M&S urges shoppers to head back to stores

THE boss of Britain’s biggest clothing retailer, Marks & Spencer, has delivered a rallying call for shoppers to return – as high streets brace themselves for a ‘huge slump’ in activity.

Steve Rowe urged Britons to ‘embrace the glimmers of normal life’ when non-essential shops reopen tomorrow.

Experts are predicting ‘wall-towall’ discounts’ as shops closed since March 23 desperately try to clear stockpiles worth more than £15 billion.

The British Retail Consortium estimates lockdown has cost retailers £1.8 billion a week and many predict the increased migration to online shopping during the crisis could cripple the recovery of town and city centres.

M&S food shops have been open during lockdown but the clothing stores have remained shut. Speaking to The Mail on Sunday, the chief executive said: ‘ It is our responsibility – as a t rusted retailer – to give customers the confidence to come out and shop and we’ve been working day and night to do just that.’

Shoppers tomorrow will encounter signs to encourage social distancing and will be told card payments will be preferred. Changing rooms will be closed and there will be plastic screens at some tills.

A return to spending is at the heart of government plans to revive the devastated economy, which shrank by an astonishing 20 per cent in April. Shops in Scotland and Wales are yet to announce when they will open but non-essential retailers in Northern Ireland opened last Friday.

Experts suggest that consumers in England are unlikely to flock to shops. Figures prepared for The Mail on Sunday by footfall monitors Springboard forecasts fewer than half the amount of shoppers compared to a typical June. Director Diane Wehrle based her forecast on reaction to the opening of other stores, such as garden centres, as well as the subdued experience across Europe. Sales in Germany are down 44 per cent and those in France have dropped 29 per cent in the three weeks since they reopened.

John Lewis stores in Poole, Dorset, and Kingston, Surrey will be among the first wave of shops opening tomorrow. Debenhams is opening more than 90 stores next week.

Retail analyst Richard Hayman said, on an average day, UK consumers spend £ 620 million and tomorrow will see ‘a fraction of that’. He added: ‘We need to get back to spending because the economy is on its knees.’