CW1 INQUIRY PROJECT.

CW1 INQUIRY PROJECT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..............................................................................................................................................3
Trends in Retail.....................................................................................................................................3
Analysis of Company............................................................................................................................5
Recommendations................................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES..........................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Retail is process of selling consumer products or services to consumers by many
distribution channels to earn profit. The retailers satisfy demand determined by supply
chain. The retail industry is responsible for distribution of the finished products to public
(Aguzzoni and et. al., 2016). Marks & Spencer is British multinational retailer and its
headquarter in London. This firm is specializing in selling the home products, food items
and clothing. This report will be considered about the trends in retail and also analysis
for organization.
MAIN BODY
Trends in Retail
In United Kingdom, retail industry is largest private sector employer with more
than three million workers. Retail is explained as sale of products to public for
consumption purpose rather than resale. This encompasses departmental stores,
shops, internet retailers, market stalls and door-to- door sales people (M&S Case Study,
2020). Retail is changing at unprecedented speed and with this come more challenges
as well as opportunities. In this industry, online sales grow on continuous basis.
Activism has also risen, driven largely through millennials and Gen Z, who demand to
hear their voices. Combined these factors will have an enormous impact not just for
next year, but for the next ten years on the consumer environment (Arunraj and Ahrens,
2016). On the basis of 2020 estimates, UK retail sales occur in the physical stores. In
context of consumer shopping behavior, Reality may best be represented as a mixed
physical and digital shopping approach. In United Kingdom, people still wanted to
experience physical shops, often as part of the digital and physical shopping journey.
Other than this, to run retail business, it is necessary to stay nimble and keep up with
technology advancement. Change is constant that business can adapt as well as
innovate likely to be thriving in competitive environment. There are some trends in retail
given below:

Sustainability paradigm shift- Retail sector is main contributor to the global
carbon emissions and in these retailers plays a necessary role. Hence, there is moral
aspect to it that there is a better business related opportunity. Some of the retailers
have sustainability on agenda but those who not is prioritize now take risk not surviving
next 5-10 years (Arunraj, Ahrens and Fernandes, 2016).
Personalization and experiential shopping- More brands and goods have
been made available to more people than ever before via ecommerce. This is only
natural for everybody to seek goods, places and experiences that feel unique if they can
receive everything. Major brands such as Sephora and Nordstrom responded with new
design store customizations, while other retailers offer personalized merchandise. Levi's
provides personalization online as well as in-store, for example, such as jeans or
embroidery made to order (Audzeyeva and Hudson, 2016).
Innovation- The retail sector has already become unrecognized by technology.
Today, almost every buyer is an online customer. The transition from exclusive in-stores
to the omni channel spending has forced retailers to change their businesses and left
customers behind who have not adapted. Technology is more likely to reshape retail
landscape is Artificial Intelligence driven through data from consumers. Machine
learning permits retailers to use information from their consumers to provide the
personalized services. When consumers are shopping on retail platforms, then retailers
are giving them the better and detailed information. Artificial Intelligence retail
organizations are enhancing Artificial Intelligence to reshape the stores. Technology can
contribute to "personalized" experiences like design of products by customers.
Consumers use Smartphone increasingly to control pricing, look up products and even
complete shopping.
Shopping on social media- Social networking networks such as Instagram and
Snapchat empower street mavens, fashion bloggers, lifestyle experts and others. It is
therefore reasonable that these platforms presently offer ecommerce capabilities such
as shopping tags. Although social shopping may not yet be very popular, that may
change as sites allow users to load information on a credit card platform ( Balaji and
Roy, 2017).

