Here’s How Marks & Spencer Is Embracing Live Shopping and Going International with Marketplaces
British retail brand Marks & Spencer has had an incredibly storied history. In fact, it wasn’t too long ago the company was in serious trouble and was on the verge of disappearing from UK high streets entirely.
However, the business persevered and came back swinging with a significant rebrand which saw it embrace its middle-class place in the market and an advertising focus on the high quality of its products – most famously in its slow motion "This is not food, this is M&S food…” advertisements.
While the fortunes of Marks & Spencer were reversed when it comes to its brick-and-mortar retail operations, the brand has historically struggled to penetrate the online shopping market. However, that is no longer the case thanks to an innovative strategy which has seen the brand evolve into an ecommerce powerhouse.
Live Shopping
Starting in January 2022, Marks & Spencer has been hosting live shopping events on its website, bringing together advertising and ecommerce into an entertaining experience which crosses channels and draws in customers.
Customers who log on during the events can see products demonstrated by a selection of models live online and can ask questions of the two personalities who host the shows. They are then able to purchase any items they like directly through the stream interface, with no disruption to the viewing experience. It’s too early for solid results to be published, but the trial of the format resulted in viewers being highly engaged by the productions and remaining logged on for around 75% or the time.
"Live shopping is the latest in a wave of new initiatives we’ve introduced to improve our customer experience,” said Director of M&S.com, Stephen Langford. "It’s a global trend that responds to how much customers are using social media. We all know how much more we’re scrolling and engaging with video content – at home or on the go. Live shopping puts our experts front and centre and gives them the ideal platform to share the M&S point of difference – in terms of both quality, design, and innovation features.”
Live shopping has become incredibly popular with customers around the world – particularly in lucrative markets such as China. According to McKinsey, two thirds of Chinese shoppers say they have bought at least one product during a livestream and the first 30 minutes of Alibaba’s 2020 Singles’ Day presales campaign on Taobao Live generated an impressive $7.5 billion in total transaction value.
International Marketplaces
While Marks & Spencer is a quintessentially British retailer, the company has long had designs on cracking the international market – something it now plans to achieve by embracing the marketplace model.
Whilst marketplace sales account for an exceedingly small proportion of M&S’ total business, the retailer sees the format as more of a brand awareness tool that can help it penetrate new markets, than strictly as a means of generating direct profits – boosting the company’s profile in far flung parts of the world by generating organic searches and interest in its products.
"When we’ve launched on the marketplaces in different regions, we’ve seen some great data that suggests that’s working,” said Head of Marketplaces International Ecommerce at M&S, Tom Flintoff. "M&S brand searches in Google go up. Our D2C sales go up. We don’t really see any reason, especially when we have such low market share, to not continue this approach. We’ll definitely not stay in marketplaces just for sales.”
A bit part of the M&S marketplace strategy comes in choosing which platforms to sell on. In Europe for example, it would select marketplaces which have a presence in multiple countries and where some awareness of the brand already exists. However, in markets which have less awareness, it spreads itself over multiple smaller platforms such as Zalora in Southeast Asia and Myntra in India.
"With a company like Zalando we’ve got a lot more insight, you know, they have their own customer segmentation, based on fashionability [sic], and metrics, so you can start to really, really target whoever,” added Flintoff. "You start to realise GenZ customer is a broad customer base. There’s lots of different aspects. So, we have got to be clear about who we are targeting on our marketplaces. And we just need to push the marketplace as much as possible for that information.”
Final Thoughts
Having weathered the challenges of the past, M&S has gone from strength to strength and is now solidifying its place among the ecommerce powerhouses we are all familiar with. Live shopping is an increasingly lucrative channel for retail, and we love M&S’ approach to marketplaces as a method of spreading brand awareness in faraway markets.
Live shopping and marketplaces are sure to be hot topics at eTail UK 2023, being held in April, at the QEII Conference Centre, London, UK.
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