M&S invests millions more in London stores

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Apr 27, 2023

Retail giant M&S has announced a major investment programme in its London stores, with a new 38,000 sq ft store in Croydon’s Purley Way opening this week.

Its investing £12.5 million this year, with its pipeline of new stores set to create over 200 new jobs covering London zones 1 to 6 and beyond — that is, the city centre out to the suburbs.

This builds on the £10.3million investment made in London last year and adds up to a total of almost £23 million over the two-year period — or more if investment in Liverpool Street and Waterloo (excluded from these figures) is taken into account.

Last year’s spend included renewing its full-line store in Kingston – resulting in a Clothing & Home sales uplift of 8%.

A big chunk of the investment is all about boosting food sales with sales for ‘grab-and-go’ items like salads and sandwiches higher in London than other cities in the UK. But the works include non-food upgrades and the full renewal of its Victoria Cardinal Place store, for instance, will also benefit clothing. 

In total, M&S has over 100 owned stores within London. In fact, a third of all M&S stores are located in the city and its suburbs and the new investment plan intends to help it “reach even more customers across the capital to deliver a bigger, better and fresher shopping experience”.

The company also said it’s still committed to redeveloping its Marble Arch store on Oxford Street into a “modern, sustainable flag-bearing store, in the top 1% of London’s sustainable buildings that will use only a quarter of the energy of the current building”.