M&S kidswear shifts focus to everyday style products

Alongside this, casualwear options have substantially increased, with core products such as tees, sweatshirts and leggings backed with bigger buys and bought with confidence. M&S Kids’ leggings sales have increased 20-fold, with the retailer now selling 25,000 pairs a month, the company said in a media statement.

These key casualwear items are now available for customers year-round in a simple 3-for-2 deal – offering exceptional value. The mechanic means a customer can purchase three £6 cotton dresses for just £12 (£4 each) – fastening free and easy to pull on so younger kids can dress themselves, they come in a great mix of vibrant prints and block colours (with spots and unicorns as the bestsellers) - giving them broad family appeal. The popularity of the 3-for-2 deal continues to grow and M&S has now increased items in the offer from 60 to nearly 200 – products start from as little as £2.50 for cotton leggings with stretch. This has been well received by customers with kids’ daywear sales up 2.5 per cent in the last quarter and sales for items in the bundle tripling. The 3-for-2 mechanic is also easy to shop on mobile with clear customer signage – crucial as 74 per cent of kidswear searches on the M&S website now come from mobile which is higher than any other area of M&S Clothing.

For Spring 2020, M&S has also introduced more focussed age’s breaks into its kids’ clothing allowing a more tailored offer for baby, younger kids and older kids. Whereas previously a dress or joggers might be available from 3 – 16 years, product is now clearly split into baby (0-3 years), younger (2 – 7 years) and older (6 – 16 year). The new age break décor and imagery features more colourful signage and new photography that’s more fun and more stylish than ever before.

“M&S Kids is changing to broaden its appeal to more family shoppers. We know we have parents shopping schoolwear, with 1 in 4 kids wearing an M&S uniform, but our wider kids offer has been a bit too formal and not for everyday fun. Our new range is about being more playful - with fantastic fun prints, vibrant colours and the hard-wearing features that make them fit for play time and fit to last. Customers have been noticing the unbeatable value of the 3-for-2, but more importantly that it’s still the same M&S quality they know and love,” Jill Stanton, director of kidswear at M&S said.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (GK)