Ireland’s Primark, Spain-based Mango, Canadian retailer Aritzia and Japan-based Uniqlo are adding new stores across the U.S.
International retailers are drawn to the U.S. because of its fragmented market of apparel retailers and more resilient consumer, said Monique Pollard, a London-based retail analyst for Citi.
Social media has also made it easier for new brands to break in, even with a smaller footprint of stores.
ELMHURST, NY — One of the newest additions to Queens Center is a store that many local mallgoers may not recognize.
Along with well-known mall staples like Macy’s, American Eagle and Bath & Body Works, the shopping center is now home to a Primark. The Ireland-based discount retailer, which sells clothing, shoes, purses and more, opened its doors there in December — and it has more U.S. stores on the way.
Across the country, a growing number of malls and shopping centers are getting a dose of international influence. Retailers including Primark, Spain-based Mango, Canadian retailer Aritzia and Japan-based Uniqlo are adding new stores across the U.S. — and pushing into regions where they haven’t gone before, outside of coastal cities like New York City or Los Angeles.
Primark store at the Queens Center mall in Elmhurst, NY.
Melissa Repko | CNBC
Nearly 19,000 stores opened in the U.S. between 2018 and 2023 and about 28% of those were foreign-owned retailers, according to the most recent available figures from GlobalData, a market research firm.
And in the past few years, retailers based in Europe or elsewhere around the world have announced ambitious U.S. expansion plans.
Primark, which has 29 stores in the U.S., plans to reach 60 locations in the country by the end of next year. It has signed leases for new stores in diverse parts of the U.S., including El Paso, Texas; Memphis, Tennessee; Hyattsville, Maryland; and Miami, Florida.
The retailer, known as Penneys in Ireland, has become a household name in Ireland, the U.K. and other parts of Europe since its first store opened in Dublin in 1969. The U.S. market has become an important place to break new ground as the company hits a “maturity point” in some European countries, president of Primark U.S. Kevin Tulip said in an interview with CNBC.
“The U.S. is the number one consumer market,” he said. “So to be here and to get it right means a lot. But you really need to get it right.”
Why the U.S. is a retail expansion target
Primark isn’t the only one with big ambitions for the U.S.
Barcelona-based retailer Mango announced a $70 million expansion last fall, including plans for 42 new storefronts in the U.S. in 2024, 20 more locations this year and a new logistics center outside of Los Angeles. Those locations will be scattered in parts of the Sun Belt and Northeast, Mango CEO Toni Ruiz told CNBC in an interview.
Vancouver-based Aritzia’s U.S. footprint is now nearly as large as its fleet of stores in its home country. Last year, the retailer opened 14 new stores, including three expansions or relocations, in North America. That brought its store count to 61 in the U.S., as it added boutiques in major cities like Chicago and Miami and smaller markets like Plano, Texas and Sacramento, California.
Shoppers wait in line to enter newly opened women’s clothing store Aritzia on Michigan Avenue on Black Friday on Nov. 29, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois.
Kamil Krzaczynski | Getty Images
And more stores are coming this year in cities including Scottsdale, Arizona and Murray, Utah, the company said.
The U.S. has many ingredients that brands from Europe and other parts of the world look for, said Monique Pollard, a London-based retail analyst for Citi. The U.S. has a fragmented market of apparel retailers, and its consumer spending has proven more resilient than in some other inflation-weary markets like the United Kingdom, she said.
Plus, fashion trends are going global more quickly as influencers on Instagram and TikTok and consumers’ own travel influences what they wear. That can make it easier for a new brand to break into an unfamiliar region, said John Mercer, head of global research for Coresight Research.
“There are fewer differences to kind of iron out between markets,” he said, adding that foreign brands now “stand a better chance” than in previous years or decades.
Social media has made it possible for brands with even a tiny footprint of physical stores to gain traction in the U.S. About 63% of consumers under 25 and 57% of those between 25 and 34 discover products or brands on social media at least weekly, according to a retail survey by research advisory group Forrester.
Shoppers walk into Uniqlo at the Westfield UTC shopping center on Jan. 31, 2025 in San Diego, California.
Kevin Carter | Getty Images
Viral trends have fueled sales for some of the international newcomers, through products like Aritzia’s Super Puff winter coat and Uniqlo’s shoulder bag. Both companies credited social media for driving popularity of those items two years ago.
Shrinking department stores and retail bankruptcies have left market share for foreign retailers to grab — and some empty stores in malls for them to fill. Macy’s is in the middle of closing about 150 of its namesake locations across the U.S. Many specialty baby stores have also shuttered due to bankruptcies, including Buy Buy Baby, which was owned by Bed Bath & Beyond, and Babies R Us.
Primark’s Tulip said children’s clothing has been one of company’s strong categories in the U.S., saying the company has noticed higher demand and less competition.
