To meet growing consumer demand for online orders John Lewis has signed an agreement to lease a one million square foot distribution centre. Since the start of the pandemic, online sales have grown from 40% to over 60% of John Lewis’s total sales.
The Milton Keynes warehouse – leased from Tesco for 11 years – will become JLP’s second largest distribution centre after its two million square foot campus a few miles away at Magna Park.
Andrew Murphy, partner and executive director of operations for the Partnership said: “This one-of-a-kind distribution centre represents a fantastic opportunity to power the continued growth of Johnlewis.com, ensuring that we can keep pace with customer demand – both for our products and for our wide range of fulfilment and delivery options.”
He adds: “The proximity to our Magna Park campus will enable us to combine more customer orders, reducing both the number of packages we create by approximately one million per year and the number of lorries on the road, helping us to meet our target of being net zero carbon by 2035.”
Due to be operational in summer 2022, the new site will be used to fulfil orders for homeware (small home furnishing items) as well as technology products and fashion. Besides investing in automation at the site, John Lewis has pledged to recruit 500 new partners to work there.
The retailer says that it is investing £50m in johnlewis.com and its fast-growing John Lewis app this year, creating more virtual services and events, and is committing a further £100m+ to support online growth over the next five years.
JLP has also signed a three-year lease agreement for a 300k square foot distribution centre in Leicestershire which will be operational this month in the run up to November’s Black Friday.
Top: John Lewis Partnership already operates out of ten distribution centres, including its main site at Magna Park in Milton Keynes (pictured). Its new distribution centre will be just four miles away, enabling the combination of more online orders
