Last month, M&S’s online outage caused apparel sales to drop by a fifth, giving its main fashion competitors, Next, Zara, and H&M, a larger market share.
Following a significant cyber attack, the high street behemoth was forced to halt online orders on 25th April and finally resumed operations on 10th June; as a result, it lost out on important weeks of warm season shopping.
According to Kantar statistics, M&S’s home and apparel sales fell 20% year over year in the four weeks leading up to 25th May. Prior to the incident, there had been an 11.5% increase throughout the preceding three months.
Rivals were able to take advantage of the disturbance. “Next brand sales growth increased to 4.8% from 1.6%, benefited by the digital disruption seen by major peer [M&S],” according to James Grzinic, an analyst at Jefferies.
Although it is more difficult to confirm exact numbers due to Zara and H&M’s lesser market shares in the UK, both reported significant increases in sales, with Zara’s growth rising from 16.1% to 27.8% and H&M’s from 8.9% to 18.1%.
On the other hand, Primark, which is exclusively accessible online through click-and-collect, did not benefit much, as its growth slowed to 2.7% during the same time frame.
“Our stores performed strongly across all fashion categories and particularly womenswear,” M&S said, claiming it held up well in-store. “This demonstrates how strong our product range is and how devoted our customers are. We sincerely appreciate them shopping with us.”
By value, the store continues to be the largest apparel retailer in the UK.
Jefferies’ study contrasted the performance of the 12 weeks ending in mid-April with that of the 12 weeks ending on 25th May. In the latter period, M&S’s growth slowed to just 1%.
A rising number of third-party brands and product categories are slowly making their way back to the group’s website as it works to rebuild its online offer.
