John Lewis in Trouble

[TrainedByCatsToBeScathing]

John Lewis are struggling, even the Waitrose side of things. 11,000 out of a workforce of 80,000 is a lot, I’m sad for their mostly female sales force and there’s many reasons for their problems particularly with them not adapting quickly to the challenge from online sales.

However I was a very regular shopper in my local John Lewis and I stopped completely after their patronising offensive response to my query about single sex changing rooms a few years ago. I’d buy furniture, white goods, kitchenware, electronics, carpet, clothes, toys, haberdashery, cosmetics, shoes even jewellery (I was shocked when I realised how much I defaulted to John Lewis as it took a little while to switch to alternatives some of my loyalty was convenience). Obviously I’m just one shopper but it never seemed a good idea to piss off loyal customers as when trading conditions are challenging you need those customers even more.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13082653/John-Lewis-threatens-staff-disciplinary-action-unacceptable-comments-internal-intranet-retail-giant-considers-cutting-11-000-jobs-bid-recover-230m-losses.html

I came on here to link to this and can see someone's already beaten me to it!

www.jamesesses.com/p/the-trans-takeover-of-john-lewis

I saw it on LinkedIn and am scared to 'like it' in case I get pulled up by my employer for being anti trans.

It gave me the absolute creeps tho.

There was chat about it last year -

https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/uks-john-lewis-eyes-end-100-staff-ownership-times-2023-03-18/

Seems to have been reconsidered though -

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65520696.amp

That was in May last year and there's a new CEO now.

We will see.

You got music in your local Lidl @MrsDanversGlidesAgain ?
Lordy.
I was in mine today and got some delicious things (Greek week) I have never seen elsewhere in the UK.
It was clean and fairly well stocked and the staff were smiley and lovely.
My local Waitrose closed a while back, but I've got over it.

What in the actual good green earth are they doing? Do they actually want to immolate themselves publicly as a company?

I feel so sorry for the Partners who seem to have lost control of the Partnership Council and the Board.

There are now three LIDLs on my daily routes, all with big free car parks. I have to pay 2.50 to pop into the car park at Waitrose.

I won't bother, I'm too "low" for Sharon. I'm going to download the LIDL app and collect their points.

I think it's part of the idea that any project manager can manage anything, even if they'd never worked in the field before.

Not enough attention is paid to this well observed problem.

It is part of the reason the NHS is in such a bloody mess.

However. The opposite to this phenomenon is the post office - where PO lifers got promoted beyond their capabilities and knowing the business was thought more important than outside views. So no one new was brought in at manager level and we ended up witn the catastrophe we did

Yeah, horrible tinny stuff. It was early though so might not be a thing generally, I don't recall it at other times. I saw Greek week and as I have some donations for the Mind shop over the road, might pop in today and stock up.

I thought the opposite for the post office with the various CEOs brought in without understanding the culture and under pressure to run as a business rather than as a public service.

Also fell foul of the common fallacy amongst very senior management that whizzy IT systems can solve all problems, when it’s usually the opposite in my experience. I’ve actually attended a board meeting where they were all “is shiny!” at a presentation from a software vendor, and they were rhapsodising about how it could tell you how long it would take for a document to go from draft to approved status. Got told off for being too negative when I asked if we actually need to know how long it takes and did the system actually fix the gaps that our current system has.

sorry I could rant for England on the lack of understanding on time and resource needed to install a useful and functioning IT system.

sorry I could rant for England on the lack of understanding on time and resource needed to install a useful and functioning IT system

That was one of the reasons I left exjob for semi retirement. I've been filing old emails and going through my inbox in 2020/2021 and reading my ranting to a mate about the whole thing, I'd forgotten just how bad our new system was. It seems to be a given that the people who actually have to make a new IT system work are the ones who dn't get any input into the tendering process or are allowed to ask the difficult questions.

Anyway, Waitrose. It looks like my local have changed their lighting to something more industrial than the usual warm welcoming lights, so that might account for the general feeling of dinginess. I thought yesterday that Lidl and Waitrose seem to have changed places - Lidl is the well lit, well stocked shop that W'rose used to be, while W'rose looks like Lidl did in the early days - hire a warehouse, stack up the boxes and never mind about a well laid out shop people want to wander around.

I heard that the low dingy lighting was part of their environmental effort. Co op sometimes similar.....

There's another Telegraph article today. If it's behind a paywall, can someone unpaywall it? I don't know how to do that. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2024/02/20/john-lewis-staff-identity-authentic-selves/

Has anyone a non paywall link to this article??
Thanks.

