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Comment: Covid unleashed the power of collaboration and community Add to Bookmarks
The pandemic has shown how necessary it is that landlords and retailers work together, says Matt Slade, retail director of property company Quintain.
When we look back on 2020, it’s pretty obvious what we’ll remember.
The way we live, work, shop and spend our downtime has completely changed. Walk down many local high streets – something we’ve all been doing a lot more of, as our worlds for months on end were contained within a 15-minute walk – and what will you see? One, two, three (or more?) retailers that have either gone into administration or launched company voluntary arrangements.
In the retailer s Christmas trading update, released this morning, clothing and home sales were down 25.1% year on year to £787m in the 13 weeks to 26 December, hit by a 46.5% plunge in store sales. M&S said this was partially offset by strong online sales growth of 47.5% to £353m in the period. Total UK sales were down 8.2% to £2.5bn.
Speaking after this morning s results, Rowe said bringing in third-party brands is a small part of M&S s retail strategy: “We said at the half year [results] that M&S wanted to build a curated set of brands and merchandise, largely through our online business, but also to fill in some of that excess space we have in stores.