Peter Ruis, executive director at JLP, insisted that Dame Sharon, Mr Tarry and the JLP chief executive Nish Kankiwala had all supported the return of “Never Knowingly Undersold”.
He said: “This isn’t about a debate about the past. At the end of the day, my perception is that we had a price mechanism that had to change. It wasn’t fit for purpose when it was dropped.
“Customers had got confused. Was it online? Was it in-store? How did it work? And we’d lost the simple, easy mechanism. We had this incredible brand, ‘Never Knowingly Undersold’, but the price promise mechanism wasn’t working properly.”
However, ditching the promise also proved problematic. Customers had “automatically assumed that that meant all prices went up” when the price promise was removed in 2022, he said.
Mr Ruis said: “I still think we’ve offered very good value, but it’s definitely sharpened us up in some areas, and brought a very competitive point of view.”
Improving customer service
The about-turn is the latest in a series of decisions showing a renewed focus on retail essentials at John Lewis, as bosses seek to turn the page on a turbulent few years.
As well as restoring “Never Knowingly Undersold”, John Lewis is bringing more staff on to the shop floor in a bid to improve customer service.
The partnership was battered by the pandemic shortly after Dame Sharon took charge and, in the years that followed, was dogged by criticism that its stores had become tired and uninviting, and that it had become less competitive on price.
John Lewis fell to a loss for three years in a row, including a large £234m deficit posted in early 2023.
In an interview with The Telegraph in June, Dame Sharon insisted that the retailer was back on track having returned to profit.
She said: “Look at the high street names that aren’t here, but were here in 2019. The fact that we’ve come through it, the business has got momentum and the team is in place for a smooth transition.”