Marks & Spencer (M&S) has announced a partnership with Global Fashion Group (GFG) to expand its fashion business across the Asia Pacific region through online marketplaces and regional fulfilment.

The retailer has launched its fashion range on GFG-owned Southeast Asian ecommerce platform Zalora, with plans to begin selling through its Australian and New Zealand marketplace The Iconic in early 2027.

As part of the agreement, GFG will also fulfil Australian orders placed through M&S.com using its regional logistics network. M&S said the model could expand into other markets over time.

Rather than shipping orders from the UK, M&S inventory will be held in a central stock pool in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The retailer said the move will reduce delivery times, simplify returns and improve product availability for customers shopping through Zalora, The Iconic and M&S.com in Australia.

The partnership forms part of M&S's wider international strategy, which focuses on growing through partnerships rather than investing in local retail infrastructure.

Mark Lemming, managing director of international at M&S, said the retailer wants to grow its international business through "capital-light, scalable partnerships".

"Online growth is a key part of how we reach more customers around the world and this partnership with GFG gives customers across Asia Pacific more ways to shop the best of M&S, while improving the experience through faster, regionally fulfilled delivery," he said.

This is part of the UK retailer’s wider push into the Asia Pacific region.

Last year, M&S agreed a partnership with Australian supermarket Coles to sell its food products in Australia for the first time.

The deal followed the success of M&S’s food wholesale partnership with Target in the US, where the retailer says it now sells over 50,000 individual bags of Percy Pigs a week.

M&S claims that brand awareness in Australia now exceeds half of the population, adding that its social media channels were "bombarded" with requests for M&S Food to be available locally after the Target launch in the US.

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