One of John Lewis’ existing distribution centres at Magna Park
(Picture: Paul Grover)The owner of John Lewis has signed a deal to lease a 1 million square feet distribution centre in Milton Keynes, in a move that will help the retailer meet rising customer demand for online orders.
Digital now accounts for more than half of the department store chain’s total sales, increasing from 40% to over 60% during the pandemic.
Employee-owned John Lewis Partnership, which is also behind the Waitrose supermarket business, said the letting agreement is with Tesco in Fenny Lock.
The site will become John Lewis’ second-largest distribution centre, and it so far has ten of them for online home delivery and shop orders.
Over the next two years 500 people will be recruited to work at the building where the firm expects to start operating from in Summer next year.
Andrew Murphy, executive director of operations for John Lewis Partnership, said: “We will use the Fenny Lock site to fulfill customer orders for fashion, small home furnishing items and technology products.”
He added: “The proximity to our Magna Park campus will enable us to combine more customer orders, reducing both the number of packages we create by approximately one million per year, and the number of lorries on the road, helping us to meet our target of being net zero carbon by 2035.”
A number of John Lewis branches have closed over the last year, with the partnership’s chairman Sharon White pointing to an “economic earthquake” and saying there are some areas where the size of store is just not sustainable.
The company wants to look at new formats of smaller, more local shops, as well as investing in the digital arm.
