With changes in lifestyle, as more and more women in urban India are
taking to western wear, M&S brings in quality fashion for urban Indian men and women.
Don’t ask for the price. It’s a penny, said Michael Marks, a Jewish immigrant in England, when he opened his market stall in Leeds in 1884. His business grew in popularity and in 1894,Marks partnered with Tom Spencer to start the store called “Penny Bazaar” in Kirk gate market in Leeds.
The stores displayed everything on trays for customers to inspect. By 1900, Marks Spencer had expanded to include 36 Penny Bazaars and 12 high street stores.
Built around the five key principles of quality, value, service,innovation and trust, the mid-market failure filled the gap between fashion that was cheap but lacked quality and the high-end exclusive stores.
Amid a major strategic overhaul in its home market where it would close 100 stores by 2020, British fashion retailer confirmed its plan to join reliance retail in India in September,which confirmed that the it would continue to open 10 stores annually on the back of rising demand.
The year 2017 saw the growth of M&S by 62% in the sale of dresses compared to 2016 and a 25% increase in the swimwear sales during the same year.
M&S currently has 24 stores in tier 2 cities and these have constituted one-fifth of company’s revenue from India. Like many fashion retailers M&S aims to continue to tap into this emerging market.
Although James Munson, MD of M&S India says that, “It is very difficult to define target in India”. By mid of 2018 they had already opened 8 new stores. M&S currently has 62 stores across the country and they also sell their branded apparel and lingerie wear across three online marketplaces: Myntra, Ajio,and Amazon.
Munson said about the brand India’s performance that “They have had a strong year despite the impact of GST, in 2017 we did a business of 880 crores and have recorded 16% overall growth. India continues to be a strategic and important market for M&S”.
