I see there is a non-binding VONC on Sharon White. Appreciating retail generally is fooked, why the hell did they appoint a civil service lifer to run a proper business?
Piechucker, Sharon White is the non-executive Chairman of John Lewis. I don't see how any of the times you have listed could fall within her direct responsibility.
Sharon White does not deserve the blame for the state of JL.
The person who deserves the blame is Michael Fabricant's squeeze, Andy Street, who was managing director from 2007 to 2016. He doubled the number of John Lewis stores, including a number which are now mothballed white elephants, when he should have been doing what Next did and investing in logistics and online. Being a window for mid market brands was also flawed given those mid market brands are on sale in several other online outlets - often with more discounts than at John Lewis. By 2011 at the latest it should have been fairly obvious that doubling down on what it was doing was a bad strategy but Street was not bright and, frankly, in personal terms was a lot less in touch with the average JL consumer than Sharon White is.
Was in the Oxford St store over the weekend. it was a ghost town and felt oddly fake. The toy dept was shelf after shelf of boxed blandness. No soul or spirit. Go to Hamley's and it's a riot of noise and neon - and kids love it. Go to JL and they look at bland boxed toys and go meh. The space between shelves is too much - I like a decluttered retail environment, but the whole place felt like it was trying to spread out 100 units of stuff in a space that could accommodate 200 units. It all felt moribund. And there was a late-middle aged mumsy WI sort at the exit door thanking me for visiting. A nice touch, but it doesn't speak to anyone under the age of 50. It reminded me a lot of M&S. Bland and sterile. There's not enough retail dynamism on the board and it has infected the whole store.
They were grade 1 4rseholes to me when I had to return a telly they'd shipped with the wrong cabling which they inexplicably couldn't just replace. On the phone for hours while they kept trying to direct me to the manufacturer - so many of them and so determinedly that it's plainly company policy to weasel out of their stat duties. Never darkening their poxy doors again.
Peter Jones has always been an oasis of civility, in what was historically admittedly a civilised part of town. If the axeman cometh I wonder if it could go it alone? I think it’s desperately sad that J Bezos has obliterated most of the parts of Britain that the Luftwaffe missed.
Recently we bought a telly and a washing machine and in both cases paid for their installation service.
w machine - couldnt do it. Needed a bit of string or something. Said we needed a builder. Local plumber sorted no problem (although no plumbing issues)
telly - the wall aerial had become loose or unscrewed, man refused to touch it. So mr m did it instead.
what a waste of time. Dont bother with this sort of thing, unless it is so straightforward your 5 year old could do it they will refuse to get involved.
Customer service is what could have saved them, as well as branching out into services with reliability. Instead a hotch potch of Partridge style ideas and a general shambles in lots of areas - we literally gave up trying to get them to quote for a kitchen as they made it so difficult, and I had to spent 3 hours in a store because their systems couldn't handle a full refund of something that had been subsequently discounted (though we did get free refreshments and a £50 discount in the end TBF). It's also laughable to say "oh she only had 4 years and it was left in a terrible state." Do you work in comms for Conservative Central Office?
They should have bossed all the excess cash sloshing around during COVID. Instead an "it'll be alright on the night" attitude from a "leader" used to the "pressures" of heading Ofcom.
Time matters more than anything to the modern consumer (per the examples above). So someone from the civil service or a quango whose culture has less of a sense of urgency is perhaps not a great idea.
People ragging on the installation stuff are missing the point. It's a white gloves service to install simple as fook stuff for people who are too inept or lazy to do it.
They'll unbox, position, and plug in your telly or washing machine. They'll connect the aerial or inlet cold water. They won't do anything that requires more than 2 seconds of work. Because JL charge you £20 or so, and pay the driver £5.
White gloves is naaice delivery. Like what Judo would expect. They carry it up the stairs, they unbox and position it, plug it in and put batteries in the remote and dispose of packaging.
Compare to Currys who leave it on the footpath and hope you're okay with the rest.
They refunded us that charge when they refused to install our washing machine because it was too far away from the mains water pipe and drain, notwithstanding the hoses were already there and simply needed connecting to the machine.
hideous customer services for many years now...trading off their loyal DM reading tory customer base but even they are getting intolerant. will go bust within 2 years unless overhauled quickly.
They've ditched some of their quality standards to get in on the cheaper offerings like M&S offer. Their Any Day clothing range is awful - cheap scratchy fabrics - hardly "never knowingly undersold".
the previous house owner had removed their machine, I went to the trouble of measuring the distance to the tap, which was well within the limits, it should have been one out, one in.
