As we are all aware shops reopened just last week and slowly but surely things seem to be returning to normal. Shops such as Primark took a huge hit during the pandemic, with them not having an online presence, which made it especially hard for the company to make money. We’ve seen the closure of high st shops, Debenhams and Topshop who saw a drastic fall in sales. We all thought our dear Primark was next and hey who can blame us? Primark has been a go-to for as long as I can remember. Its affordable prices and the vast stock has made it an essential shop.
However, somehow someway our treasured store managed to stay open and business is booming. On the 12th of April stores across the country had millions of people visiting, with swarms of people queuing outside the shop. People were queuing from the early hours of the morning to restock on summer goods. It has been said Primark gained a ‘record’ number of sales. Even the shops opened Primark staff began teasing the stock which was going to be released on Tiktok. This made shoppers even more excited. I even read that Primark’s sales have reached the sales pre-covid.
After the 12th of April, it was almost impossible to open the app without seeing thousands of hauls as customers began showing the amazing finds they managed to get. Soon enough the whole ‘for you page’ became just Primark. Can’t lie at one point it got extremely annoying. These hauls started to make their way onto other social media apps such as Instagram and Twitter. The Primark hashtag was literally everywhere!
Primark’s marketing team took great advantage of this and ‘made a sound’ on Tiktok for even more people to make videos. They began posting some of the hauls alongside their own content and their Tiktok account began to grow. Currently, their account has 170k followers and 1.7 million likes in counting! I’m yet to see any high st store surpass these numbers. This has contributed greatly to the number of sales and Tiktok has been a very instrumental part of this.
The app began to gain its popularity in the first lockdown and I didn’t think the hype would continue for this long. However, like Primark, it has stayed. A couple of my friends kept pestering me to download it and I reluctantly gave in. I can find myself on the app for hours at a time just scrolling. It’s so addictive and there is literally something for everyone. You can post anything from informative content to more light-hearted stuff.
I even heard somewhere the reason why apps like Tiktok are so addictive is because of the scrolling element. Apparently scrolling releases a chemical called Dopamine which makes you happy. It’s also very easy to develop an audience on the app as well by staying consistent and following trends.
If you’re reading this, you might as well follow me on the app @reneewashingtonn! We have fun over on those sides too.
Anyways back to the topic of Primark, they literally couldn’t have picked a better app to make a comeback on. It worked magnificently, it drove sales, called attention to the new stock and put them back on the map!
I even visited the local store in Chatham about two days ago and the ques are still crazy. The stock was also quite low, the popular items I had seen all over Social media were gone.
Anyways, I think more high street stores should take advantage of the app to make even more money. Primark’s strategies have been very tactical and I think their PR team deserves a raise.
