River Island joins M&S Marketplace
Fashion brand River Island has just joined 'Brands at M&S', the retailer's online marketplace, joining hundreds of others such as Hobbs, Jigsaw, Kurt Geiger, Phase Eight and more.
M&S launched the marketplace in 2021, after the retailer acquired the intellectual property developed by collapsed fashion marketplace Thread. The venture forms part of M&S’ personalisation strategy.
As Katie Bickerstaffe, the then Co-CEO at M&S, explained at the time of the launch: “We have been working hard to deliver better, more stylish ranges and this algorithm will also put more of our great product in front of the customer, whilst further unlocking the potential of our third-party brand strategy, by adding outfit completing product ideas.”
At the time of the launch, M&S anticipated that the marketplace would generate more than £100m of annualised incremental revenue for the business.
In November last year River Island announced the closure of 33 of its UK stores, as the retailer moved into the next phase of its court-approved restructuring plan following a year of mounting losses and sliding revenues.