They also refunded us. And good job we didnt just go get a builder in like they suggested, a competent plumber was all that was required.
I have on order a wardrobe from JL. In their online notes on it, under “what we like about this product”, first thing they say is, the manufacturer sends their own delivery team who do all their own installation” well. Quite. They better bloody had. I am not tackling a flat pack wardrobe with its mirrored door.
the garden furniture they sent last month ended up being “kerbside” delivery, depsite the eye watering price tag, and it took both of us 4 hours to deal with it. Incl me taking all 4 hours just to debox and sort the waste packaging, and chase little bits of polystyrene around the garden.
Sharon White advocated for a law change in the law as there was apparently so much shoplifting in John Lewis. She openly said on LinkedIn that groups of lads who « looked suspicious » were shoplifting. She had no grasp of the law yet wanted it changed even though she was in retail. Several commentators pointed out the error in this and that they had been wrongly stopped by JL security. John Lewis has also provided all their staff with security Body Cam and « training » to deter shoplifters. In real life this looks like several young people approaching/following customer and asking if they need help. When they say yes showing how clueless they are about the product. Not a great shopping experience.
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Dunno
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For a reason related to them believing they are a partnership?
i.e. blithe stupidity
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yeah they should have appointed a solicitor instead
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"what do we do boss??"
"download a pro forma from PLC!"
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Not that close to it but from what I know she has not exactly reinforced their premium price point:
-Tens of diversity/inclusion/sustainability vacancies and the relevant salaries ranging between £50k and £150k every time I've look
-Closed tens of branches
-Building flats on top of owned branches (non-retail)
-Investing in banking division (non-retail)
-Relaxed uniforms
-Announced closure of meat & fish counters
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I'm sure that Dame Sharon is being lined up to be Chief Paradigm Change Officer at the SRA.
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Solicitors can run businesses better than civil servants tbf.
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Piechucker, Sharon White is the non-executive Chairman of John Lewis. I don't see how any of the times you have listed could fall within her direct responsibility.
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Sorry, m4, take that back.
It seems Chariman is actually an executive role at John Lewis.
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She hasn’t been very good has she.
She keeps wanting to turn it into same as every other retail or department store, whereas their usp is their difference.
They need to get back to core values.
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They need to be run by a committee of roffers tbh. Covers all middle England’s bases, whilst adding plenty of city experience and even some EQ.
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I love Bertha's plan for them - I'm in
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Sharon White does not deserve the blame for the state of JL.
The person who deserves the blame is Michael Fabricant's squeeze, Andy Street, who was managing director from 2007 to 2016. He doubled the number of John Lewis stores, including a number which are now mothballed white elephants, when he should have been doing what Next did and investing in logistics and online. Being a window for mid market brands was also flawed given those mid market brands are on sale in several other online outlets - often with more discounts than at John Lewis. By 2011 at the latest it should have been fairly obvious that doubling down on what it was doing was a bad strategy but Street was not bright and, frankly, in personal terms was a lot less in touch with the average JL consumer than Sharon White is.
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Was in the Oxford St store over the weekend. it was a ghost town and felt oddly fake. The toy dept was shelf after shelf of boxed blandness. No soul or spirit. Go to Hamley's and it's a riot of noise and neon - and kids love it. Go to JL and they look at bland boxed toys and go meh. The space between shelves is too much - I like a decluttered retail environment, but the whole place felt like it was trying to spread out 100 units of stuff in a space that could accommodate 200 units. It all felt moribund. And there was a late-middle aged mumsy WI sort at the exit door thanking me for visiting. A nice touch, but it doesn't speak to anyone under the age of 50. It reminded me a lot of M&S. Bland and sterile. There's not enough retail dynamism on the board and it has infected the whole store.
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0
They were grade 1 4rseholes to me when I had to return a telly they'd shipped with the wrong cabling which they inexplicably couldn't just replace. On the phone for hours while they kept trying to direct me to the manufacturer - so many of them and so determinedly that it's plainly company policy to weasel out of their stat duties. Never darkening their poxy doors again.
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1
Peter Jones has always been an oasis of civility, in what was historically admittedly a civilised part of town. If the axeman cometh I wonder if it could go it alone? I think it’s desperately sad that J Bezos has obliterated most of the parts of Britain that the Luftwaffe missed.
