Marks and Spencer rolls out Bring Your Own Bag Click and Collect initiative to 251 stores

M&S says that it is the first major retailer to green light a reduced packaging initiative for Click & Collect orders following a customer trial.

It is rolling out a new BYOB – Bring Your Own Bag – offering to 251 of its stores.

This takes away the need for the traditional plastic carrier across online orders that are picked and packed at the collection store by asking customers to, yep, you’ve guessed it, bring their own bag.

M&S says the move will save 10 million units of plastic annually. 

During the aforementioned trial, which took place at 16 M&S stores, customers were reminded at point of checkout to bring their own bag when coming into store to collect an order placed online.

They were then reminded again when notified that their order was ready to collect. Over the course of seven months, 39,347 orders were fulfilled this way, removing over 109 thousand units of plastic.

More than 60% of customers opt for Click & Collect – that’s over 15 million orders annually and of those orders, ~25% are picked and packed in the customer’s local store – the equivalent of four million parcels.

Over the next few months, all such orders that are picked and packed at the customers local collection store will be provided to the customer without a plastic carrier – with the ambition to expand the initiative to all Click & Collect orders in the longer-term.

Stephen Langford, Director of M&S.com, says: “Using our stores to fulfil Click & Collect orders continues to grow and we want to use this as a channel to encourage a behaviour change that helps to reduce single use plastic consumption.”

“During trial phase, we had great feedback from customers as they saw it as a simple action that, collectively, can make a big difference.”

Whilst waiting for customer collection, orders are stored and protected in a reusable bag made from 100% recycled materials.

As part its ‘future of e-commerce packaging’ programme, M&S is trialling a number of other online order packaging solutions – for both home delivery and Click & Collect – at any one time.

This, alongside the latest initiative, has seen the roll-out of:

• The green bag used to package products is made from 100% recycled plastic and is fully recyclable via M&S’ plastic takeback scheme in-store – which accepts all types of plastic that some local authorities will not collect

• A switch to paper tape – instead of plastic – on cardboard boxes – saving 2,781,000 metres annually

• 100% recyclable cardboard boxes that can be put in at home recycling bins

• Mobile friendly paperless customer returns and receipts – saving 205 tonnes of paper every year.