And some of its stores have replaced retailers like J.C. Penney that have shuttered some locations, or others such as Bed Bath & Beyond that have gone out of business.
Mango, Aritzia, Uniqlo and Zara are all in the early innings of U.S. growth, though, with less than 100 stores each across the country. That means that at least for now, the U.S. businesses account for just a small piece of those companies’ global business and a tiny fraction of the country’s apparel market.
The U.S. represents about 5% of global sales for Primark. Tulip said he expects that percentage to grow and already, that growth has begun to influence the retailer’s product range. One change is that it’s now making more leisurewear to suit American shoppers’ tastes, he said.
Mango flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York City.
Courtesy: Mango
The risks of expansion
Yet in any new market, success isn’t a guarantee — and relevance can fade.
Sweden-based H&M paved the way for other foreign retailers when it opened the doors of its first U.S. store about 25 years ago on New York City’s Fifth Avenue. Since then, the retailer has become a well-known mall name strongly associated with its fast fashion approach of quickly responding to trends and selling cheaper versions of hot items.
But more recently, the Swedish retailer’s sales have disappointed as it faces stiffer competition in the U.S. and abroad from low-priced Chinese online retailer Shein and Spanish rival Zara, which is owned by Inditex.
A shopper carries Foot Locker and Zara shopping bags while walking down the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, California, March 20, 2023.
Patrick T. Fallon | Afp | Getty Images
Uniqlo owner Fast Retailing has gained traction in the U.S. after earlier pushes into the country fell flat. The Japanese retailer reported losses of roughly $71.5 million in fiscal 2016 from retiring assets and shuttering stores in the U.S.
Now, the company is back in growth mode and has pledged to reach 200 stores in North America by 2027.
For Primark, the U.S. has come with a learning curve, too, Tulip said. The retailer broke into the U.S. market in 2015 by opening a store in Boston, a city with a large Irish population that would recognize its brand. Then, he said, it moved cautiously to try to understand the U.S. shopper before opening more locations in the Northeast and then heading further to Southern states.
At many of Primark’s store openings, enthusiastic shoppers have turned up early and waited in a line before doors swung open, he said.
Yet the Irish retailer has had missteps too, he said. Primark carries a lot of licensed merchandise, such as Disney and Marvel-themed clothing or jackets and T-shirts with the logos of popular NBA and NFL teams.
But when it expanded to the U.S., that sports merchandise didn’t land in the way it had hoped.
“Initially we thought, you know, surely everyone in Europe loves the Dallas Cowboys and, you know, let’s land that product into every [U.S.] store and everyone’s going to absolutely go wild for it,” he said. “But we saw pretty quickly that actually people are very passionate about their local sports team.”
He said Primark pivoted to carrying only relevant local sports teams, such as having Buffalo Bills items in upstate New York.
Primark also has a unique quirk that could become a weakness: It sells exclusively through brick-and-mortar stores. Its lack of an e-commerce business in the U.S. could make it vulnerable to retailers like Amazon, Walmart and Shein, especially since those sites sell many low-priced wardrobe staples.
More than 50% of Primark’s clothes are everyday basics, such as underwear, T-shirts and socks, according to the company’s website.
As the newcomers have tried to gain traction with American shoppers, some brands have taken a different tack. Zara’s net store count in the U.S. has stayed flat at just shy of 100 for the past five years.
Instead of more locations, Zara’s parent company has added more room in its stores. In 2013, the average store size for Inditex’s retailers including Zara was around 6,000 square feet. That’s shot up to an average of about 8,600 square feet a decade later, according to a Citi analysis based on data from company filings.
While the growing international retailers have only a small footprint in the U.S., they have already proven influential, as they offer shoppers fresh choices and U.S. retailers new competition.
One of Primark’s next expansion moves show the company is not subtle about its ambitions: a store is set to open in New York City’s Herald Square. It will be a less than two-block walk from Macy’s iconic flagship store.
On a recent day at Queens Center a few miles away, prospective customers browsed the aisles of the Primark store, and some left with an armful of purchases.
Jeanette Torres, a retiree who lives in Brooklyn, heard about the brand from her son. She said the company’s low prices convinced her to shop there. She purchased a T-shirt, underwear and winter hat, which cost a total of about $30.
She said she likes that those prices don’t come at the expense of the store experience. Primark has brighter lights and neater locations than off-price retailers like Burlington Stores, where she said “everything is on top of everything.”
Bruce Wolinsky, another retiree from Queens, made his first trip to Primark by accident. He went to the mall with his Macy’s credit card, a 25% off coupon and a need for a new pair of shoes.
He never made it to the department store. Instead, he walked into Primark and walked out with a $22 pair of lace-up navy blue and brown sneakers.
— CNBC’s Gabrielle Fonrouge contributed to this report. More
