us all to realise what really matters — physical connection with friends and family.

“This is why since reopening in England we have seen people turn out late at night with friends to shop at Primark and buy for Christmas. These trips are pre-planned, a source of fun and excitement, a celebration of new-found freedom to shop in physical surroundings.

“Further, our research shows that ‘going shopping’ is extremely important to our social lives and identities across demographics. It is true of young and old. Shopping matters.

“The question is: how can we help the many shops that are viable to survive and thrive? How do we bring town centres and high streets back to life again? Not to resurrect the past, but to build the future?”

Marchant argued that offering support to shops “should be top of the levelling-up agenda” for the Government and said: “Every time a shop shuts an alarm bell should ring in Whitehall.”

Marchant applauded the Government for offering retailers a business rates holiday and extending opening hours over Christmas, but urged prime minister Boris Johnson to do more to help physical retailers.

He called for Sunday trading laws to be relaxed, a “zero VAT” period to be introduced and parking charges to be better managed. He also suggested now was the time to launch a ‘Shop Out to Help Out’ scheme - something Retail Week’s executive editor George MacDonald called for back in August - to provide retail with a shot in the arm similar to the one received by the hospitality industry during the summer.

Marchant added: “What we’ve seen in our stores and communities in the past week is that people are desperate to see their towns and high streets thrive again, to make them places that people feel proud of once more.

“Funding has to be directed at helping a rejuvenation on our high streets and, in turn, lifting the spirits of our communities.”