November 10, 2025
Primark Boosts Customer Experience With New Store Designs
Competing with online retail, physical stores need to maximise their commercial performance and attract more customers. In response, Primark, the European fashion retailer, is optimising its selling spaces by investing in a new store design concept.
The concept increases a store’s relative retail selling space, improving sales density. The new design is appropriate for all store sizes and creates opportunities that enable Primark to take possession of new units from 10,000 sq ft upwards.
The company is also expanding to the Middle East, with a first Kuwaiti store opened in partnership with Alshaya Group, and it plans for a Manhattan New York store in 2026. In the UK, the company opened a first all homewares store to expand shopper’s horizons on an embattled retail landscape.
While there’s plenty of talk about AI and online sales, most consumers (and retailers) want enough staff in these stores to make shopping a pleasure, not a pain.
Small is Better for Retail
The smaller stores feature single-floor layouts, so improving accessibility, reducing the need for elevators, escalators and stairs, and better optimising fitting rooms and till space. Primark’s product offering is further streamlined to maximise space and meet customer needs.
The company has also designed store fixtures and fittings to be more sustainable by using recycled or recyclable materials.
The new design concept provides a more contemporary look and feel, with the latest brand concepts offering improved customer experience through video walls and music.
The first new-look store to benefit from this design opened in Montijo, Portugal, in October 2024, with a second opening in Bolton in the UK at the end of 2024.
Initial results have been positive, with sales in Bolton up more than 30% after ten months compared to its previous location. Primark opened a further three such stores in Spain (Lugo and Zaragoza) and Portugal (Viseu) earlier this year and are delivering strong sales densities across all of them.
The Primark App is Coming
Primark also has an app on the way, currently on trial in Italy and Ireland, and coming to more markets in 2026. But it won’t offer online shopping, instead helping customers prepare for a trip to their nearby store. The website does offer online shopping.
Primark’s first customer-facing mobile app lets customers to browse a wide range of products and check in-store stock availability as well as stay up to date with the latest products and collections.
With the Black Friday and seasonal sales looming, we’ll check back to see how Primark and others fare as they try to drive loyalty and remain relevant in the chaotic market.
