Member Article

Sales up at M&S as food business ‘outperforms the market’

Marks & Spencer has reported ‘another strong performance in a difficult market’ as food sales increased 3.7% for the 13 weeks ending 28th March 2015.

The retailer saw sales of General Merchandise increase 1.3%, and like-for-like sales up 0.7%.

After a period of disruption at its Castle Donington online distribution centre in Leicestershire resulted in poor performance in December, M&S.com is now back in growth with sales up 13.8%.

The retailer noted second half profit was ‘significantly impacted’ by macro-economic issues particularly in our Russia, Ukraine and Turkey franchise partnership, coupled with further weakening in the Euro.

Marc Bolland, chief executive, said: “We have made strong progress over the quarter. In Food we delivered another excellent performance, with sales growth ahead of the market.

“We continued to deliver on General Merchandise gross margin, and are pleased that we have achieved this whilst also improving General Merchandise sales. M&S.com has returned to growth, as planned, with further improvement in customer metrics.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ellen Forster .