M&S is opening a record nine new stores this month as it invests £80m in bricks-and-mortar retail.
Tomorrow (7 November), the retailer will begin its expansion plans with a 65,000 square foot store in Birmingham’s Bullring, followed by at least one store every seven days throughout the month.
Other new full line stores include Lakeside Thurrock and Manchester Trafford Centre, which will include fresh market-style food halls stocking the full M&S Food range.
This comes alongside the opening of three new M&S Foodhalls and a further three store renewals.
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The move forms part of M&S’ aim to become the UK’s leading omnichannel retailer, with its store rotation programme seeing it move from a base of 247 stores to 180 higher quality, higher productivity full line stores, alongside over 100 bigger food sites by the financial year 2027/28.
M&S operations director Sacha Berendji, said: “Stores are key to our business, and we see them as part of our competitive advantage. Increasing numbers of customers are heading back in to stores to experience the best of M&S all under one roof, supported by outstanding service from our colleagues, and we expect this to continue as we head into Christmas.
“To deliver our biggest ever store opening month which supports thousands of jobs is an outstanding effort from the team and shows just how serious we are about accelerating our rotation plans so we are in the right locations for our customers.”
To provide further support over the busy Christmas period, M&S is recruiting 10,000 new customer assistants.
The number of vacancies is more than a 40% increase on last year as the upmarket retailer looks to provide customers with futher assistance in the next few months across both food, and clothing and home sections.
