LONDON – UK retailer Marks & Spencer has announced the addition of six new clothing and footwear brands to M&S.com over the coming weeks including Albaray, Celtic & Co, Craghoppers, FatFace, Frugi and Jones Bootmaker.
The move is part of the retailer’s omnichannel strategy, ‘Brands at M&S’ , which was launched in spring with brands such as Sloggi and Sosandar already available on the site.
Over the summer a number of kidswear brands have also been added to the M&S platform including Clarks to support the schoolwear offer.
Growing M&S.com as a platform to drive frequency of shop is viewed as an important part of reshaping M&S’s Clothing & Home business which has experienced mixed fortunes in recent years.
Customer adoption of this model of shopping is accelerating – in a recent customer survey 73 per cent of M&S customers said they have purchased clothing and footwear brands from a retailer acting as a platform, and M&S continues to adapt to this trend.
M&S says early results on the addition of new brands driving shopping frequency have been encouraging, with traffic on M&S.com increasing and new customers who buy into a guest brand returning to make their second purchase nearly 10 days sooner than those who didn’t buy into brands. Brands also continue to attract new customers, with 14 per cent of customers who shop Nobody’s Child (the first ever brand on M&S.com) brand new to M&S womenswear.
Neil Harrison, director of brands at M&S said: “With customers increasingly looking to shop on platforms, we have an exciting opportunity to leverage our infrastructure and digital-first Sparks loyalty scheme to grow ‘Brands at M&S’. We’re offering our time-pressured customers more choice with a curated group of value for money, contemporary, stylish brands with sustainability credentials – improving our online offer and making us more relevant, more often. We’re excited to be adding great new brands over the coming weeks, from Frugi to FatFace, as well as new drops landing for existing brands.”