Store gallery: John Lewis opens doors to revamped Oxford Street flagship

The retailer opened the doors to its Oxford Street flagship today to reveal a raft of changes in-store, designed to improve the customer experience and carry an enhanced range more excitingly displayed. It symbolises some of the shifts likely to come across the business as it embarks on an £800m investment programme over four years.

The Oxford Street branch is still a work in progress. For instance, the first Jamie Oliver cookery school is set to open next spring.

But a raft of new approaches are already evident at Oxford Street, where there have been changes to all six floors. Beauty, which is a key category for the department store group, has been a big focus but there are also new ideas in categories such as home, tech, and large electricals.

The new, bigger beauty hall now has 41 counters and shop-in-shops carrying 175 brands – an increase of 15%. New brands include Mac, Skin+Me, Nudestix and The Ordinary. The range is complemented by beauty, skincare, and haircare services.

In the home section, the retailer said: “Existing brands have been elevated, with room sets featuring strongly alongside better navigation and style segmentation”, and there are new in-store partners including Made.com.

Harry Boughton, head of the technology category, mentioned technology being displayed in “zones” rather than a “sea of laptops” as was the case previously, while a redesigned jewellery department has been opened on the first floor close to women’s clothing.

The Oxford Street store, which also features a Waterstones bookshop, will be a testbed for changes which can then be rolled out to other shops.

Ruis said: “The buzz is back in John Lewis and we’re giving our customers even more reasons to shop in our brilliant stores. We’re backing ourselves with significant investment to ensure customers get the exceptional quality, outstanding service, and competitive prices they love about our unique brand.”