How Primark makes money selling $3.50 T-shirts

SET OUT for a shopping trip with $100 and you can snap up a pair of Levi’s jeans or half an Hermès necktie. Or you could pop into Primark and fill a wardrobe. The discount purveyor of fast fashion, which is expanding in America from its base in Europe, will flog you a T-shirt for $3.50 and trousers for a tenner. Such prices seem too good to be true to campaigners, who assume they can only be the result of corner-cutting in a sector rife with dodgy labour practices. Rivals such as Zara of Spain and H&M of Sweden, which used to be considered cheap before Primark came along, already run tight ships and squeeze suppliers hard. What is Primark doing so differently that it can sell wares for less and still make money?