With the introduction of its first-ever baby club, British high street retailer Marks & Spencer (M&S) hopes to increase its market share in children’s clothing and draw in more family customers.
“The Parent Hood” is a component of M&S’s ambition to become “more relevant, more often to family shoppers” and is only available to Sparks loyalty program members. It offers delights, prizes, inspiration, and guidance for new parents and their little ones from pregnancy to the first two years of life.
Members of the free-to-join baby club can save up to £ 250 annually and will have access to “the very best of M&S” in terms of apparel, home, cosmetics, food, and its in-store cafés, among other brands.
The decision was made as M&S reports that more families are choosing to shop there, with food purchases accounting for 24 per cent of family shopping trips. The store also notes that its clothes and home departments are seeing “an expanding customer base.”
According to Kantar data: FY ’23/24, the UK baby 0-2 apparel industry is valued at about £ 900 million. M&S holds a 6 per cent market share in kidswear and has sustained growth in other categories, such as “newborn” clothes.
After offering “baby” a stronger in-store presence through better signage and more space, M&S saw double-digit sales growth in the category in 23/24. The retailer has recognised “baby” as a key enabler to unlock additional development. Currently, the store sells around 1.1 million baby grows annually.
By attracting family customers at an earlier stage of life—birth and infant—it intends to build on its success as the market leader in kidswear, particularly for school uniforms during back-to-school season. This is what it believes the baby club will do.
