While John Lewis Partnership has been dominating headlines for big strategic reasons – such as the possibility of bringing external financing, a full-year slump into the red and the loss of the legendary partners’ bonus – there is still a business to run.
Turbo-charging the eponymous department store business, where profits declined last year as the trading environment and inflation took a toll, is the responsibility of John Lewis executive director Naomi Simcock and her team. As they show Retail Week around the Oxford Street flagship, “newness”, “stepping up”, “service” and “experience” are among their guiding principles.
From the outside windows, where there is increased focus on powerful visual merchandising including third-party brands, to the interior, where the new ‘family floor’ represents a new level of experiential shopping, changes are being made.
Simcock, who is fulfilling the role on an interim basis, tells Retail Week: “It’s been tough for the team, watching what people are saying. But for us, the most important thing is to be proud to be a retailer.
“That is what we’re getting really back to, in terms of the basics of really brilliant retailing. We offer brilliant products that are well designed, brilliant quality, great value – and then we can wrap around the service.”
Charlotte Lock, pan-partnership and John Lewis customer director, adds: “We’re not immune to what’s written in the press but I think the louder voice is the customer.”
Drawing in customers and ensuring they enjoy themselves and spend is being done by emphasising what John Lewis does best and differently.
That is evident in striking brand areas and pop-ups in the store, such as Charlotte Tilbury in beauty and Lego and Scalextric on the family floor.
There, the experience is heightened by a ‘wonder trail’ that winds its way through areas where families can relax and play, and nursery advice – the latter epitomising a key differentiator for John Lewis, its reputation for trustworthy counsel. Other experiential elements include an Aperol summer bar at Willows on the Roof, above the store.
The approach also reflects the change in shopping habits since the end of the pandemic and shoppers’ eagerness to return to bricks-and-mortar stores.
Simcock says there has been a “return of the weekend” as people head to the shops for recreation. “We’re seeing on Friday and Saturday that people are really coming out. I think shopping is becoming that going out for the day thing. That’s why we’re dialling up pop-ups and events – it’s good fun on a Saturday.
“We talk to our customers a lot about this. We talk about it like a day out – people spending five or six hours in our shops. How do you provide that experience that allows the customer to come in? They may not do the whole transaction here, they may go home and think about it, talk about it; then they can buy it in whichever way that they want,” she explains.
Such is the shift in shopping patterns that John Lewis has not reinstated late-night opening in its branches. As the weekend has taken on greater importance, demand for late opening “is just not there”, Simcock says.
Demand for in-store excitement has also prompted John Lewis to step up its relationship with brands, capitalising on a traditional department store strength now in much more limited supply following the demise of competitors such as Debenhams.
In fashion, for instance, 109 new brands were introduced last year. Design director for fashion Queralt Ferrer shows them off and they rub shoulders with John Lewis’ own brands including its Anyday value label. “Customers came back with a different mindset,” says Ferrer. They are “mixing it up” more, reflective of hunger for newness and money-mindedness as the cost of living squeezes spending power.
“Fashion is flying,” says John Lewis commercial director Kathleen Mitchell. “We continue to gain market share, so we’re pretty excited about that, and we have exciting new brands coming for autumn/winter.”
Across the business, Lock says, brands are becoming more important. She adds: “That’s what customers come to us for. We talk about John Lewis being the place where brands come to life. These are premium spaces for brands.”
That may be true of flagships such as Oxford Street but what about the rest of the estate?
Simcock says John Lewis stores are sharing best practice, such as on visual merchandising from Oxford Street, and have some autonomy to localise the proposition. One example is Leicester, which marked the Sikh festival Vaisakhi with displays and performances in-store – a first, which resonated with many local customers.
She sees an opportunity to take lessons too from Horsham, originally an At Home store and co-located with a Waitrose, which relaunched in March to be “one-stop destination for fashion, beauty, tech and home design”.
John Lewis retail director James Breckenridge says: “Horsham is something that could be a blueprint for future shops.” John Lewis will also install family floor-style areas in its Liverpool and Milton Keynes branches.
Simcock also wonders whether there could be potential in replicating the sort of tie-ups that Waitrose has created with garden centre group Dobbies, where it has installed a range of products.
While stores are resurgent, John Lewis is resolutely an omnichannel operator. The partnership will step up its digital capabilities over the next year as it relaunches its loyalty programme, bringing together the department store division and Waitrose’s schemes. “It will be the best quality programme in retail – I’m very excited about it,” says Lock.
A new partnership with customer insight specialist Dunhumby is expected to deepen customer knowledge and provide a data platform for suppliers to better engage with John Lewis shoppers.
At the partnership level, the business is pushing into home rental and personal finance as new revenue streams, so is retail being downplayed? No, says Breckenridge: “I think we’re very clear that while in five or 10 years’ time, we might be two brands that have a portfolio of businesses, right now we’re a retailer. I don’t think there’s anyone that doesn’t think that we are a retailer first of all.”
Many observers believe Simcock, who has been with the partnership for 10 years, will be named the permanent boss of John Lewis after stepping in following the abrupt departure of Pippa Wicks.
Asked when she will be able to take ‘interim’ out of her job title, she laughs: “Work in progress. I said to someone yesterday, I have the best job in the partnership – actually, I think I have the best job in retail.”
While Simcock may still be interim, she and her team are running John Lewis with the ambition of permanent success.
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