Re-invention of retail continues- Customers demand exclusive shopping as
well as online experiences. Be it selected stores, linked areas or interactive journeys,
consumers want an emotional bond with their shopping experience (Wales and
Amankwah, 2016).
Ethical and values-based shopping- Millennials, more so than the Baby
boomers and gen Xers want to feel better regarding goods and firm behind them. There
are some organizations in retail sector which donate services and goods to communities
at local and global level. It makes the buyers feel that they are supporting company that
cares regarding goods (Demirgüneş, 2016).
Analysis of Company
Marks & Spencer is British Multinational retailer. This company was founded in
year 1884 and its headquarter is in London, England. This is specializes in selling
clothing, food products and home items. It has stores in around 1463 locations and
there are more than 80000 staff members working. The revenue of this company is
£10,377.3 million and operating income is £601. 0 million (Retail Trends 2020, 2020).
In United Kingdom, Marks and Spencer is best known as well as respected brand
selling the high quality of clothing, food items and home wares to more than 33 million
consumers. Since its start a single market stall in year 1884 and now it is listed on
FTSE 100 and developed into main multi channel player in Retail Industry with 852
United Kingdom stores and 480 International outplayed and successful online shopping
operations (Nash, 2019). This company faces the challenge related to the digital
marketing. With continue shift to the online for multi-channel shopping’s and the mobile,
retailers are in ensuring focused on optimizing the digital experience for consumer to
maintain is in competitive environment. Marks and Spencer Company recognize this
challenge as and so opportunity to advance shopper engagement as well as in the
revenue through taking alige approaches to the website Optimization by sales as well
as marketing organizations. The successful testing program had been already
implemented under which team at represents optimize worked with the Marks and
Spencer digital team to help in managing their own test. In regards to this, Webtrends
optimize team gives valuable input for Complex text and also provide guidance on the

strategic direction. Realizing value of partnership form Marks and Spencer wanted to
capitalize on it and also streamline its Optimization efforts to installing more
collaborative working way with Webtrends Consultants (von Briel, 2018).
In order to overcome from this challenge, A team of Marks & Spencer and
Webtrends Optimize digital professionals has developed a new operating model which
includes a more agile strategy for constant short-term testing, not a more informal
project management process with fully-enabled business owners. More agile process
training has helped members of both teams to gain a better understanding of company's
competencies and to align best practices in order to help them to promote a more
coherent approach (Pantano and Gandini, 2018). Even more training in the use of
Webtrends Optimize self-service solution for Marks & Spencer product teams has led to
even greater acceptance and allowed digital team to concentrate on more nuanced,
data-driven personalization research.
More than 54% of total transactions are made online by Millennials and 67%
prefer to do so rather than visit a physical store. If millennials go to physical stores, they
are likely than they are to be shopping legitimately to be showrooming such as view
goods in brick and mortar locations in order to complete purchase online. In order to
promote its products and services as well as sales, Marks & Spencer uses the social
media. It’s growing influence on retailer of United Kingdom, Marks & Spencer using the
Instagram. This is organic play than paid for one. From shoppable posts to the
influencers, social network is central to social media marketing of retailers. Marks and
Spencer use social media to communicate with their clients, and the profits of their ad
campaigns have risen significantly. The company shares material on Instagram
because it knows that young people want to see, including food, fashion and socially
sensitive content for instance imagery (Pantano and et. al., 2017). Marks & Spencer
knows that its older consumers will not be able to use Instagram as much as Millennials
and Gen Z, so that their marketing can be more focused on these demographics via the
platform.
Marks & Spencer Company is trying to gain market share and re-invest their
market share and dominance. At present, M&S is gaining greater market share and

continues to struggle in earnings. In a rather shallow world of retail, this implies
weakness. Their vision is to give everyone access to quality food and clothes. We are
dedicated in this ever competitive retail environment to recognize and respond
consistently to consumer needs. At the market place, there are some competitors of
Marks & Spencer such as John Lewis Partnership, Tesco, Waitrose & Partners, Aldi
UK, Debenhams, Macy's and Next plc (Thompson and McLarney, 2017). In order to
deal with the competitors, it is covering the wider share market only among the rich
people so that it can follow the low cost competitive strategy.
SWOT Analysis
Strengths
 It has strong offerings with the latest
trends in retail industry.
 It has high corporate social
responsibility.
 The main focus of Marks and
Spencer is on providing the better
customer experience.
Weaknesses
 It is more reliance on United
Kingdom market that makes this
venerable to the market situation in
local country.
 Its main weakness is product recalls
frequently that leads to loss in the
customer confidence.
 It has high cost products.
Opportunities
 It has an opportunity of online
presence to bolster market position.
 It can reshaping the clothing
segment.
 It can make simplifying its
operational model.
Threats
 The changing trend in clothing
space is main threat for company.
 Depreciation of the Sterling post
Brexit.
Recommendations
In the retail industry, there is more competition and it is necessary for the Marks
and Spencer organization to make improvement in its business as competitors are well
maintaining business in global level. It needs to use the innovation services to

