Critical Analysis Report of Primark’s Online Presence and E-Marketing Activities

MARK 3011 E-Marketing

Assignment 1:

Critical Analysis Report of Primark’s Online Presence and E–Marketing Activities

Andrew Hill

Introduction

This critical analysis of Primark’s online presence focuses on web experience and social media networking whilst applying models and theoretical frameworks including Chaffey’s 5S’ of digital marketing (2001) and Jobber and Fahy’s 4C’s for marketing communications (2009). This analysis reviews Primark’s website and social media profiles and their online presence around the web.

Web Experience

Primark have a wide-reaching digital presence, including their website and social media. Primark uses their digital presence to gain exposure to customers online (<35 years).

Website Review and Analysis

Primark.com displays a sticky-header menu allowing for navigation around the site and shows consistency in design, but space is wasted by a large menu where much of the options could be placed in a submenu accessible via a ‘hamburger/ [ ☰ ] ’ icon within the navigation (Appendix J) allowing more content to be displayed, leaving room for social icons to be displayed above the fold integrating marketing communications (USC, n.d.) between web and social.

The congestion forces the body–content CTA below the fold (Appendix B), forcing users to scroll, cropping part of the creative causing reduced exposure impact (Fassenden, 2018). Images are ‘hanging’ off page (Appendix C) which has the same effect; without consideration for older devices with smaller viewports means above the fold content is hidden (Appendix A), users are more likely to abandon the CTA (Jimdo, 2018).

The CTA directs to ‘The Edit’ (Appendix M), the article discusses fashion trends instead of leading to an online store. Primark focuses on providing value without the ‘hard sell’, encouraging loyalty (CMI, n.d.) contrary to industry trends.

Primark.com is mobile-first (Appendix I), favoured by search engines (Schwartz, 2019; Google Developers, n.d.) as more users access websites from mobile devices (Chaffey, 2018), increasing shareability and connectedness (IBM, n.d.) between users and brand (Outbrain, n.d.) attracting organic traffic (Scarbrough, n.d.). Sacrificing timeliness, availability and convenience (Chaffey et al, 2006), Primark offer no in-store collection service and this creates minimal want or need for an online product catalogue so this features near the footer (Appendix F & I), content delivery is a higher priority.

Because Primark don’t sell online or offer stock-checking facilities, stores are deliberately chaotic increasing the propensity to purchase through confusion (Orsucci and Sala, 2008) and variety (Gu, Konana and Chen, 2012), an unexpected strategy as ecommerce sales outweigh retail sales (Uttley, 2019).

Social Media Networking Review & Analysis

Primark unsuccessfully attempted to integrate social channels (Appendix U) or been neglected (Appendix Q & R) resulting in ‘unfinished’ profiles. These elements decrease brand appeal (Laja, 2019).

Primark uses several social platforms (Appendix E) and have created synergy between them (apart from LinkedIn which is used for recruitment/B2B). Primark exhibit seasonal themes online (Appendix X) using synergetic content designed with different objectives; for example, Primark uses YouTube to promote evergreen content, like ‘How-To’ videos (Appendix W) (attracting a long-term, organic audience (Deahl, 2019)), whereas they use Facebook to publish dynamic, on-trend content (achieving bursts of virality and engagement (Ceralytics, n.d.)).

Primark don’t host product-catalogues on Facebook (appendix R); conversion tracking can become difficult, but Primark are competing effectively with high-street competitors (Moore, 2017) who adopt ecommerce strategies. Primark’s revenue continues to grow (Jahshan, 2019) in absence of online sales.

Primark don’t engage with customers as much as other brands on social media – Twitter shows the least engagement, Instagram shows the highest (Appendix S) as expected for fashion brands (Jackson, 2015), their products are visual, and Instagram is most suitable.

Primark don’t engage with customers on social media except answering questions (Appendix O) which could alienate customers being ignored (Ahmed, 2017; Jenn’s Trends, 2013); high customer engagement is the cause of Boohoo’s ecommerce success (Rountree, 2019; Duckett, 2018; Rigby, 2016).

Chaffey’s 5S’ of Digital Marketing

It’s difficult for Primark to measure their ‘sell’ strategy (Chaffey & Smith, 2008) because they don’t offer online sales (Appendix V) but online catalogue demonstrates Primark use digital marketing to boost sales.

