Comment: Can M&S replicate international success at home?

French consumers can’t seem to get enough of Marks & Spencer.

In the land of haute couture and haute cuisine chic Parisiennes are kitting themselves out in the retailer’s Autograph fashion lines and gourmets are piling their plates high with British culinary favourities such as curries and crumpets.

M&S crossed the channel again to reopen stores in 2011, a decade after sounding the retreat while under pressure at home. It generated sales in France last year of £50m.

Such has been its success in France and elsewhere that the retailer intends to ramp up international expansion. This week chief executive Marc Bolland revealed he plans to open 250 stores globally over three years.

He is targeting international revenue growth of 25% over that time and a 40% leap in international profits - last year the earnings figure was £120m at the operating level.

As well as Western Europe, which includes France, where M&S intends to open 20 standalone food stores in Paris, priority markets are India, China, Russia and the Middle East.

“Such has been its success in France that the retailer intends to ramp up international expansion”

 

M&S’s international growth model these days is very different from what it was just a few years ago.

In Western Europe the intention is to open flagship stores in top locations - including potential new cities such as Milan and Barcelona - and franchised food stores.

Elsewhere, the focus will be on franchising. Middle Eastern partner Al-Futtaim, for example, intends to double the size of its M&S business. And in China M&S is seeking a local partner to expand beyond its Shanghai base.

It’s important though not to get too carried away by the glamour of internationalisation. M&S’s overseas operation, which notched up sales last year of just over £1bn, remains very much the little brother to the core UK business.

At home, while M&S’s food business is forking in the money, the general merchandise arm - and womenswear in particular - is still under pressure.

The most recent market share data showed further erosion and rival Next is overtaking M&S in profitability.

But despite the ongoing uphill slog in the fashionability stakes in Blighty, the success of M&S overseas is a powerful reminder of its unique status and continued pulling power on the world retail stage.

If M&S can re-import some of the sizzle that attracts overseas consumers in droves, from the arrondissements of Paris to the megamalls of the Gulf, it might fully reignite the love affair with British shoppers.