LONDON, Sept 22 (Reuters): Confident it can crack the $300 billion US clothing and shoes market where many other foreign retailers have failed, Britain's Primark is ready to raise its bet on the country by securing new sources of fast fashion in central America.
Primark, whose trendy clothes at rock-bottom prices have taken UK shoppers by storm, opened in Boston in 2015 and now has nine stores in the northeast, all served by a warehouse in Pennsylvania that could still serve three times as many stores.
It has invested 250 million pounds ($313 million) in the United States, achieved a critical mass of sales and has a four-year education under its belt on a crowded market that is battling to stay afloat in the face of rapid e-commerce growth.
Now its owner, London-listed conglomerate Associated British Foods, is convinced Primark's disciplined store-by-store approach can succeed in a country that has been a graveyard for some of Britain's biggest retailers, including Marks & Spencer, Tesco and most recently Philip Green's Topshop.
"I believe that the US will be a winner for Primark," John Bason, AB Foods' finance director, told Reuters.
That confidence is underlined by a move to create a supply chain closer to the US market.
Primark currently sources all its clothes for the United States from its traditional supplier countries of China, India, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Vietnam and Turkey - a costly exercise as stock is freighted across the Pacific, through the Panama Canal and up the US eastern seaboard.
The plan now is to tap suppliers from countries in central America, such as Guatemala, Costa Rica and Mexico.
"We're getting to that point now, with the sales level that we've got in the US already," said Bason, a 20-year veteran of AB Foods.
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