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00:01we love a shop-it-all experience we spend 32 billion pounds a year in
00:07department stores these days the undefeated doyenne of department stores
00:12is John Lewis trusted timeless and just a little bit posh 13 million of us
00:21visited last year John Lewis is the grand dame of the high street is the
00:26last surviving department store but retail royalty can't reign forever as its
00:33biggest challenges left the field a new contender is taking them on there are
00:39not many giants left on the high street and Primark and John Lewis are actually
00:43to the last remaining to kind of slug it out the old department stores have gone
00:48but Primark has replaced them more budget than bougie Primark's a hit when times
00:54are hard the cost of living crisis has been a godsend for Primark millions of
01:00us visit their 198 stores every week spending billions every year until
01:08someone confiscates my bank card I will always take a trip to Primark Irish
01:13upstart Primark has outlived all comers to become the unlikeliest of rivals to the
01:18Duke of department stores I think if you'd said 10 years ago that these two
01:22arrivals everyone would have thought you were mad but now I think that is the
01:25case there was a long period of time when the John Lewis customer wouldn't be
01:29seen dead in Primark that's changed from five-star luxury to five quid
01:35leggings it's all up for grabs as these two go all out to attract cash-strap
01:43rents John Lewis and Primark are fighting it out in key battlegrounds over
01:49homeware I feel you find these in John Lewis not Primark beauty all of these
01:56experiences are free aren't they yes and the latest fashion John Lewis is
02:01fighting to stay relevant Primark's rivalry with John Lewis has changed how we
02:05think of department stores I did not expect Primark to have a Greg here's the
02:10bastion of bespoke against the king of cut price it's Primark versus John Lewis
02:23since John Lewis opened in 1864 they've tried to offer everything we need for a
02:29well-decorated home our rivals fast battle is for a slice of the four billion pound a
02:34year homewares market and for years John Lewis had a clear run at all soft
02:42furnishings John Lewis dominates on homewares they're the only big full-line
02:47department store with that kind of choice and homewares
02:53she can kill with a smile she can wound with her John Lewis artfully tells evocative
03:00stories about a store you can come back to throughout your life John Lewis want
03:04their customers to shop throughout the generations once we've got you for nursery
03:08we get you for baby and then you buy your house and you can see in that advert the
03:12woman goes through all of those life stages John Lewis was the undisputed
03:17Egyptian cotton heavyweight of the home it made 4.8 billion pounds worth of sales
03:22last year until an Irish interloper that had opened its first store in Great
03:28Britain in 1974 moved on to that town some people think that Primark has come
03:33out of nowhere but Primark actually started in like the late 60s in Ireland
03:37and then slow and steady grew originally it was fundamentally a fashion Empire and
03:43that move into homewares of course homewares offer another reason to visit
03:4720 years ago Primark was turning over nine hundred and eighty nine million pounds
03:53across its stores compared to John Lewis's five billion their strategy to
03:58propel themselves into the big league hinged on a genius decision to
04:03capitalize on other failing department stores growth of Primark is down to
04:08opening more shops and largely those shops have been in the old department
04:13stores which have closed of course it's taken over the shops in key locations on
04:17our high street and become ultimately the new department store in 2005 Primark bought
04:23120 Littlewood stores in the war on the home front they now had prime territory they
04:30could use to launch an assault on John Lewis since when did Primark home range
04:35literally become John Lewis making my way home but I thought I'd quickly nip in but I
04:39wish I had longer to look because honestly look at the range of this stuff in just the last few
04:44years Primark has entered the homewares market with quite a vengeance and that's
04:49where they are a direct competitor to John Lewis bedding candlesticks plates
04:55pretty things to make your home more beautiful that's what Primark are now
05:00offering and they really are kind of they parked their tanks on John Lewis's law
05:06Primark started selling homeware in the noughties but made a decision in 2019 to go
