John Lewis ‘unlikely to reopen all 50 stores’ after coronavirus lockdown ends

DEPARTMENT store John Lewis is unlikely to reopen all 50 shops when the coronavirus lockdown ends.

The retail chain is in talks to decide which shops will close, according to the Press Association.

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Reuters

John Lewis may not re-open all stores[/caption]

Earlier this week it was reported that John Lewis bosses were working on plans to reopen in mid-May.

But now senior staff are looking at which stores could be earmarked for permanent closure.

All of the retailers 35 department stores and 15 smaller John Lewis at Home shops have been closed for a month now following state orders for all non-essential shops to shut down to stop the spread of coronavirus.

The supermarket side of the John Lewis Partnership, Waitrose, has largely remained open during the lockdown.

John Lewis has continued trading online through out the lockdown which has eased the financial pressure on the retailer to reopen.

A spokesperson from John Lewis said: “To confirm we are working hard on a reopening blueprint at the moment but we will only be able to put it into action once the Government has specified the dates on – and conditions within – which it is happy for retailers to begin to reopen. “

“We keep our estate under continuous review in order to ensure we have the right amounts of shops to best serve our customers and remain commercially viable.   

It is too early to make a decision but as always any decision that is made is done with securing the long-term financial sustainability of the Partnership and is always communicated to our Partners first.

Debenhams is planning to close a number of stores permanently after the lockdown ends.

Next, River Island and TK Maxx stopped taking online orders and shut down their websites to keep staff safe during the coronavirus crisis.

After two weeks though, Next reopened its website but with a daily limit on the number of orders it will process.

Although capping orders has caused the site to crash on a number of occasions after the limit was reached within hours of it going live.