M&S shares fell by over 2% on Monday morning after the company had been forced to pause online sales in the UK, Ireland and beyond due to a cyber attack.

The shares had also fallen on Friday when news of the online pause was first released.

M&S had issued a release about the cyber attack earlier in the week and despite few details being available, it was reported that shoppers were having trouble paying via contactless in-store.

That in itself was bad enough, but having to completely stop online orders (including via some of its international websites) is a major disruption for the business, especially at a time when summer-season-related goods from fashion to foods could be expected to boom in a mini heatwave.

The website is still open for shoppers to browse and add products to their basket but a discreet note at the top of the page mentions the transactional pause.

The shares had slumped around 5% on Friday, wiping millions of pounds off its market value. The share price had peaked this year at 411.3p as recently as 17 April but is now down over 8% in the past five trading days at 376.4p, giving M&S a market value of £7.74 billion.

The company is working with external cyber security experts as it investigates and manages the incident and has also reported it to the National Cyber Security Centre.

Several days of no online sales could put a major dent in M&S’s figures when it next reports its results Last year, M&S said its current 9.4 million regular online customers account for 33% of total sales. The retailer has said it wants half of its fashion and homeware sales to be taking place online eventually. 

Its total sales rose 5.8% to £6.524 billion in the first half and it’s due to report figures for the full year late next month.

Property and shopping malls giant Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (URW) has release a Q1 trading update that included news of tenant sales being up 2.1% and footfall up 0.4%, despite unfavourable calendar effects.

The group, which is behind the huge Westfield branded malls and others in London, the US and large parts of mainland Europe, also reported the successful retail opening of Westfield Hamburg-Überseequartier on April 8, which has seen over a million visits in the first two weeks. And Q1 saw the expansion of Westfield Rise to the US to generate more revenues through its in-house retail media and experiential division.

Looking at proportionate turnover for the business, it amounted to €943.3 million, which was stable year on year, mainly reflecting the acquisitions and disposals achieved as well as various other one-off effects. The company owns vast property assets, including offices, but at shopping centres in particular gross rental income (GRI) did increase, albeit only by 0.8% to €621.7 million. And on a like-for-like basis, GRI was up 2.6%.

As mentioned, both tenant sales and footfall increased during the first quarter with the rise in sales being bigger than the rise in footfall and showing that those who visited spent more. 

As also mentioned, these figures were achieved despite unfavourable calendar effects. For instance 2024 was a leap year and therefore had an extra trading day, while Q1 last year also included Easter, which will benefit Q2 this time. 

Looking by region the company said that tenant sales at US flagships increase 3.4% with footfall up 1.1%, while those sales in Northern Europe rose 2.8% despite footfall being down 1.9%. In Central and Eastern Europe tenant sales actually dropped 0.3% as footfall was down 2.5% but in Southern Europe those two figures were a positive 2.3% and 2.7%, respectively.

TikTok Shop said it’s accelerating discovery commerce with the release of a new playbook for enterprises in the UK. It aims to help retailers take advantage of an e-tail high-growth opportunity. 

The playbook comes as the platform has been announced as the fastest growing online shopping platform in 2024.

And it said discovery commerce “combines the best of both worlds: the convenience of online shopping and the joyful experience that ‘real life’ shopping offers, connecting brands and sellers directly with customers. Discovery commerce on TikTok Shop: A playbook for enterprise equips large scale businesses with the tools they need to maximise business growth in this new era of shopping”.  

So what exactly is discovery commerce? In essence, it’s an approach that uses data and algorithms to connect customers with products they’re likely to want, rather than waiting for them to search for them.

But importantly sellers and creators who demonstrate how products work, and answer buyer questions in real time are the driving force behind its growth. TikTok Shop said the approach has “revolutionised how buyers discover new products and shop with relatable and entertaining content”. 

Its new playbook, built in collaboration with Accenture Song, “provides steps for success in discovery commerce… This is designed to help brands successfully navigate the world of discovery commerce and sell on TikTok Shop – from creating a strategy and defining the roles needed within team, to working with creators and refining the post-purchase experience”. 

As well as a big focus on content, the playbook “outlines how brands can make changes to their structure, deploy the right metrics and foster the right culture in order to make implementation a success”.

Jan Wilk, head of operations at TikTok Shop UK said: “Discovery commerce is driving incremental growth and demand for products. I believe that TikTok Shop will take a very sizeable, double-digit share of the e-commerce market in the near future.”

And explaining the playbook’s release, Sarah Lambert, commerce experience director at Accenture Song, added: “Perhaps the most common question we encounter from clients is: ‘Are people really shopping in this way?’. The answer is a resounding ‘yes’. Ignoring such a huge shift towards content driven commerce will arguably be just as damaging as ignoring e-commerce would have been for brands 20 years ago. In this new era, shoppers can enjoy the exploration and learning once experienced on the high street, via a new digital-first and content-led experience.”