Fitting out has commenced on an extension to M&S’s Bradford distribution centre to equip it to become a second online warehouse for M&S.com, whilst creating 300 new jobs in the local area this year.
The investment is part of the retailer’s fast-moving ‘Never the Same Again’ programme. The reengineering of M&S’s supply chain, including the extension of the centre at Bradford to permanently improve online capacity, is an important enabler to M&S’s MS2 division. Under MS2, M&S is preparing to best digitally serve its shoppers in the future, to reflect the shift to online shopping driven by the pandemic, which saw its online sales increase by 34 per cent in the first half of the financial year, with app downloads in 2020 up over 200 per cent.
M&S opened its Bradford distribution centre in 2010. The carbon neutral building has achieved BREEAM “excellent”, with the site currently delivering both food and clothing to stores in partnership with logistics experts XPO. This new investment utilises existing vacant space within the centre to create a new online warehouse for M&S.com. This will support the retailer’s Castle Donington online warehouse which opened in 2012 and the M&S in-store pick model.
The new investment follows a successful trial over the Christmas peak period in which Bradford workers manually picked product from the existing automated distribution centre to service online orders. At its peak, the site was dispatching 14,000 items a day.
The build which is underway and aims to be operational for peak 2021, with a starting target of dispatching 35,000 items a day, will eventually fulfil around 20 per cent of M&S online orders.
Sarah Monk, programme manager for the Bradford project said: “Warehouse colleagues have been our behind the scenes heroes during the pandemic – making sure customers’ parcels are picked, packed & shipped – safely & efficiently. The team at Bradford did an amazing job supporting with online Christmas orders and we’re all so excited that we’ll now be permanently running an online operation from the site which will include the recruitment of 300 new XPO colleagues.”
Stephen Langford, director of M&S.com said, “We’re transforming our clothing business to be more relevant, more often for our 22 million customers – however they choose to shop. Whilst it’s exciting our stores have reopened, growing our online business has never been more important and part of that is a behind the scenes network which means we can serve our customers as efficiently as possible. Building Bradford is a key way we’re setting ourselves up for a more digital future at M&S under the banner of MS2.”
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