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John Lewis' 'Never Knowingly Undersold' policy criticised as it fails to drop prices

The slogan has been a cornerstone of the department store’s marketing campaign since 1925 and guarantees that it will refund British shoppers the difference if they can find the same product for less elsewhere

Zlata Rodionova
Wednesday 17 May 2017 09:16 BST
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An investigation has shown that the retailer did not cut the advertised prices of 15 out of 16 products
An investigation has shown that the retailer did not cut the advertised prices of 15 out of 16 products

John Lewis’ long-standing “Never knowingly undersold” promise has come under fire after an investigation showed the retailer was selling certain products at a higher price than available elsewhere.

The slogan has been a cornerstone of the department store’s marketing campaign since 1925 and guarantees that it will refund British shoppers the difference if they can find the same product for less elsewhere.

On its website John Lewis says: “Our dedicated price-monitoring team proactively check the prices of branded products at our high street competitors every day, including online and during sales. If we find that they are selling the same individual product, sold with the same service conditions, at a lower price, we’ll meet that price in our shops and at johnlewis.com. So we don’t expect you to find a lower price elsewhere. But if you do, you can easily make a price match request.”

Now, an investigation by consumer website MoneySavingExpert.com has shown that the retailer did not cut the advertised prices of 15 out of 16 products even after it was informed that those products were being sold more cheaply by other retailers, including Tesco and Toys R Us.

To test the policy, MoneySavingExpert.com purchased a range of different products - all of which were sold for lower prices elsewhere - over two consecutive days in March, from John Lewis stores and its website.

Following buying the goods, money experts monitored the price of 16 items the retailer had agreed to issue price match refunds for - therefore accepting its price had been undercut.

But after seven days John Lewis had only dropped the price of one of the items.

Martin Lewis, founder of MoneySavingExpert.com, said the research shows John Lewis is not always the “champion of price” it wants customers to think it is.

“The failure was not limited to a few items, which could have been put down to just having a bad day - it was well over 90 per cent of them. Some of these are due to its processes simply not working, others due to its 'eight mile' policy - that effectively says it'll give individuals who ask a refund, but keep the price higher, and only reduce it for others who ask,” Mr Lewis said.

“If John Lewis wants to tout its 'Never Knowingly Undersold' catchphrase, it should put up or shut up, or it risks losing its great reputation,” he added.

A spokesperson for John Lewis told The Independent: "Never Knowingly Undersold is at the heart of everything we do and we are disappointed that MSE focused on a small number of specific examples rather than the millions of prices that we lower each year. We will look at the detail of their report to see where we can make improvements for our customers in either our processes or communications on the website.

"John Lewis is the only department store with a comprehensive price promise. Never Knowingly Undersold means that we proactively check the prices of tens of thousands of products everyday so our customers can be confident of getting the best possible price on the high street. If a customer has found an identical product, sold with the same conditions, we would match the price. We have a dedicated price-monitoring team who proactively check the prices of tens of thousands of branded products at our high street competitors every day, including products on their websites."

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