LONDON BRIEFING:Demographic targeting is part of the retailer's £900 million plan to restyle its 600 branches
THEY’VE BEEN doing it for almost 120 years, so you’d think that Marks & Spencer would have worked out the best way to woo its shoppers. But no, it seems MS, which opened its first store in 1894, is failing to display its wares to best advantage and customers are having trouble negotiating their way around the ranges.
Along with having the right products at the right price, ensuring that stores are attractive and easy to navigate must surely be the most basic of retail skills.
But new boss Marc Bolland, presenting his first set of full-year figures since taking over from Stuart Rose, yesterday admitted it’s a skill M&S appears to have lost somewhere along the line.
Fixing it will not come cheap – the group is ramping up its capital expenditure to £900 million to finance a revamp of its 600-strong UK shops chain. This will include the real basics such as better signage; improved labels and packaging; and better store layouts.
M&S also plans to experiment with tailormade stores for different areas and, from autumn, will pilot store formats that stock ranges specially selected for local shoppers. The ranges will be chosen according to demographics of the catchment area with age, affluence, ethnicity and regional tastes taken into account, as well as the presence of rival retailers.
This is not the first time M&S has overhauled its stores in recent years – Bolland’s predecessor, Sir Stuart, launched a lavish programme that dragged on for years. Yet it emerged yesterday almost 100 M&S shops missed out on that revamp. They must be looking very tired indeed by now.
Bolland’s take on it is that while the most recent modernisation programme brought improvements to the core infrastructure, it failed to deliver an “inspirational” shopping experience. That is what he is aiming to achieve over the next three years, a determination underlined by the appointment of a new director of space, Neil Hyslop, who headed M&S operations in Northern Ireland.
Tailoring ranges for different stores seems sensible – though there were fears among some customers that those who don’t live in the “right” area might be denied the best ranges. This won’t be as great a problem if Bolland can tackle M&S’s lacklustre online offering.
M&S’s performance last year was judged to be good, with profits coming in a whisker ahead of forecasts at £714 million. That is an increase of 13 per cent on the previous year. But it still leaves it well short of the £1 billion the group made in 2007/2008, only to issue a dire profit warning a couple of months later.
There was disappointment that Bolland’s first full-year report didn’t contain more fireworks, although perhaps no fireworks are needed, just attention to retail detail.
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WHAT ADVICE would Mary Portas give to Marc Bolland, I wonder? We’ll find out soon enough – the forthright TV presenter and retail guru says she has already started work after being appointed by no less than David Cameron to head an independent review of Britain’s ailing High Streets.
Just 24 hours after the “Queen of Shops” was appointed last week, Mothercare underlined the difficulties facing Britain’s town centres with the shock news it is to close almost one in three of its High Street outlets – 110 shops. The mother and baby retailer blamed high rents and said it wants to concentrate on out-of-town outlets, overseas expansion and its online operation.
The economics think tank, the Ernst Young Item Club, is warning consumer spending will stay below pre-recession levels until 2013 and will remain depressed for a further seven years. Any review of the High Street will undoubtedly include recommendations the planning system, better parking, lower rents, improved service and an end to bland uniformity. But even the talented Ms Portas is unlikely to have the the solution to the problem of the consumer’s dwindling disposable income.
Fiona Walsh writes for the Guardianin London
