Hargreaves Lansdown's Derren Nathan: Reports of in-store retail's death greatly exaggerated

M&S, Next and Tesco leading

A high-profile cyber attack against one of the UK’s best-loved retailers has shone a light back in the direction of e-commerce.

But despite Marks & Spencer halting online orders in fashion, home and beauty since April, the hit to operating profit looks set to be capped at about £200m after mitigations, or about 20% of last year's total. M&S also owns 50% of online grocer Ocado Retail, but with its revenue approaching £3bn, it is much smaller than the group's wider food operation, which netted £9bn of revenue last year. The company's fortunes are still highly dependent on what happens in-store and it is ploughing more cash into store openings and upgrades. I do not see retailers necessarily needing to choose...