Marks & Spencer is to accelerate its store rotation as it seeks to bring its best store formats and range to more shoppers, and expects to be trading online again within a few week following April’s cyber-hack.
Marks & Spencer will invest £300m to open 16 new stores, extend nine branches and renew 12 this financial year, chief executive Stuart Machin has revealed.
He also said that M&S’ online business is anticipated to be “fully on” again within a month. He made the comments at the retailer’s AGM.
Ultimately, M&S aims to trade from 180 full-line branches and and 420 food halls by the end of the 2028 financial year. Openings, relocations and overhauls have been a key part of the transformation strategy, enabling M&S to showcase to best effect its clothing, home and beauty ranges and sell customers a wider range of food.
The openings include two previously announced full-line stores in Bath Southgate and Bristol Cabot Circus.
Machin said: “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.”
M&S delivered its best performance for some time last year. However, in recent months it has had to contend with the cyber attack that is estimated to cost it about £300m.
The disruption, which led to the suspension of online trading – since partially resumed – is still affecting some aspects of the Castle Donington distribution centre and click-and-collect.
Machin said: “Currently, half of online is open but not areas like click-and-collect. Within the next four weeks we are hoping for the whole of online to be fully on.”
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