Penneys has responded to reports that it’s launching online shopping

Well, our Wednesday just got a whole lot sadder.

Penneys has responded to reports that it is to launch online shopping - and it's not good news. The retailer has said that it has no immediate plans to sell on the web via a click-and-collect service. "From time to time we will look at click and collect as one possible option to extend our customer service," a Primark spokesperson told Independent.ie. "However, there are no plans in the near future to trial click and collect.” Primark's in-store experience and price points are what make the brand attractive to customers, they added. What we're taking from that is that it could happen down the line, but not right now. The clarification comes just as we were getting excited at the prospect of being able to buy our Penneys bits from the comfort of our own homes. As we told you over the weekend, there were reports of the retail giant launching click-and-collect so customers could select items online and pick them up in store. The company's chief executive Paul Marchant told a group of analysts in a briefing earlier this month that the company was looking into trialling the service, according to The Journal. One analyst who was present told the Financial Times that click and collect was still "a year or so away" and that it'd probably be trialled with certain product groups and only in some regions. Primark's lack of online store has made it an exception among its peers but its tactics have clearly paid off. While other bricks-and-mortar shops continue to struggle, Primark's sales hit £3.6 billion (€4.16 billion) in the six months up to the start of March, new figures today show.