M&S expands French network

MARKS and Spencer has announced a partnership with Relay to sell food in transport hubs.

The British firm says it has made a deal with the French chain of newsagents/convenience stores to develop outlets at stations and airports, essentially in the Paris area, which will sell most of M&S’s food range.

The first will open next year in the RER station at La Défense.

This comes as the chain opens a new M&S store today at Beaugrenelle, near the Eiffel Tower, following another last week at the Aéroville shopping centre near the Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport. That makes a total of four French stores since it made a comeback to the continent two years ago.

Its other existing French shops are on the Champs-Elysée and at the SoOuest shopping centre at Levallois-Perret north-west of the capital.

M&S’s French website, the first of its kind, now has around 70,000 visits a week and the firm says it hopes it will be making about 20% of its turnover outside the UK by 2015.