Marks & Spencer has taken a £145m hit, due to the unsold clothing piled up in its warehouses as the retailer said the huge financial toll of coronavirus would result in a ‘lost year’ for the business.
Last week the company launched a half-price ‘rainbow sale’ in a bid to shift the unsold spring and summer fashion stock. The lockdown on the UK high street has in effect wiped out an entire season for many fashion retailers. Marks & Spencer has seen their clothing sales drop a jaw dropping 75% over the past six weeks.
The M&S chief executive, Steve Rowe, said one of the biggest challenges arising from the pandemic crisis was a “mounting backlog of unsold stock”. M&S had £500m of clothes and homewares sitting in its stores and warehouses when the lockdown began – and another £560m ordered for the autumn/winter season. “As the lockdown eases, a large proportion of current season stock will remain unsold,” Rowe explained.
