Changes and Strategies in UK Fashion Retail Industry - Marks and Spencer

Retail Theory and
Practice

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
TASK ..............................................................................................................................................3
Changes faced by fashion retailers in UK...................................................................................3
Strategies and suggestions that could be used to respond the changes occurring in the retail
fashion industry...........................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................9
REFERNCES:................................................................................................................................10
Books and Journals:..................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
The retail industry is one of the biggest but yet challenging industries among all. It
affected by hundred of factors, consisting advanced technologies to economic uncertainties. The
UK exit from EU has been one of the biggest change in the history of UK. The European Union
has been regulating its import and export activities in its member regions but this exit of UK
creates new environment for fashion retailers in the UK market (Amasiatu and Shah, 2018). The
report is based on the famous fashion retailer i.e. Marks and Spencer (M&S). It is headquartered
in London, England. It is a multinational fashion retailer which specialises in merchandising
food products, home products and clothing. The company was established by Michael Marks and
Thomas Spencer in 1884. It has allocated their business operations across UK with 959 stores.
The following report is discussing some relevant changes and trends that affects fashion industry
in UK while developing some business strategies that could be useful to respond to the big
changes happening in the retail industry.
TASK
Changes faced by fashion retailers in UK.
The clothing industry has been severely affected by the changes and trends occurring in
the fast-moving retail market. It is vital for brand and retailers like Marks and Spencer to keep
their eye on the changes and trends, The following are some changes that affects the fashion
retail industry:
 Political changes in the UK fashion: After an exit from EU, many organizations face
political instability which affects their trades across Europe. The company worry about
tariff rates that will rise and by how much rate. As the trade policies of European Union
was free, the M&S paid zero tariffs on their import and export activities to UK, which
means that the company could sell their merchandise at the same prices. But now the
company has to pay import and export duties for their products which increases their cost
on goods. Selling products at high prices than their rivalries such as Arcadia group in UK
will adversely effects on the business. Before Brexit, the policies have not been created
which brings fall outs in the business (Bär, Herbert-Hansen and Khalid, 2018).
 Technological changes: UK is one of the countries which is high in advancing the
technologies. The smartphones penetration in the UK has been increasing in the past

years. This made the customers to change their shopping habits from offline shopping
such as go to store and shop, to online shopping that means shop desired products on
their smart phones or computers. Customers are now like to prefer shop over the
company's official websites (Filser and Et.al., 2018).
 Economic changes: In UK, the population rate is high and enabling infrastructure allows
companies to smoothing out their business operations which makes the nation attain 5th
largest GDP in the whole universe after the US, Germany and Japan. However, the
country was affected by recession and the conditions of recessions are just decreasing.
The M&S also has been affected which results that their target could not be attained. This
recession situation creates a high cost of living which affects the buying patterns to buy
the cloths all time. Hence, the M&S had to store its cloths for a longer period of time.
The inflation rate also affects the retail industry in UK which is increasing. In 2017, it has
reached to 3.1% which resulted increased prices on merchandise of M&S. Hence, the
organization is facing some challenging situations in order to regain their customer
confidence while selling them at such prices which delivers profits to the company.
 Environmental changes that affects the retail industry: The recessionary time creates
such an environment that makes every retail company struggling and finds difficulties to
rise at the expected rate. In context of M&S, the company tries to expand more by
enhancing their overall sales in the country, the recessionary environment discourages
such a step. It makes them difficult to meet the targets (Guenther, Johan and Schweizer,
2018).
 Social changes: The UK consists with diversified population and have multi-ethnic
cultures that affects the various companies. Every citizen has different needs and desires
that affects the business.
 Legal changes: In 2018, GDPR (General Data Protection Regulatory) came into an
action in which company requires to use transparent customer data on every e-commerce
sites and social media. In context of M&S, the company require to follow this rule and
regulation in order to avoid any litigations.
Changing trends in the UK Fashion Retail Industry:
 Online shopping: In the past years, customers have a switching intention from offline
shopping from malls to shop over e-commerce websites. Most of the customers prefer