Marks & Spencer makes strong start to the financial year

In the first months of its financial year, Marks & Spencer once again saw a sharp increase in food and clothing sales. The British retailer is raising its profit forecast for the full year.

Structural recovery

Food sales rose by nearly 11 % in the 19 weeks to 14 August compared with the same period last year. Those results are also more than 9 % above the level of two years ago. Especially stores located in retail parks performed better than expected. Hospitality and franchising gradually improved, but remained below pre-Covid levels, the retailer reports in an interim trading update.

The clothing and home furnishings division grew 92 % compared to last year and was only 2.6 % lower than pre-Covid times. With more focused ranges and fewer summer sales, the revised retail approach enabled Marks & Spencer to sell more items at full price. Meanwhile, the shift to online continues apace: while store sales fell by almost a fifth, e-commerce revenues rose by nearly 62 %.

While there may have been a certain ‘catch-up’ effect, the retailer believes the performance improvement primarily results from the transformation plan. Marks & Spencer, therefore, expects profits this year to exceed the 300 to 350 million pounds (350 to 400 million euros) previously forecast.