Marks and Spencer (M&S) has witnessed 14 per cent revenue growth from its online Clothing & Home segment during the third quarter of fiscal 2018. The growth during the quarter was driven by improvements to proposition and operations. While, Clothing & Home revenue also reflected lower footfall to stores, partly as a result of increasing pace of closures.
In Clothing & Home, M&S is at the early stages of far reaching changes in range, in style, customer focus and channel mix. “Our objective is to reshape our buy, deliver market leading value and focus on stylish and wearable wardrobe ‘Must-Haves’ as we grow our business with family aged customers seeking style, quality and value,” Steve Rowe, chief executive officer, said. Improvements to its online proposition and operations have helped to mitigate lower footfall to stores resulting from, in part, the increasing pace of change in the store estate. Its Clothing & Home online sales performance was strong, supported by an increased focus on digital marketing together with improvements to its delivery proposition and our operations at Castle Donington. Womenswear online growth has significantly outperformed driven by areas including dresses and knitwear reflecting our ‘Must-Haves’ and social media campaigns. A solid performance in October and on-going actions to improve the flow of stock in its supply chain resulted in a c.25 per cent reduction in stock in to the December sale. Its planned reduction in stock carrying levels meant that stock into sale was the lowest in five years

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