Sales slump
M&S pins faith in new
fashion line

The firm is battling to reverse seven straight quarters of falling underlying sales in clothing, particularly in women’s clothing.

The group is pinning its hopes on new fashion ranges. The new autumn/winter range was revealed last week to positive reviews from fashion critics.

M&S said it would take time for the “decisive action” it took last year to reverse the sharp decline in clothing sales to work through.

The group has moved John Dixon, former boss of the well-performing food division, to the role of new head of general merchandise, which includes clothing and homewares. In addition Belinda Earl, the former Jaeger and Debenhams boss, was appointed style director.

Chief executive Marc Bolland, the former Morrisons boss, said the performance of general merchandise had been “unsatisfactory”, but that the new M&S autumn/winter range – seen as the acid test of the new fashion team – will change this.

Analyst Freddie George at Cantor Research said: “It will take time to attract the younger, freer spending consumers. M&S’s core customer has got older, has become more used to sporadic promotional activity and has become more focused on price rather than value for money.”

Bryan Roberts, Kantar director of retail insights, said: “The slump in profitability was well-flagged and comes as precious little surprise, but this fact does little to dispel the gloom surrounding the general merchandise side of the business. Positivity surrounds food and the longer-term multichannel building blocks being put in place, but we retain concerns that the feted autumn/winter clothing range will not be the silver bullet that some hope it might be.”

Bolland shrugs off talk of investor rebellion: Page 16.