Marks & Spencer announces next round of store closures
Marks & Spencer has revealed the next 14 stores that it is planning to close as it works towards reducing its store estate and taking at least a third of its sales online.
The retailer is looking to close over 100 stores by 2022. This includes 21 stores that have already been shuttered.
The next 14 stores earmarked for closure include its Bayswater store and Fleetwood and Newton Abbot outlets, all which will close by the end of July 2018. In addition, the retailer’s Clacton and Holloway Road stores will both close by early 2019.
Meanwhile, M&S’s Darlington, East Kilbride, Falkirk, Kettering, Newmarket, New Mersey Speke, Northampton, Stockton and Walsall shops have all been proposed for closure and will enter a period of consultation with all 626 affected employees. If the stores do shut, the retailer said all staff will be redeployed or offered employment at other stores before redundancy is considered.
M&S said a combination of closures, relocations, conversions, downsizes and the introduction of concessions, will radically reshape its clothing and homewares space.
Sacha Berendji, M&S retail, operations and property director, added: “We are making good progress with our plans to reshape our store estate to be more relevant to our customers and support our online growth plans. Closing stores isn’t easy but it is vital for the future of M&S. Where we have closed stores, we are seeing an encouraging number of customers moving to nearby stores and enjoying shopping with us in a better environment, which is why we’re continuing to transform our estate with pace.”
M&S’s wider five-year transformation plan sets out its ambition to create fewer but better clothing and home stores. In addition, the retailer will open fifteen fewer Simply Food stores this year as it looks to scale back its food opening programme.