0
1
Recently we bought a telly and a washing machine and in both cases paid for their installation service.
w machine - couldnt do it. Needed a bit of string or something. Said we needed a builder. Local plumber sorted no problem (although no plumbing issues)
telly - the wall aerial had become loose or unscrewed, man refused to touch it. So mr m did it instead.
what a waste of time. Dont bother with this sort of thing, unless it is so straightforward your 5 year old could do it they will refuse to get involved.
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1
Customer service is what could have saved them, as well as branching out into services with reliability. Instead a hotch potch of Partridge style ideas and a general shambles in lots of areas - we literally gave up trying to get them to quote for a kitchen as they made it so difficult, and I had to spent 3 hours in a store because their systems couldn't handle a full refund of something that had been subsequently discounted (though we did get free refreshments and a £50 discount in the end TBF). It's also laughable to say "oh she only had 4 years and it was left in a terrible state." Do you work in comms for Conservative Central Office?
They should have bossed all the excess cash sloshing around during COVID. Instead an "it'll be alright on the night" attitude from a "leader" used to the "pressures" of heading Ofcom.
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This appears to be a thread piling onto the black woman
But not expressly saying it
Just need Barry or someone to say 'go woke go broke' and khunt bingo is complete
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Same experience with our dishwasher installation.
The old geezer claimed he couldn’t fit the outlet hose to the connector under the sink, so just left it and told me to go out and buy a new spigot.
It took about 20 secs of vigorous hose manipulation after he left to get it up and running fine.
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Time matters more than anything to the modern consumer (per the examples above). So someone from the civil service or a quango whose culture has less of a sense of urgency is perhaps not a great idea.
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People ragging on the installation stuff are missing the point. It's a white gloves service to install simple as fook stuff for people who are too inept or lazy to do it.
They'll unbox, position, and plug in your telly or washing machine. They'll connect the aerial or inlet cold water. They won't do anything that requires more than 2 seconds of work. Because JL charge you £20 or so, and pay the driver £5.
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What the hell is a "white gloves" service?
Surely if they're selling an installation service they should actually install it.
Sounds funking hopeless to me.
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White gloves is naaice delivery. Like what Judo would expect. They carry it up the stairs, they unbox and position it, plug it in and put batteries in the remote and dispose of packaging.
Compare to Currys who leave it on the footpath and hope you're okay with the rest.
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They don’t charge £20. Also lol @ the person employing a cleaner on dickensian wages bemoaning the unwillingness of others to get their hands dirty.
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Installation costs £90.
They refunded us that charge when they refused to install our washing machine because it was too far away from the mains water pipe and drain, notwithstanding the hoses were already there and simply needed connecting to the machine.
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hideous customer services for many years now...trading off their loyal DM reading tory customer base but even they are getting intolerant. will go bust within 2 years unless overhauled quickly.
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90 sheets to install a WM? Saw you coming.
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They've ditched some of their quality standards to get in on the cheaper offerings like M&S offer. Their Any Day clothing range is awful - cheap scratchy fabrics - hardly "never knowingly undersold".
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AmISucker - yes, same.
the previous house owner had removed their machine, I went to the trouble of measuring the distance to the tap, which was well within the limits, it should have been one out, one in.
They also refunded us. And good job we didnt just go get a builder in like they suggested, a competent plumber was all that was required.
I have on order a wardrobe from JL. In their online notes on it, under “what we like about this product”, first thing they say is, the manufacturer sends their own delivery team who do all their own installation” well. Quite. They better bloody had. I am not tackling a flat pack wardrobe with its mirrored door.
the garden furniture they sent last month ended up being “kerbside” delivery, depsite the eye watering price tag, and it took both of us 4 hours to deal with it. Incl me taking all 4 hours just to debox and sort the waste packaging, and chase little bits of polystyrene around the garden.
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Sharon White interview on Pesto and Steph “I was going to a meeting with our partners - we call our employees ‘partners’ “
ROFLMAO
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heh @ how hard the greasy little Thatcherites of ROF want JL’s employee stakeholder model to fail.
They will be disappointed
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Sharon White advocated for a law change in the law as there was apparently so much shoplifting in John Lewis. She openly said on LinkedIn that groups of lads who « looked suspicious » were shoplifting. She had no grasp of the law yet wanted it changed even though she was in retail. Several commentators pointed out the error in this and that they had been wrongly stopped by JL security. John Lewis has also provided all their staff with security Body Cam and « training » to deter shoplifters. In real life this looks like several young people approaching/following customer and asking if they need help. When they say yes showing how clueless they are about the product. Not a great shopping experience.
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