Marks & Spencer told to consider Amazon tie-up

By

Barbara Santamaria

Published
Jun 21, 2018

A former M&S digital boss has told the national department store chain that it should “seriously” consider a tie-up with Amazon.

Speaking with the BBC’s Radio 5 live, Marcus East said Marks & Spencer needs to “tackle the digital space”, and that a partnership with Amazon could be just what it needs to revive sales.

The department store admitted recently that its online capabilities are behind the best of its competitors, and that its website is too slow.

Additionally, its fulfilment centre at Castle Donington has struggled to cope with growing online demand, the company said in its latest financial report.

Seeing the rise in online sales, Marks & Spencer has vowed to close more stores to focus on its online business, particularly in the Home & Clothing categories.

But these efforts are not enough, according to Marcus East, who worked as global digital director at the company under former CEO Marc Bolland. “I would agree that for a lot of retailers, whilst they've put up a great fight, ultimately working with the likes of Amazon is probably a good way to tackle the digital space,” he told the BBC.

“Those companies that are most successful are ones that have a strong digital culture, so it's actually quite hard to take a traditional business and to get it to be successful in the digital space and I think that's why you see the pure plays, like Asos and Amazon, being incredibly successful at growing their customer bases.”

His comments were followed by a Marks & Spencer announcement on Thursday that it was working with Microsoft to test the capabilities of artificial intelligence in the retail space. The partnership is part of the company’s new technology approach to become a digital first retailer.