Despite Storm Brian a few weeks ago my wife and I managed to have our fairytale wedding … with the exception of the John Lewis gift list.
We had instances where guests had paid for items (which in our view is a contract with John Lewis to supply the goods), only to be informed that they were no longer available and we needed to convert the value into vouchers.
Since the gift list only opens a few weeks before the wedding, this inability to check availability and process items to ensure they are reserved, is frustrating. It is doubly frustrating when the purchaser isn’t told and given the opportunity to select something else.
When we arranged for delivery, it had failed to update our home address. However, they then lost the entire order. A knock-on effect is that yet more items are out of stock or discontinued.
So far, about 10-15% of our entire list has been converted to vouchers. To cap it all, JL seems to be making little effort to try and find out where our items have gone, nor recompensing for the time taken off for missed deliveries.
DB and LB, Hartley Wintney, Hampshire
John Lewis operates one of the largest and (arguably) most successful wedding list services in the UK. While the odd glitch is inevitable given the volumes involved, we have had other complaints about the scale of “unavailable” items having to be exchanged for vouchers.
JL says: “We are very sorry to hear about the experience of Mr and Mrs B. We have apologised, as we appreciate this has been extremely inconvenient. In addition we have provided a gesture of goodwill and are pleased to hear that the customers are happy with the steps that we have taken. While complications with the delivery of gifts are extremely rare, we are keen to understand how this issue came about and are conducting an internal investigation.” As you said, it might have been easier to have sent everyone an Amazon gift list.
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