Playing to its strengths
Department store John Lewis has announced it will be trialling a new store format that will be a third of the size of its current stores and focus on the home sector, which includes IT and consumer electronic products.
The Trial store will be opened in Poole, Dorset, this October, with its performance over the Christmas period expected to be the primary influence on whether to open more such stores next year. John Lewis has its eye on 30 other locations.
"The new format has been based on an enormous amount of research, which showed us that there are areas of the country where consumers wanted to be able to shop at a John Lewis branch within a 40 minute journey of their home," said retail director, Gareth Thomas.
"We know our competitors have a much higher level of coverage in the UK than we do and our research has shown that there are growth opportunities for our business in smaller format shops, giving our customers more convenient access to John Lewis products."
John Lewis is focusing on the home sector because that's the strongest part of its business, according to its PR department. It will be interesting to see how well it does in areas with a PC World/Currys or Comet presence.
Here are a couple of clever bits of CGI showing how the Poole store should look.
