The market research conducted on Marks & Spencer (M&S) was specifically targeted at their clothing department which has in recent years been struggling despite new brands and a re-branding being developed. The key problems that need to be addressed are the corporate image, which whilst being in high regard with the population, is actually considered unfashionable. This means M&S are failing to attract the younger crowds. To attract the youth market it is important to not only make the image of the company more fashionable but also their products within the clothing range.
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Marks & Spencer's is one of the UK's leading retailers, with 15 million people visiting each week. Findings from this report suggest they alone account for almost 15% of the clothing sales in the U.K. Their clothing sector represents 49.5% of their UK retail turnover; therefore poor performance in this area will have a negative effect on their profit as a whole.
It is notable that the U.K clothing retail market is highly youth orientated and a decline in this sector can have a major affect on all clothing retailers. Marks and Spencer's fell victim to consumer trends during the late 1990's, when Britain's increasingly affluent shoppers began to demand more in terms of fashion, while value orientated shoppers turned to low price retailers such as Matalan. Foreign entrants such as H&M and Zara have also heated up the competition. The problems started in 1998 with a 23% drop in profits and by 2001 Marks and Spencer was no longer even in the Financial Times list of the top 500 global companies
It is apparent that the M&S brand particularly the clothing sector must be made more fashionable to attract the younger market and in turn the largest sector of the UK clothing retail market. M&S have already implemented a lot of changes to stem the poor performance in the last 5 years, it is important they now build on this to ensure they reach the level of success they were at 10 years ago. People would shop at M&S more if they had a reason to be drawn in to the store; this is something that should be addressed; whether it be a new national marketing campaign or simple point of sale window displays.
Marks and Spencer traditionally started off as a clothing retailer on a policy of only selling British-made goods and sold the goods under the "St Michael" brand. They are the largest clothing retailer in the U.K by turnover and by 1997 became the first U.K retailer to make a profit before tax of over 1 billion. To continue these achievements maybe this should change to accommodate the modern market. Marks and Spencer has now branched out to other areas including home furnishings and quite notably food. The home furnishings and food sector have not been as successful as the clothing line which represents 49.5% of the turnover.
It is apparent the younger market does not shop at Marks & Spencer generally and with the youth market being the biggest sector of the population who spend on clothing in the UK and that 49.5% of Marks and Spencer's turnover is from their clothing sector it is clear their clothing sector must be addressed.
Below bullet pointed are my recommendations:
o Market the Marks and Spencer brand to be fashionable; do not completely re-brand as M&S are still well respected. With a more fashionable corporate image, it should draw a new cliental in the youth market.
o Develop new more fashionable clothing ranges, specifically targeted at the youth market; sell these alongside the other popular ranges that Marks & Spencer Near Me sell with the mature market.
o Continue the use of celebrities and new brands of clothing to ensure they are constantly marketing in the right way. The hope is that deals like this would encourage a younger market to at least browse in the store.
o The female market seem more comfortable shopping with M&S for their underwear and therefore it is important to not lose this market and make sure the underwear range is diverse with "sexy" underwear, fashionable underwear and comfortable underwear.
o A brand new national campaign is needed urgently to put M&S back in the publics mind, along with experts brought in to help with their window displays and point of sale display to try and draw people off the high street and shop with M&S.
Over the past few weeks many companies have been releasing their figures for the last year's trading. Especially interesting has been the news published by many of the retail sector companies that rely on the Christmas period for the bulk of their profit for the year.
Now it's easy to say that it's been an absolutely terrible year, especially when you see such High Street stalwarts such as Woolworth and MFI disappearing but the truth may not be as black and white as that. For example, in my dealings with business people across the country, none of them were really surprised by the demise of either of those companies. Woolworth has been trading poorly for years and its general lack of a focus and eroded trading position has reduced its value to the point where many people really didn't see the point of it.
Short of seaside towns and out of the way villages, Woolworth couldn't survive when surrounded by shops that offered everything they did, often better and cheaper.
MFI on the other hand hasn't really worked since its creation thirty years ago. The piles of complaints it has managed to build up over the years has seen it feature on BBC's Watchdog consumer program more than any other furniture store. Recession or not, this company was going down, in fact it had already begun winding down operations having been the subject of a management buyout earlier on in the year.
But no, what people are really looking for is news from the big High Street companies, the blue chips that tell us exactly how we're spending our cash and whether we really are in meltdown. From the news in the last few weeks, you'd think we are all heading down, but look closer and the on-line world paints a completely different picture.
For example, Marks & Spencer saw a total UK sales fall of 3.4%, yet hidden below this grim news was an interesting nugget of information stating that on-line sales had risen 29%. For a High Street retailer the initial reaction may well be one of horror, yet for an Internet business, 29 percent increases are very welcome.
In fact, this trend continues throughout the results season with more companies posting lower than average bricks and mortar results but recession busting on-line figures.
Another statistic that makes us e-commerce types sit up and take notice is that Christmas day saw a 21% increase in on-line sales with an estimated 102 million being spent on the Internet.
So what can we glean from this information? Well it seems that those companies that are going to survive the downturn and maybe even gain some ground on their competitors will be those that embrace the web and use it to their advantage. With companies like John Lewis, M&S and others actively exploiting the lower costs and easier sales that the Internet brings to their business, it would make sense for others to follow.
2009 may well be a turning point in retail. A website for a business is no longer a 'nice to have', it has suddenly become essential to ensure continued survival. Those businesses that take the plunge and actively invest in this area will see benefits and may just come out of this recession better than many established companies.