John Lewis & Partners — BrandWiki

John Lewis & Partners

Overview

John Lewis plc

trade name	John Lewis & Partners
former name	John Lewis and Company Limited (1928–1982)
type	Subsidiary
industry	Retail
genre	Department stores
founded	1864 in London, England
founder	John Lewis
num locations	52
area served	United Kingdom
key people	Jason Tarry (chairman) Peter Ruis (Managing director) Andy Mounsey (executive director, finance)
revenue	£3.78 billion
revenue year	2017
operating income	£243.2 million
income year	2017
num employees	38,100
num employees year	2017
parent	John Lewis Partnership
website	johnlewis.com
footnotes	‡R1R‡‡R2R‡‡R3R‡‡R4R‡

John Lewis plc (trading as John Lewis & Partners) is a British department store chain founded by John Lewis in 1864.[5][6] It is part of the John Lewis Partnership plc, a holding company held in a trust on behalf of its employees as the beneficiaries of the trust.[7] The brand was established in 1929 by Spedan Lewis, son of the founder, John Lewis.[8]

The first John Lewis store opened in 1864 on Oxford Street, London. As of 2023, there are 35 stores throughout Great Britain. From 1925 to 2022, John Lewis had a policy known as "Never Knowingly Undersold," which promised to match or beat lower prices offered by national high street competitors.[9][10]

20th century history

First half

The flagship store on Oxford Street began as a drapery shop, opened by John Lewis in 1864. In 1905 Lewis acquired a second store, Peter Jones in Sloane Square, London. His eldest son, John Spedan Lewis, began the John Lewis Partnership in 1920 after thinking up the idea during his days in charge of Peter Jones. John Spedan Lewis also thought up the idea of the Gazette, the partnership's in-house magazine, first published in 1918.

In 1933, the partnership purchased its first store outside London, the long-established Jessop & Son in Nottingham. Jessops only rebranded itself as John Lewis on 27 October 2002. In 1940 the partnership bought Selfridge Provincial Stores. This group of sixteen suburban and provincial department stores included Cole Brothers, Sheffield; George Henry Lee, Liverpool; Robert Sayle, Cambridge; and Trewin Brothers, Watford; some of which continue to trade today but are now re-branded as John Lewis & Partners.

In 1937, grocery company Waitrose, consisting of ten shops and 160 employees, was taken over by John Lewis, and today operates as its supermarket arm.[20]

In 1949, it was reported that London branches included Peter Jones, John Barnes (now a branch of Waitrose & Partners), John Pound and Bon Marche. The "provincial branches" were Robert Sayle, of Cambridge and Peterborough, Tyrrell & Green, of Southampton and Lance & Lance of Weston-super-Mare. They also had "silk shops" at Edinburgh, Hull and Newcastle upon Tyne.[21]

Second half

In 1953, the Reading department store Heelas became part of the John Lewis group, retaining its original name until 2001 when it adopted the John Lewis name. Also in 1953, the partnership bought Herbert Parkinson, a textile manufacturer, a business which still makes duvets, pillows and furnishings for John Lewis.[22]

The first John Lewis store constructed as part of a shopping centre was the relocated Jessops, in Nottingham, which has been in the Victoria Centre since it opened in 1972. The announcement of an anchor tenant such as John Lewis contributes to the certainty of developers' proposals, and so attracts other retailers to the area.

In 1992, John Lewis was once again bombed, this time by IRA members. The nearby Cavendish square was also bombed at the same time.[23]

Before the relaxation of UK Sunday trading laws in 1994, John Lewis stores closed on Mondays to allow staff a full two-day "weekend".

The John Lewis Partnership was the first department store group in the UK to adopt central buying, launching the 'Jonell(e)' name for own-brand merchandise in 1937. That brand name has gradually been replaced with the 'John Lewis' name since 2001.