Try this:
https://archive.is/xoFyP

I think archive links are automatically deleted on MN but it's easy to do yourself. If you copy the URL of the article and paste it into the search box on an archive site you can read it. Many thanks to the MNer who explained this to me a few months ago!

I miss the JL of old. 10-15 years ago we went there often for better quality items. We had our wedding list and made most of our baby purchases there. The coffee and cake vouchers were used and we shopped afterwards.

We've had some shockingly bad customer service experiences over the last 5 years. I want to buy good quality items. Their move to push the cheaper own brand clothes range seems odd. I have more money now, but I certainly shop around now for electrics and big ticket items after their pricing guarantee was stopped.

I mostly shop online these days, but JL rarely have the basics items (like tights) I'm looking for or the sizes I need in kids' clothing etc. I've walked away from online baskets if I don't have the minimum amount for free delivery.

It's such a shame. I used to buy a lot from there.

They have certainly become penny wise and pound foolish. I had to threaten them with litigation to get them to replace a faulty kettle which died after a couple of months.

I realise that retailers get customers trying to scam them all the time and to return goods damaged accidentally or just worn out. But, surely, given that they are constantly collecting data on us, it takes 2 seconds to look at someone's order history, realise that they are excellent customers and hardly ever return something as faulty, and make a calculation that it might be better to spend £35 replacing their dodgy kettle than to lose them as a customer? Amazon clearly do do this. John Lewis? Not so much.

Another moan about John Lewis, I do most of my shopping online but from time to time go to my nearest John Lewis store.
It is unbelievable how much it has gone downhill, customer service is non existent, the majority of the staff they have now appear to be untrained and are distinctly unpleasant.
If I ever go with the intention of buying a particular item you can guarantee it's out of stock.
Fashion is very poor, hate the Anyday range really cheap and nasty looking.

It didn't seem so bad yesterday so might be me thinking it's gloomy. I'll ask next time I see a manager.

I’m resurrecting an old thread but I wanted to add my opinion!

I have moved home within the last couple of years and have spent 10s of thousands at John Lewis and it has all been fantastic. Really nice furniture and the delivery people (the ones who actually work for John Lewis) were fantastic, polite and nothing was too much of a bother!

Nearly two years ago - I got my shutters installed by John Lewis and that was a shit show. They sent the wrong panel 3 TIMES! It took well over a year for it to be fitted properly when it was suppose to take 6-7 months (initial appointment which was over Zoom, someone coming to measure, making payment, waiting for it to be manufactured, delivery) and I complained to the high heavens which resulted in a £100 gift card. Bought some more shutters from a local business which came quicker and slightly cheaper! I would never buy anything that required fitting (kitchen, bathroom, bedroom furniture) again.

Their customer service has gone downhill. It’s definitely not what it used to be. The staff aren’t as knowledgeable as they used to be however I think this is a trend with retail overall. Wages aren’t high so people don’t see it as a career anymore (unless you’re management) so they don’t take the job seriously.

I still love JL/Waitrose (Waitrose is more expensive than Sainsbury’s but my local Sainsbury’s is always so busy and the fruit/veg never tastes nice) but I am selective what I buy. Hope they turn it around.

We bought our most recent dishwasher from AO and paid for disconnection, removal and reconnection. Two guys turned up with the right tools and did a proper job, very efficient.

When we bought the predecessor from JL about 8 years ago, we’d done the same but the delivery team were useless, said they couldn't connect it & left us with a dishwasher in our dining room that we had to work around over Christmas until our own plumber (at extra cost to us) could come and sort it out. I had to argue hard to get the JL connection fee refunded! I didn’t even look at JL for this replacement.

I won't buy from AO now because of the two tier pricing which only really works if you are buying more than one thing in a year which I wouldn't generally do. Having to pay a large fee to get a slightly cheaper price and free delivery doesn't really work with one off purchases like white goods

Even the staff on the beauty counters seem bored and lacking in knowledge.
However I got a new washing machine from JL this week and paid for it all to be disconnected and the new one out in . They did it very efficiently and were very pleasant. I have bought all my other appliances from AO in the past and been delighted with them but this time the timescale for delivery didn’t suit and the disconnection fees were higher. I don’t like the two tier system either .
customer service in the actual shop at JL is awful now and their stock is very limited compared to online. I went to look at baby stuff and was astonished how little they had in store.

I would probably get my next washing machine from JL as I am very pleased with my present JL brand washing machine bought 5 years ago which I was also happy with the service provided.