Geographical Segmentation
Marks & Spencer mainly operates in three global market regions. The United Kingdom (UK) is their primary one, and it “consists of the UK retail business and franchise operations” (Forbes, n.d., para. 1). The other two economic zones of Marks & Spencer are continental Europe and some countries in Asia (Forbes, n.d.). It is noteworthy that the business organization left the Chinese market entirely due to restructuring its approach to international operations (Zhuoqiong, 2018). Marks & Spencer is also gradually losing ground in the domestic economic zone.
Demographic Segmentation
The British customer demographics of Marks & Spencer are similar to those of their direct competitors. It consists of two intersecting groups: high-street consumers and middle-aged ones (Le and Oe, 2020). A necessary clarification is that the latter demographic category is primarily women (Ward, 2018). According to Smith (2022), “the high street is the heart of many English towns and cities” (para. 1). It shows that Marks & Spencer’s target audience is economically diverse yet has a significant proportion of wealthy consumers.
Psychographic Segmentation
Two major psychographic trends were found in the target audience of the discussed clothing and food brand. The first is that Marks & Spencer’s UK consumers prefer old-fashioned and traditional clothing and dressing styles (Le and Oe, 2020). Moreover, brand equity means less to them compared to other consumers of clothing products of the same price and quality bracket (Le and Oe, 2020). It is proof that this business entity has a committed customer base, but they started to develop this direction quite recently.
Behavioral Segmentation
The Marks & Spencer data reveals two particular behaviors prevalent in their UK target audience. The first one is adaptability to online shopping, and the second is the preference for customer support and store shopping; both are directly related to the demographic parameter of age (Ward, 2018). Another interesting detail about their customers is that the average online purchase is around £50 (Statista, 2021). The average order value is likely to increase due to the growing number of online shoppers globally, including in the UK.
Reference List
Forbes (no date) ‘Marks & Spencer’. Web.
Key e-commerce figures of the clothing & home division of Marks & Spencer in the financial year 2020/21 (2021). Web.
Le, L. T. and Oe, H. (2020) ‘An exploratory discussion of a British apparel brand in relation to new markets: Developing actionable recommendations based on network, relationship, and collaboration perspectives’, Budapest International Research and Critics Institute (BIRCI-Journal): Humanities and Social Sciences, 3(3), pp. 1660-1675.
Smith, P. (2022) High street retail in the United Kingdom (UK) – Statistics & facts. Web.
Ward, E. B. (2018) ‘Marks and Spencer’: Online shopping experience. E.BarbierWard Blog Post.
Zhuoqiong, W. (2018) ‘M&S completes exit from China’, China Daily, Web.