John Lewis takes price pledge online
One of the High Street’s oldest brands, John Lewis, is mounting a fresh pitch to internet consumers with a pledge to match the price of other ‘bricks and clicks’ retailers.
The “Never Knowingly Undersold” pledge has been the cornerstone of the store's retail strategy for 85 years its effectiveness has been called into question lately.
It sees the department store match competitor's pricing within an eight mile radius or refund the difference but has become irrelevant in the teeth of aggressive price cutting by digital rivals.
Crucially the sales promise does not encompass online exclusive stores such as Amazon which may still undercut prices. Andy Street, John Lewis’s marketing director explained this discrepancy by pointing out that online and offline retailers remain fundamentally separate propositions with John Lewis benefiting from trained staff and an admission that they "cannot match the proposition of pure-play.”
Further confusion surrounds the omission of the dixons.co.uk site from the initiative, despite a high street presence in the form of Curry’s and PC World. Street explained this decision by stating that as Dixon’s have re-branded their stores to Curry’s Digital they do not “offer a high street presence with the same product and the same price.”
Street reckons the company will lose around £8m per year as a result of the changes but could also double their annual sales to £1bn by 2014.