Marks and Spencer 2009 Annual Report Download - page 39

Improve don’t move
Our customers trust the M&S brand,
particularly when buying investment pieces
such as beds and sofas. And in recent times,
as customers have tightened their belts and
the housing market has slowed, customers
have also increasingly turned to M&S for
homeware. We acknowledged this trend and
introduced our ‘Improve Don’t Move’ campaign.
As a result sales of items such as crockery,
cushions and soft furnishings were strong,
with customers knowing they could buy
well-priced and lasting pieces to spruce up
their homes.
Our locations
There are now 64 M&S stores that sell
furniture but almost all of our 293 main
chain-stores offer homeware and gifts.
The number of furniture stores will increase
as part of our modernisation programme –
albeit at a slower rate, given our decision to
pull-back on capital expenditure. Home will
have more floor space in our new stores,
with an example being Westfield in London.
We are also opening more standalone
Home stores. In March we opened Cardiff
Capital, the third standalone store and the
first to include a food hall and 80-seater
M&S Café. It joins our existing standalone
home stores in Lisburn in Northern Ireland,
and Barton Square in Manchester.
We will continue to open more standalone
Home stores, with three planned this financial
year in Cheltenham, Tunbridge Wells and
Aberdeen.
Expanding the range
We continue to add new products and ranges
to our home offer as a way of introducing
our brand to new customers. This year
we launched nursery furniture, white goods
and M&S Energy.
Beauty
Our Beauty business has long been known
for its quality make-up, fragrances and
toiletries – in fact we sell 33 tonnes of
Magnolia talcum powder every year. We are
now also establishing a name for ourselves
as experts in skincare – with M&S Formula
Instant Fix Midnight Beauty Cream short-
listed in the 2009 UK Beauty Awards for
‘Best New Skincare Product’. At the same
time as innovating our ranges, we will also
be improving the position of our Beauty offer
in-store and further clarifying our brands of
‘Autograph’, ‘Essential Colours’, ‘Formula’,
‘Florentyna’ and ‘per una’.
Looking ahead
We have a real opportunity to continue to
grow our Home business. Encouraging
greater shopping across departments by
attracting food and clothing customers is
an important part of our Home strategy
going forward, and something we will
achieve through our promotional plan
and improved store layouts. Also important
is the development of our website so we
can showcase our products online for
those customers who cannot get to one
of our stores.
35
UK Home sales
£471.3m
+1.1%
Home: Our Home business remains one of the fastest growing
parts of our Group and one we have identified as having even
higher growth potential. Our trusted reputation saw new customers
gravitate to us during the year. So although the economy presented
challenging conditions, our sales were up 1.1% on the year, despite
Easter falling into the 2009/10 financial year.
125 YEARS OF VALUE
Below: M&S Energy Launched in October 2008,
M&S Energy rewards customers with vouchers
for reducing their energy consumption. More than
65,000 accounts have already been opened with us.
125 YEARS OF INNOVATION
Below: Sweet dreams We introduced two ranges
of nursery furniture in January 2009 – the Ruby
and Oscar collections – which consist of a cot bed,
changing unit and double wardrobe.
BRAND FOCUS: HOME
BEAUTY CROCKERY
FURNITURE GIFTS
SOFT FURNISHINGS TECHNOLOGY
125 YEARS OF TRUST
Above: Plugged in Seven of the top 10 best-
selling home products are bought in our technology
department.