MALE shoppers - and perhaps a few female ones - will get a shock this week when they find that Marks & Spencers' women's underwear department has moved into a store previously devoted to menswear.

A £100,000 makeover at the chain's two Worcester shops sees an entire shop now devoted to womenswear, including the biggest Per Una section in the Midlands and new petite and plus ranges.

But the expansion of the womenswear store meant there was no room for underwear, so the giant retailer has had to put its lingerie in the separate menswear shop a few doors down

Martin Woodhouse, manager for Marks & Spencer in Worcester, said: "We have been planning this for a year and consulting with the public for six months.

"We commissioned an outside company to do a poll and they asked 500 people what changes they would like to see. An overwhelming response was for more women's clothing.

"To do this, we had to move things around and we decided to gamble on putting the lingerie in the other shop.

"Again, we asked people what they thought about this and they said they were OK with it as long as we improved the changing rooms. We have spent £28,000 doing this.

"There is a concern for the

initial few weeks but we hope

to explain to customers."

The changes involved 54 staff wheeling racks of clothes down the High Street on Sunday night.

The menswear department has been reconfigured, but not cut back, and there is now a cheaper selection of kitchen goods in the same department as the food.

Mr Woodhouse hopes the changes will benefit Worcester shoppers. He added: "We are now offering a

bigger Per Una range - which is our trendy range - than Merry Hill and have 56,000 sq ft of retail space.

"A lot of thought has gone into this, and at the end of the day, it

is what shoppers have told us

they want. This is not the end, though, and we are continuing to seek people's views."

Making Marks sparkle again

MARKS and Spencer has hired a new motivator to try to reverse its ailing fortunes.

Mary Gober, an American authority on what is described as customer service culture development, has been brought in to inspire staff.

She has an uphill task ahead of her, according to the latest M&S sales figures which show a fall

in sales of 5.4 per cent in the three months to July, with clothing plunging 9.2 per cent.

Her task is to train 65,000 staff in the four-step Gober Method, a process her own website describes as "positive, proactive, and inspirational".

The new move coincides with the £100,000 makeover at the two Worcester M&S stores, which according to M&S manager Martin Woodhouse, are already bucking the trend.

He said: "I can't reveal the local sales figures, as much as I'd like to boast about them, but they are on the up, and are going against the trend for M&S generally.

"That is why the company has invested £100,000 in the two stores, to make them even better. You don't throw that kind of money at a shop that isn't already doing well.

"Our staff are going to be 'Goberised', and hopefully that will add to our success."