Marks & Spencer has revealed that it is accelerating its store rotation and renewal programme, with £300m being invested in sixteen new, nine extended, and twelve renewed outlets during its current financial year.
All the stores will follow the latest M&S format, with improved entrances, wider aisles and modern shelf displays.
The new stores include 12 food halls, two full-line stores and two outlets, with the previously announced new full-line stores in Bath Southgate and Bristol Cabot Circus, and new Food halls in Bell Green, Sydenham, Abingdon, Cannock and Farnham.
The roll-out follows a significant acceleration in M&S’s property activity, where in the last year alone, the retailer signed 47 property deals for new and renewed stores, more than in the previous three years combined. This is part of its broader strategy to optimise its estate, targeting 180 full-line and 420 food halls by the end of its 2028 financial year.
M&S revealed that it was also actively reviewing over 300 potential new locations as it seeks to bring its offer to more communities across the UK.
M&S CEO Stuart Machin commented: “This year we are stepping up the pace of our programme and investing over £300m to rotate and renew stores across the country. We have a rigorous strategy to make sure we have the right stores in the right places, and this year we will deliver 37 new and renewed stores with the best of our Food, Fashion and Home and Beauty to our 32 million customers.”
Meanwhile, M&S said yesterday that its online business should be “fully” operational within the next four weeks as it recovers from the damaging cyber attack at the end of April.
The hack forced the retailer to pause customer orders through its clothing and home website for almost seven weeks, before resuming them last month. However, its click & collect service remains suspended, and only a limited range of products is available to buy online.
Speaking at the M&S AGM in London yesterday, Machin said: “I have previously highlighted that it would take all of June and all of July, maybe into August [to resume all of its operations]. Within the next four weeks, we are hoping for the whole of online to be fully on.”
The company will then focus on replenishing its Castle Donington warehouse in the East Midlands, the main distribution centre for its clothing and homeware.
“We’re hoping that by August we will have the vast majority of this behind us and people can see the true M&S,” Machin told shareholders.
M&S has previously said that the attack will cost an estimated £300m, although it is hoping to mitigate around £150m of the hit through the management of costs, insurance and other trading actions.
NAM Implications:
- M&S have patently not allowed the cyber attack to compromise their expansion and re-engineering/optimisation of their retail assets.
- Meanwhile, lessons have presumably been learned regarding the protection of their online operation and data therein.
- One to watch…
