Marks & Spencer has acquired the intellectual property, source code and algorithms of personalised fashion marketplace Thread. The company already has personalisation element on its website which is believed to have boosted revenue of £ 20 million till date. With the new tech getting integrated into its website, the British clothing retailer will now be able to suggest and recommend clothes based on style, size and budget.
The deal is a pre-pack one with M&S lined up to buy the business before its administration filing.
M&S anticipates 20-25 percent of all its digital interactions to be personalised this year. Recently, retailers discovered that outfit recommendations are valuable to them and are expecting the figure to reach 100 million pounds of annual incremental revenue in the coming years.
Following Thread’s administration, M&S announced the appointment of 30 former data scientists, software engineers and styling and creative teams to oversee the integration and build a new customised discovery team within their data and digital function. Kieran O’Neil and Ben Phillips, two of Thread’s Founders, are among them.
Katie Bickerstaffe, Co-chief Executive at Marks & Spencer said: “The acquisition of Thread is the perfect example of a ‘buy not build’ approach – enabling us to accelerate our personalisation strategy by integrating the market-leading tech on M&S.com in under 12 months. We’re taking personalisation to the next level to inspire our customers with tailored outfit inspiration.”
“We have been working hard to deliver better, more stylish ranges and this algorithm will also put more of our great products in front of the customer, whilst further unlocking the potential of our third-party brand strategy, by adding outfit completing product ideas. We already know the incremental value personalisation can bring and we anticipate that personalisation will generate more than 100 million pounds of annualised incremental revenue for the business.”
Kieran O’Neill, who joins M&S in December as Senior Head of Product, added: “We have worked for the past 10 years on building the most advanced AI personalisation for online fashion, proven to increase customer conversion and repeat orders. We’re so excited to join forces with M&S; through their infrastructure and support, we’re able to take our market-leading technology to the next level, providing a personalised and unique shopping experience for their 30 million customers.”
