M&S CEO Stuart Machin told shareholders that he was “frustrated” by Ocado Retail for failing to feature M&S in adverts or emails, despite the supermarket owning 50% of the online venture with the grocer.
At the company’s annual general meeting last week, Machin also shared that he was not pleased to find that just a quarter of M&S products that had recently been listed on Ocado were available to purchase, The Times reported.
M&S chair Archie Norman added that he was “not happy” with Ocado Retail’s performance.
Earlier this year, the retailer reported a loss of £501m, while M&S made a £29.5m loss on the joint venture over the past year.
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While M&S was set to pay Ocado £191 in performance payments in 2023 as the final installment of the £750m deal, that value is now expected to be slashed by around £70m due to the loss in profit and sales.
Despite this, M&S “strongly believes in the future of Ocado.”
The “reset”, which is currently in progress, looks to improve customer experience, roll out cost-cutting measures and increase the M&S product offering in a bid to strengthen the collaboration with the online grocer.
Machin said that the M&S range on the Ocado site “is getting better”, with more than 700 additional products having been listed recently.
Last month, prices of more than 100 everyday branded, Ocado own-label and M&S items were reduced by 25% and earlier this year, the online-only grocer launched its new Price Promise, which looks to compare prices against over 10,000 like for like products at Tesco.
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The first paragraph of this item suggests that M&S didn’t negotiate terms properly.