Retailer reinstates customer favourite Never Knowingly Undersold in-store and online
Customer favourite department store John Lewis is bringing back its much-loved Never Knowingly Undersold price promise two years after it was scrapped.
New executive director Peter Ruis made the decision having spent the first seven months of his tenure talking to customers and shop staff – known as partners – about what the popular retailer with its 34 UK stores means to them.
Reaffirming its commitment to quality products, brilliant service and competitive prices, the partners-owned business that sells a vast range of greetings and stationery among its broad home, fashion, and garden offer made the announcement yesterday, 5 September.
And it’s losing no time putting it into practice, with simpler terms and conditions for the reimagined pledge that’s back in action from Monday, 9 September, price matching products in store and online to those across 25 major retailers, including M&S, Next, Boots and AO.com using AI technology to check online and High Street brands.
The return of Never Knowingly Undersold is the first major move by Peter, who returned to the business in January this year, a decade after leaving having previously been a director on the executive team for nine years.
“We are reimagining Never Knowingly Undersold for how customers shop today,” Peter said, “offering great quality, service and prices in store and online, and re-starting the conversation as to what it means to Live Knowingly in the 21st century.
“For the past seven months I’ve talked to our customers and our partners about what John Lewis means to them. Today, we’re kick-starting our brand for the next 100 years, the perfect fusion of heritage and British eccentricity blended with radical relevance for the modern customer.”
JLP’s chief executive Nish Kankiwala said the move is “a significant and critical milestone in the modernisation of our John Lewis customer proposition” and outgoing chairman Sharon White added: “Now is the right time for Never Knowingly Undersold to return in a form that will resonate with customers whether they’re shopping in store or online.
“I’m delighted that Peter and his team are reinvigorating the John Lewis promise to our customers for the 21st century and I am excited to see the brand go from strength to strength, today as chairman and in future as a customer.”
Never Knowingly Undersold was launched publicly in the retailer’s Peter Jones shop in Sloane Square in London in 1925, before rolling out to its other shops in 1926 as a promise of great value to customers.
The full list of brands being matched is AO.com; Amazon (on technology); Apple; Argos; Asos; Boots; Currys; Dunelm; Dreams; The Entertainer; Fenwick; Flannels; Furniture Village; Harrods; Harvey Nichols; Heal’s; House of Fraser; Lakeland; M&S; Mama’s and Papa’s; Next; Richer Sounds; Selfridges; Smyths Toys; and Space NK.
