The is a major
United Kingdom retailer, operating
Department Store s and, through its
Waitrose subsidiary, upmarket
Supermarket s. Unusually, it is a
Partnership , with the company held in trust on behalf of its employees (called ''partners'') who have a say in the running of the business and receive an annual profit distribution which is usually a significant addition to their annual salary. The chain is probably the most up-market of the department store chains in Great Britain and appeals strongly to a middle class core of shoppers.
The partnership is an investor in and an operational partner of the
Ocado internet grocery business, which supplies Waitrose brand food.
The business was founded in 1864 when John Lewis set up a draper's shop in Oxford Street, London, which developed into a department store. In 1905 he bought the
Peter Jones store in
Sloane Square . In 1920 his son,
John Spedan Lewis , expanded earlier power-sharing policies by sharing the profits the business made among the employees. The democratic nature and profit-sharing basis of the business were developed into a formal partnership structure and Spedan Lewis bequeathed the company to his employees. In January 2006, over 64,000 partners worked for the John Lewis Partnership, whereof half worked full-time.
The principle and slogan ''Never knowingly undersold'' was adopted in 1925. It was created by Spedan Lewis and applied to the company's
Peter Jones store in
Sloane Square , London. It stated that if a customer could buy the same item cheaper elsewhere they would refund the difference. Today, the company still honours this pledge, and many of their competitors also offer such a pledge. The principle has been more refined, most notably to exclude
Online Shop ping, however they are the only large retailer that will match the price with any UK shop, not restricting it to a local area. The policy is also to monitor local competitors and reduce the shelf edge price if they are being 'undersold'. Staff (partners) also get paid £2 for every time they notify the company that they are being 'undersold'.
The present shop on Oxford Street was opened in 1960, the original buildings having been bombed. The sculpture ''Winged Figure'' by
Barbara Hepworth was added in 1962.
On
27th April 1933 John Lewis Partnership bought
Jessop & Son of
Nottingham . This store was the first John Lewis outside London. The store kept the name '
Jessops ' until 2002, when after a refurbishment and expansion the store was renamed as simply John Lewis. The partnership has also purchased a number of other regional department stores, as well as developing stores in new locations. As of 2005 it has plans to open a new department store every year for the next few years, which is probably the most ambitious expansion programme in its history.
In line with other British department store chains, it has recently begun a process of renaming any stores not branded John Lewis (
Tyrrell & Green ,
Heelas , etc.) with the nationally recognisable name.
Peter Jones in
London , and
Caleys in
Windsor are notable exceptions to this policy.
Every employee is a partner in the John Lewis Partnership, and has a possibility to influence the business through branch councils, which discuss local issues at every store, and the central Partnership Council, to which the partners elect at least 80% of the 82 representatives, while the chairman appoints the remaining. The council has the power to discuss ‘any matter whatsoever’, and is responsible for the non-commercial aspects of the business – the development of the social activities within the partnership and its charitable giving.
The Partnership Council also elects five of the directors on the partnership board (which is responsible for the commercial activities), while the chairman appoints another five. The two remaining board members are the chairman and the deputy chairman. In addition, there are two divisional councils for the two trading divisions (the department stores and Waitrose), where partners can exercise their influence, as well as a series of communications committees, appointed by non-management partners, which shall ensure that every non-management partner has an open channel for expressing his/her views to management and the chairman.
The John Lewis Partnership has a very extensive programme of social activities for its partners, including two large country estates with parklands, playing fields and tennis courts; a golf club; a sailing club with five crusing yachts; and two country hotels offering holiday accommodation for the partners. Partners are also enrolled in a very favourable pension scheme, receive a death in service insurance, and are given very generous holidays (vacations).
Finally, every partner receives an annual bonus, which is a share of the profit. It is calculated as a percentage of the salary, with the same percentage for everyone, from top management down to the shop floor and the storage rooms. Depending on the profitability of the partnership each year, the bonus has been between 9% and 15% of the partners' annual salaries since 2000. According to the preliminary result for the 2005-2006 financial year, which ended 28 January 2006, the partners will receive a bonus for that year which equals almost two months' salary. The remaining profit, after bonus payments and taxation, is always put back into in the business.
- --- Preliminary results.) The John Lewis Partnership's financial year runs from February to January the next year. The percentage figure in the bonus column shows the bonus' value in relation to a partner's salary. 8.33% would mean one additional month's salary and 16.66% would mean two month's salary, showing that the staff has received more than one month's additional salary as bonus each year since 2000.
In the 1983/4 year they broke the £100,000,000 barrier for the first time.
