Investing in E-Commerce: M&S Spends £150m on a New Website

I'd love to see the investment appraisal calculations on this investment project by Marks and Spencer. The Independent reports that M&S has invested around £150m as it relaunches its new website as part of a broader £1bn project to improve its logistics.

It sounds like M&S have rebuilt and redesigned their website based around a fundamental reorganisation of the retail logistics that support their e-commerce offer. The £150m investment will be less around the layout, look and feel of the site and more about the systems that serve the site. For example, stock availability, deliveries and pricing.

Will this massive investment in e-commerce prove to be a strategy for success? Brandchannel points out that M&S has 14.5 million shoppers that buy from their stores but not online from its website. So, an improved online offer might help migrate some of those shoppers online, but at the expense of the stores which will remain with their fixed costs?

In another development, the Guardian reports that M&S has hired a team of editorial specialists who will provide the new website with a range of lifestyle and fashion content. M&S believes that turning part of the e-commerce business into a publishing operation will help convert greater numbers of website browsers and perhaps also attract a greater number of new customers.