An Aberystwyth food store is to allow customers to pre-book a slot to do their grocery shop during the firebreak lockdown.

Ahead of the increased restrictions in place from 6pm tonight, Marks & Spencer in Aberystwyth will be running a new pre-book service, the first of its kind in UK retail, allowing customers to avoid queues at the food section of the store, which will remain open.

M&S has quickly rolled out its new appointment shopping service in Aberystwyth. The rollout follows on from a successful month-long initial trial at six stores in Wales in August.

Customers need to visit marksandspencer.com/bookandshop, choose a timeslot that suits them, arrive at M&S Aberystwyth at the designated time, check-in with the host at the entrance and skip the queue (should there be one). Start times are allocated in 30-minute intervals.

Sparks Book & Shop is fully integrated within M&S’s store teams’ existing technology and is built into the app housed on their handheld devices, the store said, enabling M&S hosts to carefully manage the number of customers in store at any time – counting-in customers who have not reserved, alongside those with allocated slots.

Allison Jenkins, regional manager for South Wales, said: “All of our Foodhalls in Wales, including M&S Aberystwyth are open and set up with extensive measures in place to help our customers shop safely and confidently.

"Designed by our in-house tech teams, our new Sparks Book & Shop service allows customers to guarantee a shopping slot at a time that suits them and removes the need to queue, should there be one.

"For customers who haven’t reserved a slot, we have accelerated our Queue Smart trial across all Welsh stores – enabling customers to queue virtually from the comfort of their car or another location should they need to.”

“Live at M&S Aberystwyth from today, Queue Smart enters customers into a virtual queue, allowing them to remain in the queue from the comfort of their car – which will be particularly comforting for customers as we approach the colder winter weather," an M&S spokesperson said.

"Customers are kept updated via SMS notifications, which tell them how long they have left to wait and when it’s their turn to enter the store."