Housewares Business-to-business magazine for housewares retailers and their suppliers
In a first for the retailer, John Lewis has announced that it will have a physical presence in Europe by opening shop-in-shops in seven branches of The Netherlands’ leading department store de Bijenkorf.
The first three shop-in-shop departments will open in spring 2016 at de Bijenkorf’s flagship stores in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague. These will be followed by openings in Eindhoven and Utrecht by the end of next year and in Amstelveen and Maastricht in 2017.
The departments will measure between 300sq ft and 500sq ft, with John Lewis’ in-house store design team designing the look and feel of the space. On offer will be the best of John Lewis’ own-brand home and lifestyle products across bed, bath, living and gifting assortments.
This venture builds on John Lewis’s ambition to expand its international presence. In May and July 2015, it opened 14 shop-in-shops across Singapore and the Philippines and by 2014 it had opened seven shop-in-shops in South Korea.
John Lewis managing director Andy Street said: “We’re delighted to be debuting our first European shop-in-shop and de Bijenkorf is the perfect partner to enable us to bring John Lewis to a new customer base and country. Our existing shop-in-shops in Singapore, the Philippines and South Korea have been well received and are trading well. Whilst we remain committed to our UK physical expansion, we hope to announce more international collaborations in 2016.
John Lewis operates 45 John Lewis shops across the UK (32 department stores, 11 John Lewis at home and shops at St Pancras International and Heathrow Terminal 2) as well as johnlewis.com.
