House Alarm Systems: Marks and Spencer gambles on bringing internet age to the shop floor

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Marks and Spencer gambles on bringing internet age to the shop floor

9:32 AM | Posted by ProJ | | Edit Post

as online shopping grows, the main street retailer is testing a "multi-channel" approach, using touch screens and Wi-Fi to a new store concept massive

Bronwyn - is proudly patting down and put it under your clothes and smart, hot-pink jacket is just "bra and panties" that have been purchased in your favorite store - said: "M S'M & a lady. "

The 62-year-old retired worker social is one of hundreds of buyers throng the aisles of Marks & Spencer new hypermarket in Cheshire Oaks in Ellesmere Port when it opened last week . With a workshop area equivalent to the size of 11 Olympic swimming pools, the department store - code-named "Concept 11" - is the best crack M & S until the date of the merger of the worlds physical and online shopping

M & S tries to please buyers Bronwyn faithful into their stores armed with mobile phones in their bags that have more computing power than the average PC a decade ago. "I'm one of the older generation - we called silver surfers - moving to modern technology," says

With the Internet has become part of the fabric of modern life, digital M & S guru Laura Wade-Gery, is categorical: "The street is not going to stop so that we know we can not. "the executive, who was hired last year Tesco is behind the growing arsenal retailer shopping technology interactive." How can we use the Internet to reinvent the store? "He asks. "There is such a mission like this."

Cheshire

In store, customers are encouraged to use the "find and order" hubs with touchscreens giants appear to have been stolen from the Teletubbies.'s Last line of fashion apparel and home are emitted from 70in "inspiration" appears with additional backup provided by the workshop participants that haunt armed with sheathed set up to bridge the gap between the thousands of products that hang on ways and there in cyberspace those .

Shop

striking, with a roof bentwood "plywood" (laminated) and the walls of hemp could be greener M & S so far, but within six many years that it took to achieve increasingly asserted that the department stores are increasingly obsolete as a default virtual street buyers.

M & S boss Marc Bolland admitted to the inauguration that he had taken a step back in time, the shop monster was "a little smaller." 151,000 square meters, it is unlikely M & S will never open a large branch again., but with a catchment area of ??1.3 million people and 4 million pounds of local retail to continue, Bolland insisted it was just a great store, but rather a "shopping experience."

The shadow cast by the Internet and now mobile shopping has made slogans distribution sector "multi" and even "omnichannel" which attempts to describe the way customers use every once and stored Web sites in tandem. Jargon aside, retailers must find other channels your customers use, the more you spend. M & S says consumers who buy on their website and in their stores spend four times more. Smartphones throw in mixture and spend eight times more

In his later work in Argos, Morrey planned the release of "click and collect" service is taken for granted by buyers: the industry "Nobody else had done and was very skeptical about whether it would be a success. "Multichannel Retail is still in its infancy, he said, predicting that the high-speed broadband and 4G will lead to other changes.

Most buyers of S & S are older than 40 years, and some analysts believe that the Internet is less relevant for channels with a younger clientele. Wade-Gery, however, remembers a recent focus group in St Albans, when a woman of 75 years, spoke on the merits of Groupon. "Be very careful not to stereotype people," he said, adding that half of women aged 55 to 65 have a smartphone, and one in three has a Tablet PC.

channel effects certainly helped John Lewis, M & S rival for the heart of half of the buyers of England, in what has been a prolonged recession main street. Conlumino analyst Neil Saunders said that online sales will grow 13% this year, compared to a retail market that is reduced by 1%. "If you're not online can not access these seams growth," he said.

Saunders believes that M & S has more pressing concerns to attend to get their "bricks and clicks" act together. Past year, its market share fell from 10.9 female 10% 4%, due to a combination of competition and drives purchases mistakes that led to a shortage of top-selling lines. "M & S is even greater, but each year its leadership is declining" he said.