John Lewis to open specialist homestores aimed at middle-class shoppers
The British department store chain, John Lewis, is planning up to 50 specialist home stores to target middle-class shoppers in smaller towns across the UK and Ireland.
Currently, the store have yet to name the chain of new shops, but the first is scheduled to open in October at a retail park in Poole, Dorset. The shop will stock two-thirds of the usual furnishings, homewares and electronics but will be just 5.1000 sq metres, making it about a third of the size of a standard John Lewis store.
The Poole outlet will be monitored closely and if successful the idea will be rapidly extended around the country. John Lewis managing director, Andy Street said:”We will act at pace. “This is a significant departure for our business. Poole will be our first new-format shop for 20 years.”
Each of these new stores will create more than 100 jobs, although only 30% will be full-time. Gareth Thomas, retail director, said he had identified “30 to 50 sites that could sustain this sort of shop” – which, he said, would have the look and feel of a John Lewis outlet, not an Ikea-style shed.
Last week, figures released by John Lewis showed that sales of homewares across the group are down more than 12% so far this year, while electricals and technology takings are down 7.4%. Sales at 16 of the department stores have sunk more than 10% on 2008 levels.
Additionally, several high-profile homewares retailers have collapsed, including MFI, New Heights and Land of Leather. The new John Lewis store – which will cost £6m to open – will be located in former Courts furniture store, which has been empty since Courts went under in 2004.
Thomas admitted that the move into home stores – which will sell furniture, electrical goods, linens, cookware, gifts and haberdashery – was “counter-intuitive” in the current economic circumstances. Sales of homewares have been low as economising Britons have cut back frivolous spending and the housing market has taken a dive.
The company have acknowledged that the new chain is serving as a type of Plan B for the department store business, which currently has 27 outlets. Previously, the group had announced plans to open at least 10 new full-size department stores and a number of smaller stores. However the housing market crash has put almost all expansion plans on hold.
Only the John Lewis stores in Cardiff and Stratford, east London, are now certain to go ahead in the next two years. Ambitions to open in Leeds, Sheffield, Oxford, Portsmouth, Crawley, are no longer a priority.
Despite these setbacks, the retailer has not been deterred and worked fast on the new format – the first shop will open just a year after research started for the idea.
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