consumer by using the latest technology in business sector by E-Commerce and e-
business. There are some other recommendations mentions below:
 It is necessary for the Marks and Spencer to use the artificial intelligence
technology in which business should make innovation in an effective manner.
This will helpful for providing the better experience to customers and also provide
them with information regarding the product and services.
 In order to maintain its competitive position, there is a requirement for Marks and
Spencer to make improvement in its process related to operations, products
designing, layout, inbound Logistic and others. This company should be made
clear of the old stocks to provide way to Updated storks.
 It is necessary for the Marks and Spencer to make change in its stores and its
selling process because from this customers can be attracted towards it and also
focus on purchase in the product and services.
 It needs to redesign its stores in way that give space, comfort and convenience
to consumers so that they are fitting, browsing and also shopping in a better
manner. It needs to delays in decision making as well as use of digital
manufacturing systems.
CONCLUSION
It has been concluded from above mention information that following the trends
in retail organizations can able to make its business successful. From the continuous
change, retailers bridge gap among the real and digital world interactions that will
prosper. The retailers which work hard to acquire the customer knowledge and also put
this better use can able to succeed in future.

REFERENCES
Books & Journals
Aguzzoni, L. and et. al., 2016. Ex post merger evaluation in the UK retail market for
books. The Journal of Industrial Economics. 64(1). pp.170-200.
Arunraj, N. S. and Ahrens, D., 2016. Estimation of non-catastrophic weather impacts for
retail industry. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management.
Arunraj, N. S., Ahrens, D. and Fernandes, M., 2016. Application of SARIMAX model to
forecast daily sales in food retail industry. International Journal of Operations
Research and Information Systems (IJORIS). 7(2). pp.1-21.
Audzeyeva, A. and Hudson, R., 2016. How to get the most from a business intelligence
application during the post implementation phase? Deep structure transformation
at a UK retail bank. European Journal of Information Systems. 25(1). pp.29-46.
Balaji, M. S. and Roy, S. K., 2017. Value co-creation with Internet of things technology
in the retail industry. Journal of Marketing Management. 33(1-2). pp.7-31.
Demirgüneş, K., 2016. The effect of liquidity on financial performance: Evidence from
Turkish retail industry. International Journal of Economics and Finance. 8(4).
pp.63-79.
Nash, J., 2019. Exploring how social media platforms influence fashion consumer
decisions in the UK retail sector. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management:
An International Journal.
Pantano, E. and Gandini, A., 2018. Shopping as a “networked experience”: an emerging
framework in the retail industry. International Journal of Retail & Distribution
Management.

Pantano, E. and et. al., 2017. Does innovation-orientation lead to retail industry growth?
Empirical evidence from patent analysis. Journal of Retailing and Consumer
Services. 34. pp.88-94.
Thompson, J. and McLarney, C., 2017. What effects will the strategy changes
undertaken by next Plc have on themselves and their competition in the UK
Clothing Retail Market?. Journal of Commerce and Management Thought. 8(2).
pp.234-264.
von Briel, F., 2018. The future of omnichannel retail: A four-stage Delphi study.
Technological Forecasting and Social Change. 132. pp.217-229.
Wales, P. and Amankwah, A. A., 2016. Trends in Self-employment in the UK: 2001 to
2015. Office for National Statistics.
Online
M&S Case Study, 2020. [Online]. Available through: <https://www.webtrends-
optimize.com/resources/case-studies/marks-spencer/>.
Retail Trends 2020, 2020. [Online]. Available through: <
https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/consumer-business/articles/retail-
trends.html>.