05:12big and go home home where played its part in helping Primark grow sales to 4.5 billion pounds
05:20in the UK and Ireland last year it's now within a whisker of John Lewis's 4.8 billion pounds a
05:27year
05:27in sales Kitty Darlington is potty for Primark she's the classic customer Primark won over with
05:38this homeware I'm obsessed I feel like it's giving Pinterest but on a budget but I absolutely love
05:46it just know that I'm gonna get the same quality but for literally a fraction of the price Primark
05:53treated homewares like fashion making sure that they had the the right trend led items and they're
05:59also very good at spotting in the same way they've done with fashion what are the designers doing in
06:04homewares can we do a cheap version very quickly I just think that the packaging looks expensive
06:10it's high quality I feel you find these in John Lewis not Primark hey we're focusing more on how are
06:18we living at home and what are we doing so we're spending more time at home we're eating more at
06:23home we're having our friends around more at home lockdown made us all spend more time at home but the
06:29cost of living crisis that followed meant we had less money to make our homes nice Primark was
06:35perfectly poised to capitalize ahead of their premium rivals I love hosting for my friends I love set the
06:44table out all little snacks I probably see this in John Lewis and it could be about 35 pounds but
06:51here
06:51it's only eight there's an iconic jug in the shape of a fish called the glug jug the original version
06:58costs 45 pounds but Primark is selling a version for 12 quid and you wouldn't know the difference
07:09if you're putting tanks on John Lewis's lawn you need a homeware army to do it
07:23what's been the biggest surprise recently probably the biggest one is the teddy bear bow collection
07:27it's a trend that Sinead and I were in and Seoul in Tokyo looking for inspiration and there's a
07:32trend that we spotted on apparel and we brought it back to homewares on duvets on bow cushions on
07:38teddy bear bath mats and it's just been even on social medias posting oh we'd love to see that
07:44in blue or we'd love to see that in red or we'd love to see that in a pink option
07:47so we're even
07:48reading all that information understanding getting those cues from the customer as well
07:54but that's a great example where the team would show me that and I would say I don't get it
07:59I don't
08:00get it however you know what you're doing good influential skills I need to now step away and let
08:05you because I just don't get it Primark is stuffing John Lewis in the cushion wars the secret to their
08:13success is to spot changing lifestyles and predict trends months in advance so this is our second
08:20biggest buy for the first half of the season so lovingly named Mantucket we've taken Mantucket
08:27so it's incredibly luxury this year Primark is betting big on something John Lewis would be proud of
08:36cottagecore it's very much New England preppy style in fact with the gold ornate bows as you
08:41can see up there but again it's back into that New England it's almost like borrowing items from your
08:47grandmother's home or what you might have seen in your grandmother's home and maybe the Cotswolds or
08:51New England it's quite nostalgic yeah leaning into that aesthetic which has actually become very very
08:56popular and what kind of customer do you have in mind for this range yeah it's a really popular
09:01social media with the younger kind of mid-twentieth generations interesting they're drinking less
09:06booze they're having more tea parties our market in how we tell us Gen Z are in a bit of
09:12their hosting
09:13era socializing at home socializing with friends muscling in on the trendiest homeware helped Primark
09:20spread its department store wins with budget brands barging in John Lewis found itself in a turf war over tea
09:30towels the issue with John Lewis is there a bit stuck in the middle and stuck in a muddle because
09:35they're trying to get consumers that are not necessarily high-end luxury consumers and then
09:41not low-cost discount retailer consumers with their homeware under pressure on price John Lewis needed
09:48a response to win over cash strap Brits if you're a retailer you're trying to appeal to all people at
09:55all times you are going to come unstuck I think that's part of John Lewis's problem because if
10:01you are appealing to the upper end of the market with a lot of disposable income how do you also
10:07appeal to people who desperately they don't want to bargain they need a bargain in response the homeware
10:15OG rolled out a brand new budget range to charm the bargain hunting massive who had started going to
