Marks & Spencer to open nine stores in November

British department store retailer Marks & Spencer is set to open nine new stores during November in what it said will be its “biggest ever store opening month” to date.

The company added that it would be investing 80 million pounds into “sustainable” physical locations, starting with a new 65,000 square foot store in Birmingham’s Bullring, opening November 7.

From then onwards, Marks & Spencer will be opening at least one store every seven days throughout the month, ultimately supporting over 2,200 local jobs across the UK, a press release claimed.

These will include two further store openings, three new M&S Foodhalls and a further three store renewals.

The news builds on the retailer’s ongoing store rotation programme, which has already seen it invest over 500 million pounds into its retail network contributing to the ambition of rotating from operating 247 stores to 180 “higher quality, higher productivity full line stores”.

In the release, the company’s operations director, Sacha Berendij, said: “Stores are key to our business, and we see them as part of our competitive advantage.”

Berendij continued: “To deliver our biggest ever store opening month which supports thousands of jobs is an outstanding effort from the team and shows just how serious we are about accelerating our rotation plans so we are in the right locations for our customers.”