Financial section of John Lewis' website:
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As of
December 2005 the partnership operates 27 department stores and a
Webstore . Most of these trade as John Lewis, but some trade under other names such as
Peter Jones ,
Robert Sayle ,
Knight & Lee and
Caleys . The stores are in a mixture of city centre and regional shopping centre locations. They are generally the largest or second largest department store in their local market. The flagship
Oxford Street store in
London remains the largest John Lewis outlet in the UK. The stores are moderately upmarket and are perceived as a bastion of the British middle class. Until 2002, the group operated its
Newcastle Upon Tyne department store under its original name of
Bainbridge , arguably the first department store in the world, before deciding to rebrand the store as John Lewis. Both Peter Jones and Caleys, as well as Waitrose, hold
Royal Warrant s. Caleys, currently the smallest John Lewis department store, is closing in July 2006 due to underperformance.
- Crawley , John Lewis Crawley (proposed new store, anticipated to open in 2012)
- Greenhithe , Bluewater , John Lewis Bluewater
- High Wycombe , John Lewis Home & Leisure High Wycombe
- Kingston Upon Thames , John Lewis Kingston
- Milton Keynes , John Lewis Milton Keynes
- Portsmouth (opening in 2009)
- Reading , John Lewis Reading (formerly Heelas )
- Southampton , John Lewis Southampton (formerly Tyrrell & Green )
- Southsea , Knight & Lee
- Watford , John Lewis Watford (formerly Trewins / Trewin Brothers )
- Welwyn Garden City , John Lewis Welwyn (formerly Welwyn Stores )
- Windsor , Caleys (closing in July 2006)
- Bristol , John Lewis Bristol / Lewis's Bristol (closed 1998 on relocation of business to out-of-town Cribbs Causeway development- building now occupied by House Of Fraser Bristol department store)
- Brixton , Bon Marche (closed 1975)
- Brixton , Quin & Axten
- Edinburgh , The Silk Shop (fabrics and haberdashery)
- Finchley Road , London , John Barnes (closed 1981- building now partly occupied by a Waitrose supermarket)
- Gloucester , Blinkhorn & Son
- Harrogate , Buckleys
- Holloway , Jones Brothers (closed 1990- part of site now occupied by a Waitrose supermarket)
- Hull , The Silk Shop Hull
- Newcastle Upon Tyne , The Silk Shop Newcastle upon Tyne
- Peckham , Holdrons
- Peterborough , Robert Sayle Peterborough / Thomsons
- Reading , A H Bull
- Streatham , Pratts (closed 1990)
- Weston-Super-Mare , Lance & Lance
John Lewis has a number of new stores in the pipeline. In May 2005 a department store in the Manchester region at the
Trafford Centre was opened.
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 ten miles from
Belfast . The application was approved in June 2005, and it will open in 2008.
A store in
Leicester will open in 2008, in the
Shires West development.
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Cardiff (planned, as part of the ''St Davids Centre - Phase 2'' redevelopment), will open in 2009.
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Oxford will open in 2010 as part of the redevelopment of the Westgate Centre followed by
Leeds in 2011 as an anchor store of the planned Harewood & Eastgate Quarter development.
John Lewis has announced an interest in building new stores in
Croydon (2011) and
Crawley (2012). Details of these openings are yet to be confirmed.
John Lewis will also relocate the (2010)
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Caleys in
Windsor will close in July 2006. In support of the announced closure the group stated that 'the location, size and layout of the building will always stand in the way of any prospect of a return to profitable trading'.
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See Also: Waitrose
The John Lewis Partnership also owns Waitrose, an upmarket supermarket chain which has 174 branches (February 2006) and 27,000 partners. Waitrose trades mainly in London and the South of
England , and was originally formed by Wallace Waite, Arthur Rose and David Taylor. The company was taken over by The John Lewis Partnership in 1937. The acquisition of 19 Safeway branches in 2004 greatly increased the size of the company and saw branches open in the North of England for the first time. A further six stores were purchased from Morrisons in Autumn 2005 and again helped the march into previously unexplored territories. Then, in March 2006, Waitrose announced the purchase of five stores from
Somerfield , with the first two stores in
Scotland , both of which are in the capital,
Edinburgh .
On 28 March 2004, the John Lewis Partnership announced the launch of their own credit card
{Link without Title} - the ''Partnership'' card. This was launched with
HFC which is a division of the banking giant
HSBC . It was launched as a
MasterCard with a choice of our designs (effectively four different colours).
The credit card follows on from, and supercedes, the John Lewis (and Waitrose) account cards which have been around for 40 years. These cards are no longer available, and holders of these are being encouraged to replace them with the Partnership card.
The Partnership card is designed as a
Cashback credit card, and therefore has a high APR for people not paying the balance off every month. It offers a 1% rebate for purchases at stores that are members of the John Lewis Parnership - e.g.
John Lewis ,
Waitrose ,
Peter Jones ,
Ocado . For purchases at other stores it offers a rate of 0.5%. Vouchers are sent out quarterly with money back, and these must be spent in a store of the John Lewis partnership.
