When the Irish deep discounter Primark opened its new Herald Square flagship in New York last week—in what had been a purpose-built Old Navy location—it may have been the first time many area shoppers and retail observers had even seen one of their stores.
It won’t be the last.
The irony of the brand taking over the space from one of its old-school competitors should not be lost on retail watchers everywhere. Primark represents the next wave of fashion and home retailing, with a sensibility that goes beyond the fast-fashion model practiced by the likes of H&M and Zara.
With its size, more-upscale merchandise presentations, key licensed brands like Disney, and ability to move products from concept to store shelves faster than just about anybody else in the game, Primark is redefining the prevailing rules of retail.
And it’s not just making moves in apparel and fashion accessories, either. While those categories dominate the sales floor, Primark has a well-defined home assortment that—depending on the store—can include bed and bath textiles, nonelectric housewares, tabletop, and home decor gifts. Home-adjacent categories like luggage are also well represented in the stores, including the new Manhattan location.
A little Primark primer for those who haven’t been paying attention: The retailer is part (for now, at least) of the $25 billion–strong Associated British Foods, a conglomerate that operates mostly in the wholesale grocery business. Originally a bakery business founded in the U.K. in 1935, ABF opened its first retail store in Dublin in 1969 using the brand name Penneys. (There’s no relation to JCPenney in the U.S.) In the decades since, it has expanded the retail side of its business throughout Europe, opening some 200 locations under the Primark name, even as it continues to go by Penneys in Ireland.
The chain entered the U.S. market in 2015, opening its first store in Boston. Since then, it has slowly but surely expanded, using the Northeast as its base but moving as far west as Chicago, and south as Nashville and the Miami and Houston areas. It now has 40 stores in the U.S., with 9 in New York state, including the new Herald Square location.
ABF announced last month it was spinning off Primark—its only retail business—by the end of next year. In 2025, retail represented about half of the parent company’s total revenues and, while it hasn’t broken out its U.S. business, ABF reported about $3 billion in revenue in “The Americas.” That’s a pretty good working number for its only retail business here—and that was when Primark only had about 20 locations in the U.S. Already that number has doubled, and the company said it expects to have 60 domestic stores by the end of 2026.
Across the street from Macy’s and within a long cash register receipt’s distance of H&M, Zara and an urban-model Target, the brand is calling its new 34th Street store a flagship—and rightly so. At four floors and 54,000 square feet, it is bigger than a typical Primark location and runs the full gamut of merchandise classifications from women’s to men’s to children’s.
The home area is on the top floor, and while many other Primark stores have textiles and housewares assortments, this one is light in those areas, with only beach towels and water bottles as part of its opening week mix. It’s possible that because this store may be targeting tourists and out-of-town visitors more than locals, it scaled back more pedestrian household goods. That may also explain the expanded luggage department.
Maybe you’re asking what makes Primark different from its neighbors. Like H&M and Zara, it is capable of getting merchandise from the test stage to full-blown rollout in a matter of weeks rather than months, thanks in part to manufacturing capabilities in Ireland. It runs a lean, mean operation where even the type of hangers and labels used is subject to cost cutting.
Where Primark outguns the competition is in store size—its locations are double and sometimes quadruple the magnitude of many typical fast-fashion outlets; in merchandise presentation, which is closer to department stores and really good Targets than discounters; and in offering in-season, first-run licensed goods across all its categories, from such brands as Disney, Bridgerton, Shrek and Marvel.
The only knocks against Primark in today’s environment are its noticeable absence of e-commerce (the company claims that avoiding the associated costs of running e-commerce helps to keep operations lean), and the contradiction that comes from the combination of throwaway goods with the overall increase in sustainability sensitivities.
We may soon learn more about Primark’s financial picture and how it operates as a freestanding corporate entity. In the meantime, there’s a rising star on the American retail scene.
“The excitement and buzz around the brand is already building across Manhattan,” Kevin Tulip, president of Primark U.S., said right before the new store’s opening. “From busy stores in the surrounding boroughs to lines stretching blocks at our pop-up Primark Studio in NoHo, we’re expecting strong demand from New Yorkers and tourists. This is our biggest U.S. opportunity yet.”
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Warren Shoulberg is the former editor in chief for several leading B2B publications. He has been a guest lecturer at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business; received honors from the International Furnishings and Design Association and the Fashion Institute of Technology; and been cited by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and other media as a leading industry expert. His Retail Watch columns offer deep industry insights on major markets and product categories.
