Retail industry during crisis as a case M&S

Marks & Spencer (M&S) is one of the largest retailing stores in Britain dealing with production and supply of a wide variety of products such as clothing, house ware, foodstuff, footwear and financial services. M&S has been very successful in Britain where it started in a stall and currently has over 600 stores and has diversified to be an international business with almost 300 stores situated in other countries worldwide. M&S has been faced with many challenges in the market leading to a decline in its sales and many losses experienced in both local and international markets.



M&S has attempted several ways to transform its marketing strategies in order to stabilize its economy in both local and international markets such as in London, UK and Istanbul, Turkey. Marks & Spenser is the largest retail shop in Britain and has dealt with home upholstery, clothing and foodstuff both locally and internationally. In addition, Marks & Spencer has offered financial services in UK, Europe, America and far East that generated about 3% of their incomes in the year 1998 (Dow Jones Industrial 1999).

Michael Marks started Marks & Spencer in the 1884 in a stall on a loan as a wholesaler. The company aimed at quality and low cost productions as a means through which they can stabilize in the markets. With time, Marks & Spencer employed more people and based their production philosophy on certain missions including long-term relationships with the suppliers, quality productions at affordable prices, corporate social responsibility and using a single brand name locally and internationally (Alon 2000).

The big question to be answered is: What are the current marketing strategies in M&S and how these strategies have been used during the market crises. Marks & Spencer has currently been hit with a series of crisis in its markets particularly in the home market (Vitorovich 2009). Market capitalization and product prices have reduced leading to reduced sales revenues in the local and overseas markets.

This study make and enquiry whether Marks & Spencer has come up with different initiatives such as formation of marketing departments in 1999 to be more proactive and focus on the markets where the department was headed with an experienced veteran officer who had headed one of the departments in the home market (Alon 2000). Marks & Spencer has encouraged the local textile manufacturers to produce more leading to improved quality and flexibility in production and supply as compared to importing raw materials (Tse 2004).

The rationale of the chosen topic is based on certain hypotheses. First hypothesis is M&S marketing strategies in London, UK and Istanbul, Turkey are the same and a null hypothesis is that M&S marketing strategies in London, UK and Istanbul, Turkey are not the same. It has been established that the M&S marketing strategies in London, UK and Istanbul, Turkey are the not same. This is because London has many M&S stores are compared to Istanbul and the London is more interested in the clothing because of the weather changes in the area as compared to Istanbul.

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