John Lewis is operating pop-up shops to highlight its recently-launched Anyday range – which it says has become its most successful own brand spring launch ever.
Anyday launched as a home and nursery range in April, and in the first half of the year sales from the range came to £56m, setting records for the department store. Last month the brand launched into Anyday fashion, taking the brand’s full range to 3,600 products. So far more than a million customers have bought products from the range.
When the brand was launched, John Lewis say that its customer research showed that 60% of adults were now more money conscious than before the Covid-19 pandemic, with many facing increased financial pressures.
Pippa Wicks, partner and executive director at John Lewis, said at the time: “The ANYDAY range signals a step-change in the modernising of our brand and offers customers John Lewis quality at prices they wouldn’t expect. We want to challenge value perceptions of John Lewis and attract a broader group of shoppers who want to combine style and value. This range has been specifically designed around how our customers live today. Whatever they need, we will have a product which suits their budget, from space-saving products, cost-effective baby clothes and affordable technology to portable pieces renters can take with them when they move. This launch is a return to our commitment to offer great value for money, but it’s also an exciting opportunity to build on our own brand strengths and supercharge them for the future.”
Now shoppers can visit standalone pop-up shops to see the range for themselves before buying from the John Lewis app or online from home, or from a nearby John Lewis shop. The temporary pop-up shops have so far been located in shopping centres where John Lewis has an existing department store, including Cardiff and Leicester – which are currently open to the public – and before that Milton Keynes, Nottingham, Oxford and Manchester’s Trafford Centre.
John Lewis has long experimented with a range of store formats – from ‘at home’ stores to stores aimed at commuters passing through transport hubs. Its first pop-up store opened in Exeter in 2012, to pique shopper interest ahead of a department store opening in that city.
However, Covid-19 changed consumer behaviour, shifting away from those smaller formats towards online. In 2020,John Lewis shut four At Home stores and two small shops focused on collection for commuters, located at travel hubs, at London St Pancras and Heathrow.
And in March this year it shut four more At Home stores as well as four department stores in the second phase of a store rationalisation programme that has now seen numbers go from 50 to 34 shops. At the time of those closures, John Lewis said it would create more places for shoppers to buy John Lewis products – including in branches of Waitrose. It also said that it would launch small and local stores. That strategy can be seen at work in the new Anyday stores, which are both local to its existing stores, and enable shoppers to touch and feel – before buying online.
John Lewis is a Leading retailer in RXUK Top500 research.
