M&S to add full range of food products to more standard stores

Marks and Spencer has announced it is planning to add its full range of food products to its standard stores as it targets the family shopping trip.

Currently only 12 of the retailer’s stores offer all 6,500 items in its food range, with the retailer’s Simply Food convenience stores deemed to be too small to stock the full range. M&S will look to convert existing space stocking items such as clothes to food, after it said in a letter to suppliers “in front of enough customers” leading them to believe it did not have a full range.

M&S added: “This must change, and it will. The full range will go online with Ocado and we are starting a store renewal programme that will get more products in front of more customers with bigger, better M&S Food Halls in new and existing sites.”

The move to a focus on food will tie in with M&S’s recent deal with Ocado, which will see the online supermarket offer the retailer’s full food range. Analysts expressed concern at the deal claiming that M&S customers did not spend enough per shop. Currently M&S customers spend an average of £13 per shop while Ocado customers spend over £100 per shop.

M&S believes if customers have more access to its food range they will spend more on average, and hopes that larger stores will help it to achieve that.