ASOS spent millions kitting out this Lichfield warehouse. M&S walked in and bought it for £67.5 million
Key Points
- M&S buys ASOS's fitted-out Lichfield warehouse for £67.5m, a fraction of new-build cost
- 437,000 square foot hub opens 2027 with full automation and 24/7 operation
- Deal supports M&S ambition to double online fashion sales and compete with pure-play retailers
- Warehouse cuts supply chain time and enables faster delivery, more stock depth, and real-time availability
- 600 jobs created in Staffordshire, signalling full-scale investment in growth strategy
M&S has struck a conditional deal to buy a fully automated 437,000 square foot distribution centre in Lichfield from ASOS for £67.5 million, a move that cuts to the heart of its strategy to double online fashion sales and finally compete with pure-play retailers on speed and range.
The warehouse, which ASOS spent millions fitting out with conveyor systems and sorting technology, will start operating as part of M&S’s 24/7 logistics network in 2027 and will employ 600 people.
For John Lyttle, M&S’s managing director for Fashion, Home and Beauty, this is not just warehouse space. It is the infrastructure that makes the whole transformation credible.
Why this matters more than it looks
M&S has spent the past two years repositioning its Fashion, Home and Beauty division to claw back lost share from online-native competitors.
That requires three things at once: more stock in more sizes and colours, faster delivery to homes, and the ability to show customers real-time availability when they browse.
A dark warehouse in Staffordshire is the linchpin that ties those together.
The Lichfield hub will use automation to sort and pack orders faster than M&S’s existing network can manage.
That means customers ordering later in the day will actually see delivery, not a out-of-stock screen.
It means M&S can hold more depth in each style at the logistics layer instead of spreading it thin across individual stores.
It means the company can start chasing the ASOS business model without building the infrastructure from scratch.
The discipline that actually matters
Lyttle’s language around “disciplined capital investment” is not just CFO-speak.
Building a new automated warehouse from the ground up runs £200 million plus, takes four years, and comes with construction risk.
Buying a fitted-out facility for £67.5 million and moving it online in 2027 is pragmatism dressed as cleverness. M&S gets automation, capacity, and speed at a fraction of the cost and timeline.
That matters because M&S’s share price has been under pressure. Investors want to see a transformation that actually shows up in the numbers, not in management presentations.
A £67.5 million conditional deal that accelerates the online ambition without requiring massive capex is the sort of move that keeps the board happy without blowing the financial discipline story.
M&S talks a lot about supply chain transformation as a strategic priority.
What that really means is shortening the time between supplier, distribution hub, store, and customer.
Every day a garment sits in a warehouse is money leaking out as finance costs and shrinkage. Every day faster that it moves is margin saved.
The Lichfield hub is designed to fit into a 24/7 network, which means M&S can coordinate stock movement across all its facilities.
If a style is hot, the system can accelerate it from port to Lichfield to stores or straight to customers without human intervention.
That kind of responsiveness is what the fashion majors do; it is what M&S is building towards
What ASOS has to do with this
ASOS fitted out this facility with the infrastructure to run its own 24/7 fashion distribution operation.
It spent years building the technology and the layout to handle rapid fashion turnover, small order volumes, and complex warehouse logistics. M&S is buying that infrastructure directly, which is worth far more than the real estate alone.
For ASOS, this is a forced sale in slowmo. The company has been retreating from owned infrastructure and shifting to third-party logistics.
Offloading a facility it no longer needs cleans up the balance sheet and unlocks cash. For M&S, it is the opposite: buying ready-made capability at a discount to build-cost.
When does this actually happen
The warehouse opens in 2027. That gives M&S three years to integrate the facility into its systems, train staff, and dial in the automation.
By then, the online fashion strategy will be past its midpoint, and the business should be showing real traction against the target to double sales.
A conditional deal means M&S has an out if the underlying business case shifts, but the intent is clear: this is a locked-in move.
The 600 jobs in Lichfield are also a signal. That is not a skeleton crew. M&S is committing to a full-featured operation with maintenance, quality control, and all the people-work that automation does not eliminate.
