John Lewis - Another visit (3 November 2021)
3 November 2021
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If everything in John Lewis was put together with as much thought, care, inspiration and quality as Christmas is. They'd be held up as a retailer that is arguably, one of the best in the world.
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Key Takeaways - John Lewis - 2nd visit
1) Christmas is on the 2nd email and as I stated above; if the chain could somehow embed that discipline, focus and passion for the event on the day to day, then this would be a very different email. Easier said than done, however.
2) Standards again were challenging, lighting is covered in depth in the 2nd email, but a smattering of observations here is enough to whet the appetite, frankly, it was a disaster.
3) Anyday polarises opinion and no amount of fancy pop up shops to showcase the range will change my perception on this The rollout looks confused and it's now in so many categories, I'm unclear what the aim of the sub brand is.
My perception of Anyday has weakened. It's arguably the biggest act of economic self harm, by a retailer, ever. Certainly in terms of own label.
As the brand has continued to roll out - it's now touching more categories and sadly, looking more ridiculous.
The rationale for introducing Anyday appears to be centred on the fact that John Lewis is viewed as expensive, which, we know can be the case, despite the never knowingly undersold pledge and all the rest of it.
But it misses the point that people shop with John Lewis for all manner of reasons, they're happy to pay the price because customers may know the business is a partnership and they like the service, a thousand reasons are related to a customer choosing to buy from one retailer, over another.
Whilst price is important, the value the customer gets is far more important. You can justify almost any price if it's associated with positive connotations around customer service, the wider brand, product quality, store environment and experience....
The minute that the brand goes negative, or starts a trajectory downwards then higher prices, or the price point becomes harder to defend and indeed, the customer can wonder why they're spending that bit extra when the service, or other elements are comparable to other retailers.
When written down, one reads and wonder which retailer would merrily erode their own strength? Well, it's just another example of where John Lewis are going wrong.
They will never be able to compete on price in a meaningful way, ever. Their ownership model prohibits it, given the bonus for one, alongside the more bureaucratic structure. Not just that, but department store retailing and the locations mean that higher costs are incurred anyway.
Department stores are not known for their volume retailing abilities, namely because customers have to walk from any high street store with their purchase, which can be a sizeable barrier in itself.
But that's the only way to get prices down, is to sell more, and more and the economies of scale take care of the rest.
However, if you can't drive volumes, and John Lewis patently can not - then in the absence of sales growth (and indeed, new space, it's the reverse now) then you have to cut costs to keep the profit line moving.
Refits are sorely needed, plus this segway of Toys and Toilets, hardly world class.
Cuts to the cost line means more moves like shifting call centres to the far east. These moves in the short term, cause little pain, there are some isolated noise perhaps but the savings are there for all to see. Real excitement, so more of its done. More radical cost saving ideas come down the track.
Refits are postponed, or cut back. Indeed, some of the stores in the estate are badly requiring updating and modernising, purely from a display kit viewpoint. Let alone battered walls, paintwork chipping and all the other small elements that go in to a wider retailing environment.
A popular target for cost cutting is the old "Let's not staff the store with anywhere near enough staff" -(not necessarily the case in JL, at all) with key performance indicators / trackers fixated around the "net promoter score" (how positively customers speak about the brand), any decline takes a while to take hold......
Then the tidal wave comes in the way of rising complaints, the satisfaction score goes in to reverse and the sales line plummets. The profits naturally follow, which then means more cuts are needed, ironic, eh?
The culture then eats itself and there has to be a change at the top as the incumbent exec has presided over the decision to cut costs, so has to go......
Assuming we are seeing similar here; certainly we know that costs are always being cut at John Lewis. This means the poor customer (remember them?) encounters more of the Tracey Emin style clearance areas. This one in lighting is almost art, I mean honestly, desperation really here.
What is the purpose of this clearance area? What would any single person think of the brand? Based on this? The store is trying to hawk sofas costing upwards of £2,000 about 2 metres away...
It looks dreadful, one look at that and you're assuming they treat all products like that, what are the back areas like? Why is no one sorting any of this out? Is it central buyers holding on to markdown and not allowing it to be cleared through?
Are some of these lines damaged packaging? Or are others damaged product? Missing a lightbulb etc?
There is a bad logic in retail that the clearance area has to resemble a disaster zone for it to be equated as a clearance area. Not so! Merchandising must be sharper here, than anywhere else!
This is amateur hour. Plenty of management about too, why have they not toured the store and seen this?
More on lighting in part 2; not an area I am necessarily always au-fait with but as a homeowner, as noted previously. Somewhat of a cloud can descend as you find yourself gravitating looking at home lighting and seemingly getting to that stage of your life.....
Toys is another category of interest given my/Mrs D's spending has reached the equivalent GDP of a small country on various Toys down the years.
Where it was a positive but must try harder and think 'more like a retailer' in Leeds JL, in the Trafford Centre, it was very much 'why bother at all?'
Very poor all round. Relatively close to Christmas; but nothing going on of note.
Sure the displays are old and the layouts are confusing, there are stock shortages, Brexit, HGV drivers, the toys are on a container somewhere etc etc. Making excuses is easy, who will stand up for the excuses?
