After the UK Government came out with fresh guidelines on what stores need to stay open during the current lockdown, we saw M&S announce the closure of its clothing and home section within its stores that sell food, as clothing was deemed ‘non-essential’.
Also Read: Frasers Group to close all stores during new lockdown; M&S clothing to follow suit
The retailers are indeed a worrying lot with festive season round the corner.
And now John Lewis partnership has urged the UK Government to provide clarity on whether stores would reopen in time so that there’s enough time to meet seasonal demands.
As of now, the 4-week lockdown in England will end on 2 December.
Andrew Murphy, Group Operations Director, John Lewis Partnership, said that big fashion retailers would need time to ‘swing to gear’.
He was, however, confident that John Lewis was in a good position to handle all the deliveries.
Andrew added that the retailer wanted to know if it needed to prepare to bring temporary staff to stores or direct up to 400,000 product lines to online warehouses and delivery channels.
The retailer said that though it didn’t want to put pressure on the Government to reopen stores, but it wanted the Government to clearly state the strategies in 2 weeks so that it has enough time to prepare to meet the demands.
Watch this space for more details!
