Word: stores
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...recent weekday in May, Primark's flagship Oxford Street store in London bustled with shoppers snapping up $3.20 T shirts, $1.60 turquoise tank tops and $21 pink chiffon dresses. The fitting rooms were so crammed that some patrons tried on skirts and shirts in front of mirrors on the store floor. Crisis? What crisis? In the six months to February, revenues at Primark, an Ireland-based company that is the U.K.'s second largest clothing retailer, surged 18% to $1.8 billion, with same-store sales up 5%. Operating profits, at $200 million, jumped...
...Sure, discount stores tend to withstand downturns. But since the slowdown began, two of Primark's competitors - MK One and Select - have been restructured under creditor-appointed managers. What makes Primark different - and keeps customers interested - is a keen eye for fashion trends worthy of a more expensive retailer. Devotees call the store Primani or Pradamark in honor of its acute fashion sense. And hot styles are delivered with commendable speed. New products can take as little as six weeks to hit the hangers. Primark has bridged "the gap between sheer value and fast fashion," says Robert Clark of London...
...What's more, Primark in recent years has invested in upgrading its outlets so the shop floor looks as hip as the clothes. "Primark has been moving into big stores that look as good as any middle-market retailer," says Maureen Hinton, lead analyst at U.K. retail consultants Verdict Research. "If you can pick up a dress for GBP 15 [$24] in a place that looks as good as any other High Street store, it makes the value even better." Even in hard times, it pays to keep up appearances...
...like blood. It needs to keep moving around to keep the economy going," he says, noting that when money is spent elsewhere-at big supermarkets, non-locally owned utilities and other services such as on-line retailers-"it flows out, like a wound." By shopping at the corner store instead of the big box, consumers keep their communities from becoming what the NEF calls "ghost towns" (areas devoid of neighborhood shops and services) or "clone towns", where Main Street now looks like every other Main Street with the same fast-food and retail chains...
...circulation speed, in the area. The idea is that if currency circulates more quickly, the money passes through more hands-and more people have had the benefit of the money and what it has purchased for them. "If you're buying local and not at a chain or branch store, chances are that store is not making a huge profit," says David Morris, Vice President of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a nonprofit economic research and development organization based in Minneapolis and Washington, D.C. "That means more goes into input costs-supplies and upkeep, printing, advertising, paying employees-which...