Penneys is set to trial a click-and-collect service in the UK later this year as parent company Associated British Foods attempts to build the budget clothing retailer's digital capabilities.
Penneys, which trades as Primark outside of Ireland and is famously committed to bricks-and-mortar retail, will offer an expanded range of children's products for the trial, which it believes "has the potential to satisfy unfulfilled demand" and drive footfall in participating stores.
Up to 25 stores in the north-west of the UK, providing a representatives sample of stores sizes and formats, will take part in trial, in which some 2,000 products across clothing, accessories and lifestyle categories will be on sale.
"The expansion of the offering will be particularly attractive for our customers who do not regularly shop in our larger stores," ABF said in a trading update. "Our average size stores are only able to stock a limited range and for these customers the number of options available to them will broadly double, increasing even more for customers of our small stores.
"This trial will enable us to provide more fashion, licence and lifestyle products to more customers and more often. In store collection will be available from designated areas, designed to be welcoming and situated in the heart of the store."
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Click & collect orders will be processed and dispatched to store from a dedicated distribution centre, with orders to be fulfilled manually by staff during the trial and plans to automate the process "in due course." There are currently no plans to extend the trial to Irish stores.
"Our click and collect trial will run in selected UK stores only so we can assess how customers, and our business, responds," Penneys said. "We need to test this before making any decisions how we might roll this out to other countries including Ireland but we’re very excited about the possibilities to offer customers an even wider choice which complements our stores.”
Orders will be free to collect and returns will also be accepted free of charge in store. The announcement comes months after the company launched a new website in the UK, helping to increase traffic 60%, with 15% of visitors using the site to check stock.
Penneys now has 403 stores internationally cover 17.1m sq ft of retail selling space, having opened new stores in Milan and a relocated 28,000 sq ft, €12m outlet in Carlow, employing over 100 people.
The company expects to open a new store in Tallaght as well as two locations in Italy, one in the Czech Republic and one in New York before the end of the year as its progresses plans to grow its estate to 530 stores by 2026.
All Penneys stores were open during its third quarter, compared to the same period last year when the majority were closed in line with public health restrictions, leading sales to improve 81% year-on-year.
Sales in the quarter were 4% higher than the comparable pre-Covid period three years ago, but like-for-like sales were down 9% on that period in 2019 due to slow pick up in continental Europe, with sales in Ireland and the UK "improving markedly".
The retailer remains on track to deliver a full-year adjusted operating profit margin of 10%, with total revenues for the quarter of £1.7bn (€2bn) and for the year to date of £5.3bn (€6.1bn).
(Pic: Getty Images)
