M&S revamp ‘aims to make shopping easier’

Marks & Spencer yesterday unveiled the first store in a £600 million revamp programme that it hopes will make its outlets easier to shop in and boost its own brands.

The shop, in London’s Kensington High Street, is the first of 14 that will benefit from improved design, signs and lighting over the next month. The rest of M&S’s 700 UK stores will be converted to the new formats over the next two years.

The revamp – the second in two years following a £2 billion facelift sanctioned by former chairman Sir Stuart Rose – comes after shoppers complained that stores were difficult to navigate. M&S’s own research found visitors were unable to find a list of ten items within one hour.

Chief executive Marc Bolland said: “We are coming back to real customers’ concerns to make our shops more shopable and provide more choice.”

The move is in line with Bolland’s strategy of building M&S’s range of own-label products into brands in their own right, which recently saw actor Ryan Reynolds and model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley unveiled as the faces of Autograph.

The stores will include “shops within shops” for each of its brands, such as Per Una, Limited Collection and Autograph, with each benefiting from its own distinct backdrop in their part of the store.

The Kensington outlet also boasts a new delicatessen counter offering freshly made pasta, meat and cheese cut to order, and an enhanced bakery range, which is likely to be rolled out only to larger stores. A range of 100 international foods has also been added to the pilot store, including French fondue in a glass and Italian jams and olive oil.

Food helped M&S grow like-for-like sales by 1.7 per cent in the 13 weeks to 2 July, as it continued to try to win market share from the big supermarkets. At the time, it said trading conditions were likely to remain “challenging” due to pressure on consumers’ disposable incomes.

A further five stores will be fitted out with delis over the next month.