Scotland | M&S has unveiled plans to invest £30 million in bricks and mortar stores across Scotland. The retailer's investment will deliver more than five new store openings and expansions over the next eighteen months, supporting over 6,500 community jobs nationwide.
As one of the most significant private sector investments in Aberdeen for years, these plans include £15m for M&S Aberdeen Union Square – next year expanding to almost double the size with a spacious, fresh market-style food hall full of exciting new features, including a beautiful flower shop, a cheese barge, larger in-store bakery and dedicated M&S Wine Shop as well as bigger clothing, home and beauty departments – all designed to make shopping inspirational and more accessible than ever before.
Alongside a new M&S food hall coming to Linlithgow later this month, there's more investment in the Northeast economy with a new full-line store in Dundee's Gallagher Retail Park on track to open in Summer 2024. M&S will also open in Largs for the first time, with a new food hall due to open in early 2025.
Scotland is also an essential strategic sourcing location for M&S – with 2,500 Scottish farms in its supply chain and long-standing partnerships with companies such as Kettle Produce, McSween and Scottish Sea Farms. Many Scottish-sourced product lines are sold not just in 94 stores in Scotland but across a more comprehensive network of stores across the UK and beyond.
Sacha Berendji, M&S Operations Director, said this was M&S's most significant ever investment in Scotland, putting £30m into transforming the shopping experience for customers in Aberdeen, Largs, Dundee and Linlithgow - bringing new jobs across the country with bigger, better, fresh-market style food halls and new opportunities for Scottish shoppers to access its best-ever, most inspiringly presented clothing, home and beauty range.
“Our investment in Scotland goes beyond new stores, with M&S sourcing more Scottish produce than ever through strong partnerships with local producers. Around 2,500 Scottish farms, sea farms and fisheries supply us with great quality products, many supplied beyond Scotland to M&S stores across the UK. Our commitment to Scotland has never been stronger,” said Berendji.
Spring 2025 is when the £15m expansion in Aberdeen Union Square is scheduled to be completed, and the city can boast the fourth-biggest M&S in Scotland. M&S will then be closing its store on St Nicholas Street. Plans for this longer-term relocation have been shared with colleagues – with all those on permanent contracts transferring to M&S Aberdeen Union Square or other nearby stores next year.
M&S will work closely with the council and partners on the future development of the St Nicholas store.
Rachel Rankine, North East Regional Manager for M&S, said the scale of investment was a vote of confidence in the future of retail in Aberdeen city centre, with a flagship store on the same scale as city centre stores in Birmingham and Liverpool.
“Where we have already invested in new formats, our customers have responded to the destination shopping experience. Aberdeen shoppers can look forward to a bigger, better, fresher food hall and the best M&S clothing and home," said Rankine.
The Scottish investment announced today reflects M&S's aim to become the UK's leading omnichannel retailer, with its store rotation programme designed to ensure M&S has the right stores in the right place and the suitable space. The retailer aims to rotate from a base of 247 stores across the UK to 180 higher quality, higher productivity full-line stores that sell its Clothing, Home and Food ranges while opening over 100 bigger, better food sites by FY27/28.
At the start of last year, M&S set out a c.£500m multi-year investment in its store rotation programme across the UK and outlined its ambition to go faster in the programme and target delivery in three years instead of five by FY25/26. This new investment of £30m for Scotland announced today is on top of £32m already invested in eleven Scottish stores over the last four years – including brand-new food halls in Paisley, Hamilton and East Kilbride.
Beyond this headline investment, M&S has already launched eleven new and renewed stores over the last four years in Scotland, including new food halls in Straiton (Edinburgh), Hamilton, Falkirk Central, Cumbernauld, East Kilbride and Paisley alongside renewals and expansions in Glasgow Silverburn, Edinburgh Gyle, Anniesland, Glasgow West End and Bishopbriggs alongside two recently opened convenience stores in Glasgow Battlefield and Glasgow Queen Street.
In the last year, M&S has continued to see strong performances from these recently opened and relocated stores, with sales ahead of plan, increased footfall, and customers buying more extensive food baskets, giving the retailer the confidence to accelerate the programme.
The new store's pipeline means M&S will have more than 15 stores across Scotland in its renewal format. Each store aims to appeal to families, with customers able to browse in wider, brighter aisles, with fresh market-style food halls stocking the full M&S Food range and spacious clothing, home & beauty departments. Many renewal stores also have ample and accessible car parking to make shopping more convenient for customers, especially for bigger weekly food shops.
The new stores and renewals are also underpinned by substantial investment in new digital services that offer customers an omnichannel service – including the rollout of Digital Click & Collect so that customers can collect their parcels in-store in under 60 seconds. Other innovations include Scan & Shop, which lets customers use their phones to scan and bag food items directly from the M&S app as they shop.
