John Lewis is reopening nine more shops on Thursday 25 June following the successful opening of an initial 13 shops last week. The nine stores set to reopen are; Cribbs Causeway, Leeds, Liverpool, Milton Keynes, Newcastle, Peter Jones, Southampton, Tunbridge Wells and also York.

Commenting is Bérangère Michel, executive director for customer service at the John Lewis Partnership. “The overwhelmingly positive feedback from both customers and Partners on our first 13 department store reopenings 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 we remain prepared to stop and review our plans if need be.

“We are already applying lessons learned from our first store openings. We’ve learned how crucial our newly created host roles – which help customers adapt to the new social distancing measures and new ways of shopping – are in ensuring customers have an enjoyable experience.

Further shop reopenings will be announced in the coming weeks

“We found that in some shops we were able to increase the number of customers and still maintain robust social distancing, and made our signage clearer to help customers navigate the changes.

“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.”

Key social distancing measures in John Lewis shops include:

• Assignment of Customer Service Hosts to welcome customers into the store and answer any questions. Hosts also manage customer numbers and queues, both at entrances and busy areas of the shop
• Reduction in the number of store entrances and exits
• Caps on the number of customers entering stores
• Prominent social distancing signage
• Protective screens at checkouts and areas of the shop where two metre social distancing cannot be achieved between customers and Partners. For example, at ‘Welcome desks’
• Control procedures for escalators and lifts limiting the number of users
• Rigorous and frequent cleaning
• Provision of hand sanitiser for customers to use at all entrances and throughout shops
• Social distancing in back of house areas
• New contactless payment limit of £45
• Limiting additional customer services. For example, close-contact beauty services, customer catering outlets, and fitting rooms are all unavailable until further notice
• Safe and simple returns process including new drop boxes and quarantining returned stock for 48hrs