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John Lewis has announced plans to reopen nine more stores on Thursday (25 June), following the “successful reopening” of an initial 13 stores last week.
The stores which will reopen their doors to customers on 25 June include; Cribbs Causeway, Leeds, Liverpool, Milton Keynes, Newcastle, Peter Jones, Southampton, Tunbridge Wells and York.
Bérangère Michel, executive director for customer service at the John Lewis Partnership said: “The overwhelmingly positive feedback from both customers and partners on our first 13 department store reopenings this week has given us confidence to open in more locations across the UK.
“We are still reopening our shops carefully and in phases to ensure that our safety measures are absolutely right, and remain prepared to stop and review our plans if need be.”
The department store chain said it has already ”learned some lessons” from its first store opening last week. In particular, it found how “crucial” its newly created host roles, which help customers adapt to the new social distancing measures and “new ways of shopping”.
Some social distancing measures which have been introduced at John Lewis sites include a reduction in the number of shop entrances and exits, caps on the number of customers entering stores, “prominent” social distancing signage and protective screens at checkouts and areas of the shop where 2 metre social distancing cannot be achieved between customers and partners.
Other measures include a new contactless payment limit of £45, “rigorous” and “frequent” cleaning as well as provision of hand sanitiser for customers to use at all entrances and throughout shops.
Michel added: “Although we are not able to offer every single experience that we used to, we are still managing to offer customers a really varied shopping experience that is as close to normal and as enjoyable as we can possibly make it.
“Customers will still be able to touch products, lie on beds, try on and test wipeable products such as sunglasses, prams, and tech products, and get the personal advice they expect from our partners.”
