John Lewis will reopen stores with an ‘affordable’ range designed to attract younger customers to the department store.
The Anyday brand will focus on homeware, technology and babycare and promises to bring ‘quality and style at everyday prices’.
The items will be targeted at students moving to university, renters, first-time home owners and young parents as the store tries to shift away from wealthy, older customers. Bosses hope the younger shoppers will become customers for life, upgrading to pricier ranges as they get older and helping turn the stricken department store around.
Innovation?: The Anyday brand will focus on homeware, technology and babycare and promises to bring ‘quality and style at everyday prices’.
But there were fears the range, which will be a fifth cheaper on average than John Lewis’s existing ranges, was a sign chairman Sharon White wants to take the middle class favourite downmarket.
The products available from Monday include a tasselled cushion for £15, a 12-piece dinner service for £40 and a baby’s high chair for £35. Larger products include a double bed for £199, a two-seater sofa for £299 and an extendable kitchen table for £350.
The company said the launch was ‘a critical element’ of its work to revive its fortunes.
Retail analyst Richard Hyman said: ‘The thinking has a logic to it, but there is a big risk that the brand is diluted and shoppers simply swap higher priced purchases for lower priced purchases, which would be a bit of a disaster.’
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