John Lewis has announced it is bringing back a classic slogan as it tries to battle wokery.
The chain is bringing back its “Never Knowingly Undersold” which was ditched by former chairman Dame Sharon White.
The slogan, first introduced a century ago, was aimed to reassure customers that the shop would refund the difference if shoppers found an item on sale for a cheaper price after buying it at the department store.
The pledge was scrapped by Dame Sharon, the then-chairman of John Lewis Partnership (JLP), in 2022, saying it was inadequate for the digital shopping age.
The partnership has been struggling in recent years
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The John Lewis owner recently returned to profitGETTY It comes as former Tesco UK chief executive Jason Tarry prepares to replace Dame Sharon later this month.
Executive Director at JLP, insisted that Dame Sharon, Tarry and the JLP chief executive Nish Kankiwala had all supported the return of “Never Knowingly Undersold.”
“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,” he told The Telegraph
“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…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.”
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Dame Sharon White, outgoing chair of the John Lewis Partnership,
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It comes as bosses seek to turn the page on a turbulent few years ahead of the crucial festive period, with the move backed by a multimillion-pound advertising campaign.
The department store is moving more staff onto the shop floor in a bid to improve customer service and put experience within shops first.
The partnership was hit hard 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 £234million deficit posted in early 2023.
Speaking back 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.”