Beijing Marks & Spencer, We Hardly Knew Ye

Less than a year after opening its flagship store in Beijing’s The Place comes the grim news from Marks & Sparks’ UK headquarters that a good chunk of the iconic British brand’s international stores are to be shuttered – including all 10 in China.

In a statement outlining their half year results dated November 8, M&S tells a tale of a brand that is slowly losing favor in its traditional fashion segment and taking a bath internationally. However, its food segments – the ones we’ve been most excited about here in Beijing from the start – are going gangbusters.

A fixture in Shanghai since 2008 and in Hong Kong since 1988, the nearly 100-year-old British retailer is a known quantity among many UK-centric shoppers and sells high quality women's wear, lingerie, and menswear, but also British comestibles such as shortbread cookies, Christmas puddings, lemon curd, curry crisps, jarred chutney, and other sauces.

“It is clear our business in Greater China is separated into two parts: a profitable business in Hong Kong and loss-making retail business in China," Adam Colton, Managing Director of Greater China at Marks & Spencer, stated in a press release. "Our review has shown that our stores in mainland China continue to make losses and as result we can no longer trade with a store presence in the Chinese market."

China is by no means the only country affected, as M&S also plans to shutter all of its 53 wholly-owned stores in France, Belgium, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, a statement posted to the M&S corporate website stated.

However, that doesn’t necessarily mean the shop in Beijing will close overnight – in fact, the statement speaks of exiting international stores over the next 12 months in an orderly manner and according to local labor policies, and even leaves a light at the end of the tunnel that the stores could potentially remain open as franchises.

In regards to the timing of the closure of the Beijing store, Emma Jonhson from Marks & Spencer PR said a date has not ben fixed but said it will take "a number of months for all ten stores [in China] to close."

International franchises and wholly owned stores in Hong Kong, Ireland and the Czech Republic will remain open, the statement also mentioned.

While new to Beijing, M&S has been in Shanghai since 2008 but began pulling back last year. The announcement a year ago last spring about the launch of the Beijing store was made at the same time as the number of stores in Shanghai was basically halved.

The Beijing store currently shows no sign of winding things down. A recent visit saw plenty of Advent Calendars for sale and the store beginning to get dolled up for Christmas. Nevertheless, we recommend that to be on the safe side, yuletide shoppers should stock up early.

Even if brick-and-mortar stores were to close in China, it's likely that the brand's online presence will remain. M&S maintains robust ecommerce platforms both on JD.com (fashion) and TMall (kidswear).

Speaking of big Beijing launches in The Place that have since fizzled, Max Brenner The Chocolate Bar, which like M&S opened less than a year ago (more like six months ago) and only a few doors down, has been mysteriously shuttered for two weeks, with nary a hastily pasted "under renovation" note in its window. The interior looks frozen in time with all fittings still in place, and even a shallow vat of perpetually spinning white chocolate slowly scabbing up just inside its doors.