Marks & Spencer revises online sales after factoring in returns

By

Matthieu Guinebault

Published
Jun 22, 2015

The British retailer has revised its online sales of the past four years after having failed to calculate in returns of items bought on its website but returned in store in its calculations. In real terms, M&S’ online sales have been overstated by a total of £500 million.

For its latest financial year ended in March 2014, Marks and Spencer had sold £649 million-worth of products via its website, compared to the previously stated a figure of £800 million. Enough to make shareholders grit their teeth as other large-scale retailers, such as Next, John Lewis and Debenhams, have long been taking returns into account in their online reports.
 
This revision coincides with the arrival of Helen Weir to its Board as Chief Finance Officer, previously at John Lewis. The British press is now mocking M&S, with sources speculating that the issue arose because the retailer's former IT system was unable to cope with the task of tracking which store returns had originally been sold online. 

The British chain is currently present in 53 countries via a network of 770 stores in the UK and 440 in the rest of the world. For its financial year ended in March, M&S posted 10.31 billion pounds in revenue, with a 7% drop in its net earnings. Notably due to troubles in the clothing sector.