Primark's 'worn well' section was more like an overpriced charity shop

Primark has been the place for all things cheap and cheerful for me for as long as I can remember but of late, as with many other stores and establishments, their prices aren’t as low as they once were. I visited the Primark in Birmingham city centre to take a look at the Worn Well vintage section to see how good the savings were and was a little disappointed. Prior to this visit, most of my experience with pre-owned items had been online with retailers like eBay, Shpock and Vinted, who have a huge range of items available for prices that would suit a bargain shopper.

I haven’t shopped in many charity shops, but the one’s I have been to have had clothing for less than GBP1, so I was anticipating a somewhat similar experience when heading inside. Read more I visited SHEIN in the Bullring as people queued to get in and one thing was disappointing Sat on the same floor as the bakery chain was the vintage section.

Tucked away beside the escalator, you’d only spot this section if you already knew where it was or happened to spot it when heading to a different level. The term ‘Worn Well’, is the name of the company that Primark are in collaboration with for these vintage in-store concessions around the country. Its definition gave me the preconception that I’d be in for some cheap deals, but I was wrong.

Signage inside Primark showing where their Worn Well section is located

Though the Primark website says that they’ve got shoppers ‘covered’ if they wanted to shop pre-loved and Primark, they only seemed to be pulling through on one part of that statement.

A lot of the items were clearly second-hand products however their price labels didn’t resemble the low prices I was expecting whilst shopping inside a Primark. There wasn’t a huge range of items on offer but this was to be expected due to the small space dedicated to this collection. A majority of the stock available appeared to revolve around outerwear and denim pieces.

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It wasn’t all doom and gloom for this Oasis market-like concession as the limited items all seemed to be of suitable quality and lived up to the vintage name. I spotted a few gems in there from a pair of Adidas tracksuit bottoms for GBP20 as well as some branded sports t-shirts available for around GBP15.

Some of the items on sale in the Worn Well section of Primark

Although I’m not opposed to purchasing second-hand items, the prices found in this area of the store failed to convince me to ditch my apps full of pre-loved items. I was hoping to conclude that this concession would be my new go-to for named brands on a budget but the savings weren’t enough for me to reconsider buying new and getting full wear out of them.

It was, however, nice to see such a big corporation trying to do their bit in the name of pre-loved fashion. Stay up to date with the very latest from your Birmingham or West Midlands street or neighbourhood with our Birmingham News Read next

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