No one, then it's addictive, blame central. Some elements are out of your hands in retail, that's a given. It's the same for competitors, watch and observe sure, but you can't control what they do, either.
Where can you control? Your own store! You may not have stock; but you could tidy this display. Just see the wood for the trees, investigate the gaps if necessary and then when stock arrives, it can go straight on the shelf.
Rather than it resembling a dumping ground.
However; one can certainly put out shelf edge labels to indicate what price the Waitrose supermarket is; two separate locations and not a price on either.
Not good at all. Such a basic. Breeds mistrust, especially if a customer picks up an item thinking it's far cheaper than what it is, due to the absence of a ticketing framework.
Appreciate gaps are hard to manage in Toys at the moment, but some customer friendly work around gap tags to show which products are out of stock, aiding customers to be able to see the price of the ones that are, would go a long way.
Again, it's down to taking control at store level.
Ah Anyday, not content with moving in to furnishings and placemats, replacing the ever present, solid and brand aligned 'House' - it's now appearing in underwear, this alongside Cots, Mugs and a whole host of other things.
Why?
The sub brands did a perfectly reasonably job and the only real reason to introduce a unifying brand such as Anyday was to resolve issues with the former brand,
But there wasn't any issue with the brand? The brand name speaks for itself. Just imagine having a brand like John Lewis, and selling Kidswear; where trust is everything.
All the heritage and everything that has gone before it with the JL brand for many, many years and then introducing Anyday over the top of it.
I get the need to introduce a value based tier with more of a value cue at its core. Perhaps. But then when the tealights and photo frames are far more expensive than IKEA or equivalents, it seems moot.
It's just so odd to have it everywhere in a scattergun approach when you have to then persuade customers all over again that the quality hasn't diminished despite the packaging changing. (Customers will convince themselves it has).
When look around the store; it's just part Anyday, part core and the rest is just in the middle. Understandably supply issues cause the old ranges to be needed a bit longer, but the clearance in homewares looked a mess.
Old brands alongside new Anyday brand. Where is the distinction? How can it launch successfully with the old stock still hanging around? It really is basic retailing.
£2000 of your money.
The sofa itself isn't bad but the cushions... Oh dear. Who is responsible for maintaining the presentation here? Just a terrible first impression, you never see this at the professional outlets, for example.
It looks to me; again, if you can't do it properly, then why do it at all?
Even Cushions weren't safe from the Anyday treatment; with this range somewhat awkwardly merchandised on a display unit here.
There must be a better way, surely.
Again it's a reminder of how confused the own label tier is. £15 / £20 for cushions that don't appear all that different. Do they have to be Anyday?
No.
This was the disaster awaiting me when I went in to the store; a mess.
First impressions count, of course, but the fact that anyday, then House are on the same display hardly helps, nor does the Church bric a brac style sale of Teapots and other similar items.
Where is the inspiration? What was wrong with "House?"
A baby's cot now has the same branding as this range of Dinnerware and the rest of it. There isn't even a distinction around the usage / mission. IE using "House" to signify product is to be used in the home.
Had the range come in as a palatable cost effective range, then I could have understood (Not agreed with it, as JL customers are not shopping with JL for price and price alone). Better to cannibalise yourself than have someone else do it after all.
But as it is, it's just replaced existing product at the same price point here, pointless.
Same price point here. Same product seemingly.
I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions around which one looks better on shelf.
Even the branding here is messy; it stands out well sure, but on shelf / display units, the product just looks a mess and the ANYDAY branding does little to improve things, or generate feelings / thoughts of quality.
Merchandising is nine tenths of the law in non-food / department store retailing......
Here too, there's an explanation around changes to the ranges and to bear with them whilst they go through a change (entirely unnecessarily) etc. But again, the packaging on shelf just doesn't look right - over engineered and obscuring the product.
If anything, cheapening the look and feel which is a dangerous path to go down.
Sometimes (not often) I'm at a loss for words.
Hard to see what it should look like, let alone how the display ended up at this point.
Branding again, self inflicted harm around their own label. Bizarre.
£52 for a dinner set, or £16 for some plates (I think) but the display is so unclear.
Signage is appalling, you get less information when buying a car and the showroom is detailing the specs. Also the bright orange stands out but is a pointless waste of retail real estate when it could be used to communicate to customers.
A bit of an overlap on the packaging front with Le Crueset here (notably), sharing the Orange colourway and that's not a great place to be in either.
We all know the French manufacturer of kitchen equipment have a superb range of cast iron products, however the prices also go with that quality message.
Lighting is up next on the email service with a look around at the Christmas assortment which is very strong, a reminder that the chain can get things right.
But that's for big events, the day to day is so important.
As for the paper shade. £30, in packaging like that? Where the colourway looks to be wrong (white out of orange, usually the other way around) which makes it harder to read the JL & Partners branding (ironically).
This example is probably a goof one to hold up as an indicator of "Anyday" and for John Lewis too.
Confused.
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From the Grocery Insight newsletter archive, first sent to subscribers on 3 November 2021. Steve now writes at read.groceryinsight.com. See also the blog archive and briefings.