Primark ‘serve’ their customers by responding to customer enquiries on social media (Appendix O) but largely neglect conversing with customers’ general comments limiting their social media performance as they’re seen as irrelevant by social algorithms (Barnhart, 2019) limiting impressions achieved on social media.

Primark’s ability to ‘speak’ to customers is defined by focusing on diversity (Appendix T) and CSR (Business Case Studies, 2019; Robertson, 2018; Primark, n.d.) which are important to Primark’s target customer (Duckett, 2015) but it’s difficult to measure whether customers viewed content online unless Primark.com and in-store POS are equipped with tracking facilities that can match in-store customers to their online profiles (Davis, 2015).

Without ecommerce, Primark aren’t able to ‘save’ their customers time by visiting their website (Chaffey, 2019) and evidence suggests they don’t offer web exclusive promotions on their website or social media accounts (this also makes it difficult to track online/offline conversions (Chaffey & Smith, 2001; Intelligo Consulting, 2017)).

Primark invest in content, building an audience instead of selling online (Appendix D, M, N, T and W) focusing more on the ‘sizzle’ aspect of their digital strategy providing value to customers and building loyal audiences increasing the likelihood of purchasing (CMI, n.d.) and priming the audience for purchase should Primark decide to start selling online (Quintyn, 2017).

Applying the 5S’ model, Primark aren’t fulfilling their potential in digital marketing but that isn’t to say they aren’t positioning themselves to develop their potential in a way to compete more effectively with their high-street competitors (McCormick et al, 2014) but it’s difficult to tell, unlike their competitors, Primark are rapidly growing their retail operations (Gray, 2019).

Jobber & Fahy’s 4Cs for marketing communications

Applying Jobber & Fahy’s 4Cs model (2009), Primark demonstrate clarity in their online marketing communications by following thematic trends (Appendix L) appropriate to the season or events/fundraisers (Appendix T & X).

They demonstrate credibility by promoting free, valuable content (CMI, n.d.) instead of their products and have further increased credibility by not offering online purchase options (Appendix V) showing their online goals are not to increase product sales online.

There is consistency between content and sales strategy – their content follows themes that can be identified through synergy between social platforms (Appendix X) whilst lacking online sales promotions is consistent with their lack of online sales strategy, it’s inconsistent with industry trends (Rowley, 2009). This grants Primark a competitive advantage (Jobber & Fahy, 2009) but there’s no acknowledgement of any direct competition with other brands.

Conclusion

Primark’s online presence serves as to introduce new customers to the brand without selling, contrary to trends set by similar brands. Their resources focus towards providing valuable content to their customers online rather than attempting to persuade customers to buy impulsively. They aren’t at a disadvantage and are giving themselves a head start should they develop an ecommerce platform where they’ll already have a trusting audience primed to purchase.

Whilst Primark aren’t realising their full potential in their digital marketing strategy, they’re successful and are positioned in a way that enables them to effectively compete against competitors – they already have a large, online audience (Appendix S). With that being said, Primark aren’t experiencing the same obstacles as competitors; whilst Debenhams are closing stores rapidly (Wood, 2019), Primark are opening stores at a comparable rate (Gray, 2019).

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Appendix

Appendix A: Above the fold content with cookie pop-up on page-load (first visit) – 1^st December 2019

Appendix B: “Read more” button below the fold

Appendix C: Images hanging off the page resulting in excessive scrolling

Appendix D: Product showcase feature at the bottom of homepage before footer

Appendix E: Footer

Appendix F: Full homepage screenshot

Appendix G: Page load (view 100%) after clicking on top “Available to buy online” CTA

(Note: the placeholder image is not a link and to see “email it”/”Post it” (Appendix H.1), the user has to scroll down. The above browser window was zoomed out to 75% of the actual size)

Appendix H: Follow “buy giftcard” CTA

1: Email / Postal options page

Image shows distance user has to scroll before a link becomes available to purchase a giftcard.

2: Another cookie policy

Redirected to https://www.primarkgiftcards.com […/ByEmail…] indicating gift cards may be sold by a third-party supplier (Voucher Express). The domain name change doesn’t fill users with confidence if they’ve only known the primark.com domain name. Another cookie policy also shows up. This site design hasn’t been reviewed in a long time with footer text showing “©2016”.