Strengths

 Variety of products and clothing

 High Quality
High quality is the major strength that makes M&S successful. Customers always find
high quality goods such as fresh fruits, vegetables, and other superior goods in M&S’s
food hall. With many people turning to eat vegetarian meals, M&S grasps the
consumers need. M&S has high quality of products that are the food and other
products, such as baby products and clothes both for women and men.

 Affordable prices

 Increasing sales by 2%, while its international sales had increased 5.8%
after the global financial crisis

 Customer Services
M&S has high reputation for focusing on customer service. This is one of the most
important methods to make a good relationship between customers and M&S. For
example, when women want to buy clothes for themselves, the shop assistants will help
them to measure sizes and give them good suggestions.

Weakness
 Didn’t address consumers’ needs; (some of the consumers wanted a specific
brand which ms didn t have)
 Branding problems
The clothing market of M&S has many segments. In fact, the merchandise, is outmoded
design and cut. In addition, affluent younger consumers prefer purchasing brand-labels,
such as Gap, Next and Topshop.
 Inventory issues
Customers complain the defect of e-shooping and delivery services. To some extent,
M&S suffers from the unbalance between the stock and Information Technology
System.

Opportunities
 Internet Technology
Internet technology has developed fast, it offers an opportunity to increase the demand
for the online products. In terms of this circumstance, buying products online became a
trend. Customers are getting used to accept the model and adapt it to their daily lives,
and the demand for this kind of products it’s always increasing.

 Healthy Eating
People pay attention to the life quality, they request companies to offer varied products
to satisfy their needs. For example, in the food market, M&S does good segmentation in
providing the vegetarian, low fat or organic food. This is the advantage that the
competitors are not aware of.
 Marketing Extending
The Company owned stores in Middle East and Hong Kong which were largely
successful.

Threats
 Low consumer confidence and inflationary pressures compounded by rising
fuel prices during the global financial crisis; (in other words, consumers were less
responsive to marketing promotions and less likely to make impulse purchases
because of their limited disposable income).
 International competition intensified (Zara, H&M, Debenhams, Next, Wal-Mart);
They provide not only high quality but also value-added products to build
customers’ loyalty. In the clothing market, Gap, Next, Topshop and other
fashionable brands may compete with M&S

What factors influence international pricing decisions?

 Focusing on middle class consumers;
 Sourced internationally from Hong Kong, Sri Lanka and other countries;
 In Shanghai stores some products had unaffordable prices for most of the
Chinese consumers / some products were middle-of-the-road to British
consumers, while for the Chinese they were of high quality;
 Expensive food prices in comparison with competitors such as Tesco and
Carrefour.
 Price imbalance.