Leeds is a famous and economically developed British city. It is a home to many companies and businesses. This city has a long history of economic growth. In past centuries, Leeds opened up to the whole country as an industrial centre, it accepted many immigrants and opened new plants and factories. The city developed its textile industry and famous shops, brands, etc. Then those businesses spread to London and other big cities. Marks and Spencer plc, or M&S, was established in Leeds too. This is a large-scale company that sells clothes, cosmetics and household goods and is part of the FTSE 100 Index. Learn more about the company’s history at leedska.
Beginning of the story
M&S is a joint project of two desperate men who decided to create their own business. Michael Marks, a Polish Jew, moved to the city of Leeds in the early 1880s. He worked for a Leeds company and decided to borrow money to open his stall in Kirkgate Market. He met Thomas Spencer, a cashier from Skipton in North Yorkshire. They started to work together. In 1894, Michael Marks acquired a permanent stall in the Leeds covered market and offered Thomas Spencer to become his partner.
Their small business began to develop over time. In 1901, they moved to Birkenhead Open Market and in 1903, the partners bought a stall in the central aisle. Later, the men opened market stalls in many places in the North West of England.
The two partners passed away one after another, Thomas Spencer in 1905 and Michael Marks in 1907. After their death, Michael’s son Simon became the company’s chairman. Under his leadership, the business gradually turned into a retail empire.
M&S development
In 1926, the company’s retail outlets started to sell textiles. Five years later, they began to sell food products as well. M&S gained a good reputation, thanks to the fact that 99% of the products they sold were British-made.
The company had well-established cooperation with British manufacturers. It also launched the St Michael brand in honour of Michael Marks. By the way, all the goods they sold until 1950 were under the St Michael brand. In addition, the company began to pay a lot of attention to food products. In 1948, it created a department of Food Technology and trained the employees in hygiene.
Simon Marks passed away in 1964 and Michael Marks’ son-in-law Israel Sieff took over the management of the company. He became the chairman in 1972.
In 1973, Marks & Spencer entered the Canadian market. In total, 47 stores operated in this country. However, the company didn’t gain success in this region. The stores in Canada were smaller and had a poorer assortment. As a result, all sales points there were closed by the end of 1999.
M&S also started opening its stores in France and Belgium. The Paris stores remained popular and profitable, but the Western European project in general didn’t achieve the expected success.
Nevertheless, the company didn’t stop there and continued to develop. In 1988, M&S acquired two American companies, Brooks Brothers and Kings Food Markets. They began to sell packaged sandwiches, which became very popular among customers.
Further fate of M&S
The Marks & Spencer company reached the peak of its development in 1997-1998. However, after that, their profits began to fall. Experts note that it was facilitated by the company’s refusal to accept any credit cards, except its own charge card, until 2001.
In 2002, M&S stores started accepting credit cards. In addition, the company introduced the Per Una range of clothes. The world’s largest M&S store opened at Dubai Festival City in 2007 and a year later, its first store opened in China.
However, besides success, there were also failures. Thus, the company began closing unprofitable stores in 2009. The trend continued next year, with clothing of the Grantham branch and two Lincolnshire branches in Skegness and Scunthorpe. The 2010 audit revealed that sales of women’s clothing were the lowest in 10 years.
In 2018, 100 stores were announced to close by 2022. Two years later, the company was to cut 7,000 jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
M&S is a world-renowned retail company. Here, you can buy not only clothes, cosmetics and household goods but also food products. It is really great that such a large-scale chain has started its work in Leeds. Probably, Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer didn’t expect that their business would develop to such an extent.
We hope you enjoyed reading this informative article and learned more about the development of the well-known company.