Marks & Spencer outsources online IT to Amazon

High Street retailer Marks & Spencer is abandoning its ecommerce infrastructure and outsourcing its management to the services arm of Amazon.

The online retailer's managed services arm, Amazon Services Europe, will provide the technology behind the company's branded web site, in-store and telephone shopping services.

Steven Sharp, Marks & Spencer marketing and ecommerce director said: '[The company] already has a successful web site with over 24 million visits every year, but our ecommerce and customer ordering capabilities have yet to reach their full potential.

'A partnership with Amazon will help us achieve this, while allowing us to concentrate on our core business of retailing.'

The managed service will consolidate three separate M&S IT systems, concentrating on each shopping channel in a series of stages, the first of which is due to be completed by summer 2006.

In this first instance, Marks & Spencer customers will benefit from an integrated ordering system, the company says.

But the retailer is to retain responsibilities for managing the web site branding and content, as well as its customer service operations, warehousing and distribution.

An M&S spokeswoman says the company will look to sell clothing and home ware through the clothing section of Amazon's own shopping web site 'sometime next year'.

The deal is a first for Amazon in Europe. Its US business counts Toys 'R' Us and Borders.com amongst its ecommerce customers.