A poll carried out by GlobalData has revealed UK High Street retailer Marks & Spencer (M&S) is unrivalled in terms of consumer trust.
The difficulty shoppers faced in finding comparable alternatives elsewhere during the outage reinforced perceptions that Marks & Spencer offers products that are genuinely hard to replace, says GlobalData.
By restoring service and offering customers discounts in the aftermath, the retailer further strengthened its reliability and value proposition. To protect its lead, Marks & Spencer must continue investing in cyber resilience, while ensuring that its quality and value messaging remain a priority, it adds.
John Lewis & Partners, Tesco, Amazon, and Sainsbury’s complete the top five most trusted retailers. Four of the five retailers are British, suggesting that heritage brands benefit from familiarity and perceived accountability to UK shoppers. This strong domestic brand identity is a key reason why Marks & Spencer has retained customer confidence and limited reputational damage, even in the wake of a cyberattack.
Aliyah Siddika, associate retail analyst at GlobalData, comments: “Marks & Spencer’s narrow lead in consumer trust over John Lewis & Partners is not guaranteed to remain in 2026. John Lewis & Partners has the infrastructure to communicate its quality and value-for-money message more clearly with its revived 'Never Knowingly Undersold' promise, which could help it overtake Marks & Spencer in the future. Notably, John Lewis ranks second despite a smaller store footprint, indicating the strength of its proposition and the potential for further momentum. Marks & Spencer must ensure that it remains committed to its focus on security and promoting its unique, quality-focused own-brand to retain shoppers’ trust.”
Respondents were asked to rate retailer characteristics that they consider make a retailer trustworthy. The chart above shows the percentage of respondents who rated each characteristic a seven or above, with 10 being the most important.
Consistent quality and clear value for money underpin consumer trust, with 84% and 81% of consumers, respectively, citing these factors as the leading drivers of trust in retailers. These factors reassure shoppers that a retailer is reliable, fair, and worth returning to. Trust is enhanced when retailers deliver consistently positive experiences across stores and channels, backed by reliable customer service.
Siddika concludes: “The most-trusted UK retailers are those that translate quality and value into clear, customer-facing signals. Retailers must offer distinctive, high-quality own-brand ranges that feel genuinely hard to replace. Shoppers also respond to credible value cues such as Tesco’s Finest range, which, paired with Clubcard Prices, makes the quality and value trade-off easy to see at the shelf edge.”
