Marks and Spencer has confirmed it will close 100 stores by 2022 as part of a restructuring programme it describes as vital to its future. The retailer says 21 stores have already shut, and it has now identified 14 further sites for closure.
Among the latest closures are stores in Bayswater, Fleetwood and Newton Abbot, with those in Clacton and Holloway Road expected to follow in early 2019. Proposed closures include Darlington, East Kilbride, Falkirk, Kettering, Newmarket, New Mersey Speke, Northampton, Stockton and Walsall. Since the programme began in November 2016, 18 stores have closed and three have been relocated.
Retail operations director Sacha Berendji said: "Closing stores isn't easy but it is vital for the future of M&S." He added that where closures had occurred, encouraging numbers of shoppers were now visiting nearby stores. The company, which operates just over 1,000 UK stores, wants to shift a third of sales online and concentrate on fewer, larger clothing and homeware outlets in better locations.
Retail analysts said the scale of closures was a necessary response to changing shopping habits. Laith Khalaf of Hargreaves Lansdown said: "M&S is repositioning itself for the new retail world. Having a huge store estate is no longer the powerful retail force that it once was." Maureen Hinton of GlobalData warned that M&S was "perilously close" to losing its position as the UK's largest clothing retailer to Primark, with its market share forecast to fall to 7.6% this year.
The announcement comes after disappointing Christmas trading, with like-for-like sales falling in both food and clothing and homeware in the three months to 30 December. Chairman Archie Norman, who took over last year, has said the retailer had been "drifting" and promised to accelerate changes, including scaling back expansion of its Simply Food chain from 40 stores to 25 this financial year. M&S shares fell 2.6% to 292p on Tuesday.
The company is due to publish its annual results on Wednesday, with investors looking for evidence of improvement. Analysts question whether lost sales from closed stores will be recaptured online or through fewer but better-located shops. GlobalData's Ms Hinton said closing stores would make space more productive and help profitability, but added: "It still has not solved its fundamental problem: top-line growth."
