The following is a guest post from Marc Lawn, global CRM director at Premier Farnell and former head of marketing services at Britvic.
Primark is this week’s corporate baddie after the BBC’s Panorama exposed its suppliers outsourcing clothes production to child workers in Indian refugee camps.
The show made headlines in the press and on TV with pressure groups, retailers and shoppers joining the debate.
The discussion continues online – with the Facebook group with 4,061 fans transformed into a debating arena.
Where bargain-hungry shoppers once shared news of their latest low-cost deals, ‘fans’ now debate the moral actions of the Irish retailer. (Interestingly one of the most recent posts features a man complaining he can’t find shorts in the store, so not everyone is overly concerned).
But let’s not get carried away with Primark bashing. Many children who are under the working age threshold work for family businesses, such as farms and corner shops in the UK. And in living memory boys worked down mines and girls laboured in munitions factories.
Maybe it is unfair to directly compare standards in the UK with those in India. So rather than shun Primark, pressure groups, retailers and shoppers should call for the store to work the problem out.
Social media provides the channel for customers to have their uncensored say. For Primark, the comments provide invaluable and unmediated feedback on consumer attitudes.
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