21st century history

2000s

Many stores acquired by John Lewis & Partners retained their original names for many years, including Tyrrell & Green in Southampton until 2000,[24] Bonds of Norwich until 2001, Trewins in Watford until 2001, Jessop & Son in Nottingham until 2002,[25] Bainbridge's in Newcastle-upon-Tyne until 2002, and Cole Brothers in Sheffield until 2002. All have now been rebranded John Lewis, with the exception of Peter Jones in south west London and Knight & Lee in Southsea which was closed in 2019.[26]

Investment has been made across the group in the twenty-first century. This has included the renovation of Peter Jones at a cost of £107 million, completed in 2004.[27] The original Oxford Street John Lewis shop is still the flagship and largest branch in the partnership. A complete refurbishment of the building was completed in late 2007 at a cost of £60 million. This introduced the new Place To Eat restaurant and a brasserie and bistro in the store. A John Lewis Food Hall from Waitrose opened in the shop's basement on 3 October 2007. A second Food Hall opened at the John Lewis Bluewater store on 6 August 2009.

In June 2004 John Lewis announced plans to open its first store in Northern Ireland at the Sprucefield Park development, the province's largest out of town shopping centre, located outside Lisburn and 10 miles from Belfast. The application was approved in June 2005 and the opening of the new store was scheduled for 2008. This decision was disputed and was taken to the High Court, where it was reversed.

Plans were circulating since the early 2000s for a new large store in Sheffield to replace the current store. The new store was to be included within the Sevenstone development, which has since been cancelled. A new store was to be considered for construction as part of the Sheffield Retail Quarter, scheduled to be completed by 2022. As of August 2017 these plans had not been confirmed and more recently, it was announced that the Sheffield John Lewis would close because of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.[28]

In 2008 a controversy over the declaration of expenses by UK members of Parliament revealed that Parliamentary authorities were using information from the "John Lewis list" as a guide to the maximum costs refundable to MPs when equipping London pieds à terre at public expense.

On 6 November 2008 it was announced that John Lewis would open their first department store outside the UK in Dublin, Ireland. Subject to planning permission, the shop would be built on O'Connell Street. The centre was being developed by Chartered Land and would be part of the largest retail centre in Ireland. As of January 2014 the €1.2 billion development was on hold and John Lewis were still seeking a location in Northern Ireland for a flagship department store.[29]

The Cardiff store opened in September 2009 as part of the Phase 2 development of St David's Centre. The Cardiff branch is the Partnership's only department store in Wales.[30][31]

2010s

Stratford opened in 2011 together with a new Waitrose supermarket. The new shops would anchor the Westfield Stratford City development alongside the Olympic Park in east London. In February 2011 it was announced that John Lewis was appointed as the Official Department Store provider for the London 2012 Olympic Games. As part of the deal, John Lewis stores became key retail outlets for official London 2012 merchandise.[32]

Also in February 2011 John Lewis announced it was to open a 250000 sqft department store in Birmingham city centre in 2014. The completion date of 2014 was pushed back to autumn 2015 due to complications regarding the construction of the centre, including issues relating to car parks and taxi ranks. Grand Central leasing director Keith Stone said the date was pushed back to ensure a better customer experience.[33] The store opened on 24 September 2015 and was the flagship store for the £100 million development and part of the new Grand Central shopping centre built on the south side of a redeveloped Birmingham New Street railway station.

In July 2011 John Lewis announced that it would be opening 10 new stores under a new smaller format in city centre locations over the next five years. The new smaller format department stores would hold John Lewis's core lines of Home, Electrical and Fashions, all tailored to the local area. However, the full range would still be available through online terminals within the store, as well as the "click and collect" service already available within other branches.

2020s

On 21 March 2020 John Lewis announced that it would temporarily close all its stores from 24 March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It also announced a "significant" reduction of its £500 million planned investment for the year. Over 2,000 John Lewis staff were already temporarily working in Waitrose stores to cope with large grocery demands due to the coronavirus outbreak.[46][47] On 9 July 2020, the company announced that they will be closing eight out of their fifty department stores, leaving 1,300 job positions at potential risk,[48] and notably including its Birmingham store which had opened less than five years ago because of financial challenges associated with the store which had been ongoing for several years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.[49] On 24 March 2021, it announced that an additional eight stores would close.[50] The pandemic has had a substantial impact on John Lewis, and in 2021 the company reported losses of £517 million for the previous year.[51]