Success at a Glance
In 2024, John Lewis & Partners (JLP) adopted the Quicklizard dynamic pricing platform to deliver on it’s well-known “Never Knowingly Undersold” pricing strategy. Ultimately, the retail giant was able to win back customer loyalty, boost conversation and customer retention rates, reduce pricing errors associated with manual pricing, and adapt in real-time to market changes.
Source: TimeOut London
How Did John Lewis’ History Shape its Reputation?
John Lewis is one of the most well-known and respected department stores in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1864, the company has grown into a retail giant, offering products across multiple categories, including fashion, homeware, electronics, beauty, and furniture. With a strong focus on customer trust and quality, John Lewis built a reputation that set it apart from competitors.
A significant component of John Lewis’s identity was its long-standing pricing promise: “Never Knowingly Undersold” (NKU). Introduced in 1925, NKU assured customers that John Lewis would match any lower price found at a competing high street retailer. However, as the retail industry evolved—particularly with the rise of e-commerce—maintaining this pledge became increasingly difficult. In 2022, the company made the difficult decision to discontinue NKU, citing the challenges of keeping up with dynamic online pricing models and the changing competitive landscape.
Despite stepping away from NKU, John Lewis recognized the need to maintain a strong pricing strategy to preserve its reputation and customer loyalty. In 2024, under the leadership of new management, the company sought to bring back the essence of NKU in a modernized form. The reintroduction of this policy is part of a broader strategy under the leadership of executive Peter Ruis to enhance customer trust and align with contemporary retail dynamics. Implementing this policy required a more sophisticated approach to pricing — one that could dynamically adjust to market changes while ensuring John Lewis remained the most competitive across all key product categories.
What Challenges Came With Dynamic Pricing at Scale?
John Lewis operates across dozens of categories and sells hundreds of thousands of products. Maintaining a competitive edge in such a vast and complex portfolio is an immense challenge. Unlike the traditional retail environment of the past, where pricing adjustments were relatively infrequent, today’s pricing landscape is highly dynamic. Competitors adjust prices frequently, sometimes multiple times a day, making manual tracking and updating of prices nearly impossible.
Before implementing a modern dynamic pricing solution, John Lewis found itself struggling to uphold its promise of competitive pricing. The company was only the most competitive for a subset of their categories, but not for its entire assortment. To truly bring back the spirit of Never Knowingly Undersold, John Lewis needed an automated, intelligent solution that could monitor, analyze, and adjust optimized pricing strategies in real time across its extensive product range.
Source: LincolnshireLive
How Did Quicklizard Transform John Lewis’ Pricing?
Recognizing the need for automation and AI-driven pricing, John Lewis partnered with the Quicklizard dynamic pricing platform for retailers and brands. Quicklizard’s AI-powered platform specializes in real-time competitive pricing and automated price adjustments, ensuring that retailers can remain ahead of the market without constant manual intervention.
Through this partnership, John Lewis leveraged Quicklizard’s advanced pricing engine to:
- Monitor pricing across dozens of categories and compare them with key competitors in real time.
- Analyze vast datasets from both in-store and online channels to identify trends and opportunities.
- Automate price adjustments based on competitor pricing, demand fluctuations, and stock availability, ensuring John Lewis remains the most competitive retailer across a vast number of SKUs.
What Changed After John Lewis Optimized Pricing?
The impact of implementing Quicklizard’s pricing platform was transformational for John Lewis. Before the adoption of the Quicklizard dynamic pricing platform, the retailer was only the most competitive in a subset of its categories. With Quicklizard’s automation and intelligence, John Lewis expanded its pricing competitiveness across all categories such as electrical appliances and women’s fashion and beauty products, now covering over 600,000 products.
This shift had several key benefits:
- Restoring Customer Trust: By ensuring it had the best prices across a much larger portion of their assortment, John Lewis was able to win back customer confidence, reinforcing the spirit of “Never Knowingly Undersold.”
- Operational Efficiency: The automated pricing system removed the need for manual tracking, reducing errors and freeing up employees to focus on strategic growth initiatives.
- Increased Sales and Customer Retention: Competitive pricing across a much broader selection of products meant customers were more likely to choose John Lewis over rivals, resulting in higher conversion rates and improved customer retention.
- Future-Proof Pricing Strategy: By leveraging AI and automation, John Lewis ensured that its pricing strategy was not only competitive today but also adaptable to future market trends and challenges.
What Does John Lewis Say About Quicklizard?
“The reintroduction of our ‘Never Knowingly Undersold’ price-match policy, which is supported by Quicklizard’s AI-driven pricing platform, will be instrumental in regaining customer trust and ensuring we remain competitive in a challenging market.
Quicklizard’s technology has provided us with a modern, efficient pricing platform that not only aligns with our future goals but will also drive measurable results. The team at Quicklizard has been supportive and collaborative, and we look forward to continuing our partnership.”
Martin Burwood
Partner & Optimisation Lead at John Lewis & Partners
