by Jeremy Allen
The British-owned department store chain Marks & Spencer is closing its only Swiss shop in March as part of worldwide measures to tighten its belt in economically difficult times. Owners say the downtown Geneva outlet is too small to offer the full range of the chain's products but it's still unclear whether the shop was able to make a profit over the three years it has been operating.
Whether it’s the good-value shirts, underwear, or premium ready-made meals, for most Brits, Marks and Spencer is a household name. The chain opened its Geneva store in 2006 in the heart of the city's downtown shopping precinct as a joint venture with Greek retailer Marinopoulos.
Now, amid mounting problems with its operations in Britain and abroad, the company says it is closing the store (which specialises in clothing items), citing operational difficulties due to its small size.
“We have learnt which store formats work in specific international markets and the store in Geneva is not big enough to showcase our brand," Dan Masser, Marks & Spencer's corporate public relations manager, informed Swisster in a statement issued today. "It is only 5,000 square feet, so it is one of our smaller stores."
Masser said the impact the closure would have on the employees and customers was to be "regretted".
The 11 staff currently employed at the store will lose their jobs and be “appropriately compensated," he said.
Marks & Spencer, headquartered in London, was unable to give more details about the closure or whether the store had been profitable since opening three years ago. But a male employee of the M&S Marinopoulos office in Geneva told Swisster, “If it were making a profit, it surely wouldn’t be closing”. He also said he believed that the store on rue du Marché would shut by the the end of March.
As well as its outlets in the UK, Marks & Spencer currently has 290 stores around the world, although the Geneva outlet is the only one in Switzerland. The company says that one of its long-term objectives is to boost international business to 15-20 percent of its group revenues.
Earlier this month, the retailer announced plans to close 27 shops and slash up to 1,230 jobs in the UK in an attempt to save 175-200 million pounds in expenses.
At the time, the firm’s CEO Stuart Rose said that, although the measures were difficult for staff, he believed the closures were the right decision, as current economic conditions were set to persist for at least another 12 months.
