Primark has confirmed it will begin offering home delivery in Great Britain, ending years of refusing full ecommerce and marking one of UK retail’s most closely watched reversals. The announcement came inside a trading update from parent group Associated British Foods on 10 September 2026, which also flagged softer like-for-like sales at the fashion chain and progress on its Hovis integration.
Primark‘s fourth-quarter sales are expected to grow by around 2%, though like-for-like sales are set to fall by about 3%, Associated British Foods said in a trading update published on 10 September 2026. The retailer’s Iconic Value pricing campaign, launched in July, has produced what the group called encouraging early results. Group chief executive George Weston also confirmed that integration work following July’s completion of the Hovis acquisition is progressing at pace, with cost synergies expected to build once a one-off impact from consolidating Hovis’s losses passes through the 2027 financial year.
Primark confirms home delivery for Great Britain
Announcing the move, Associated British Foods said Primark has acquired an automated fulfilment facility in Sheffield to support the service, though no launch date has been set. The retailer already offers Click and Collect and launched its first mobile app in April 2026, both described as steps toward digital sales without abandoning its low-cost, no-frills store model. George Weston, chief executive of Associated British Foods, said: “Primark has made significant progress in building its digital capabilities and will continue this through both growing Click and Collect and by offering home delivery in Great Britain in the future.”
Good to know
Automated, or “dark”, fulfilment sites are increasingly used by UK multi-site retailers to support online delivery without adding sales space to individual shops, keeping store networks focused on browsing and collection.
A retailer that long resisted selling online
Primark has built its position as the UK’s biggest value fashion retailer partly by refusing full ecommerce, arguing that keeping sales in shops kept costs, and prices, lower. “Not even the pandemic could convince them to launch online, so the fact that Primark is making such a U-turn tells us just how much the retail landscape has evolved,” said Natalie Berg, a retail analyst. Dan Coatsworth, head of markets at AJ Bell, said: “While physical stores remain relevant, online shopping is well established and Primark clearly had no choice but to adapt to the modern retail world.”Primark confirms UK home delivery after years of resistance
A mixed trading update across the wider group
Associated British Foods said its grocery division, which includes Twinings, Ovaltine and the newly acquired Hovis bakery business, is on track for mid-single-digit sales growth in the fourth quarter. The group’s own trading update pointed to prolonged hot weather denting demand for hot tea in the UK and Europe as a partial offset. Weston said the Hovis integration is “well underway”, following the acquisition’s completion in July 2026, alongside the restructuring of the group’s UK sugar and agriculture businesses and the completion of several multi-year capital projects. Full-year adjusted operating profit for the grocery division is now expected to come in slightly below previous expectations.
What comes next
Associated British Foods has not set a public date for the Primark home delivery launch, saying only that it will roll out “in the future.” Primark’s performance over the fourth quarter, and how quickly the new fulfilment operation scales alongside its UK store estate, will shape how the group frames its results when it reports for the 2025/26 financial year. For a retailer that built its brand on refusing ecommerce, the shift will be watched closely across the wider UK retail and hospitality sector, including by networks that trade through franchisees rather than owned stores and have to settle how an online order is attributed to a territory, a question covered in our in-depth guide to franchising in the United Kingdom. Readers weighing up a business of their own can browse the franchise opportunities currently recruiting in the UK.