10:21Primark instead John Lewis were really trying to kind of cover all bases can we compete right at the bottom
10:29end with
10:29homewares so they came out with this any day range it was cheap it was cheerful it was good basics
10:35done well
10:36any day launched in 2021 it was functional but not trend-led like Primark it soon started to attract back
10:44some of those
10:45people tempted by Primark's prices 125 million pounds of sales in just nine months and 800 products flying
10:54off the shelves every hour any day has been incredibly successful for John Lewis the original aim was to
11:02decrease the price of the ranges by up to 20% and it's been the most important pivot into value
11:10led products
11:11in the history of the company one of the questions the teams that John Lewis will be asking themselves
11:16is had we not introduced the any day version of the product would we have still sold the higher value
11:23item
11:23any day did attract half a million newcomers who had never shopped at John Lewis before but it didn't solve
11:30all
11:31their problems with John Lewis fighting back in the affordable homeware market Primark doubled down
11:41they've just introduced a standalone homeware store in Belfast and in Manchester and with more waiting in
11:50the wings the fight for our front rooms is far from finished there's actually far more of an overlap
11:56between the customers of John Lewis and Primark as Primark extends its product range into homewares the
12:02two brands come closer together coming up with Primark stealing John Lewis's exclusive seat at the
12:08homeware table John Lewis went off the shelves and in our faces I look like you've injected three hours
12:15sleep into my face and Primark takes the idea of borrowing to a whole new level it's such a good
12:22jube of Charlotte Tilbury's beauty blush wand normally 30 pound
12:33Primark's assault on our home furnishings rattled John Lewis from 10 stores in 1978 Primark now has 198
12:41in the UK to John Lewis's 36 to try to make up ground lost to its fast-growing rival John
12:49Lewis upped the
12:50glamour forcing Primark to fight on its home turf beauty one of the big successes of recent years has
12:59been beauty we love a glow-up last year we spent over 30 billion pounds on lipsticks blushes and facials
13:06that's six times more than we did on health and fitness beauty is a category that's incredibly
13:12important for all department stores for John Lewis and now for Primark it drives traffic
13:18John Lewis is the makeup maestro 62% of in-store sales are products like perfume and makeup beauty
13:27accounts for 15% of their overall turnover when times are tough a lipstick can always put a smile
13:35on your face beauty is a critical area for growth it seems to be recession proof we always said if
13:41you
13:41can't afford the dress you buy the lipstick but beauty always grew even in tough tough times and I was
13:46a senior
13:46buyer of beauty at John Lewis for five years Primark's main money spinner is own brand so to lipstick it
13:53to
13:53their rivals John Lewis concentrated on getting the biggest names in cosmetics into their stores one
13:59thing John Lewis are really leaning into is can we get exclusivity on a certain brand if something is
14:06going viral online can we secure that deal some South Korean beauty brand or whatever the new Brazilian
14:12one might be and that again gives you a reason to come into store perhaps the hottest product of 2023
14:18wasn't a traditional skincare brand it was a skin firming cream for your bum I think one of their
14:25best-selling individual items in 2024 certainly was soldier generos bum bum cream which became this kind
14:33of viral sensation its exotic and tropical vibe was played out in sunny ads I had a kind of funky
14:42packaging silly name it flew off the shelves once you try this nothing else will ever even reach that
14:50level beauty is hard to crack but done right can charge a huge premium Sol de Janeiro was the must
14:56-have
14:56brand and John Lewis made sure you could get it there before almost anywhere else you've got to get the
15:02new
15:02brand you know people want newness they want newness the whole time John Lewis added a hundred and seventy
15:07new brands across its stores in 2023 and beauty led the charge in boosting profits those brands
15:14that give you the cool factor or for journalists to get on that journey quickly because it was the
15:18brand so investing in those beauty halls and making sure they're relevant is very very important
15:23while sales in homeware were losing ground to Primark in 2024 getting big-name brands on
15:30board meant sales in Beauty was soaring up 40% in the previous five years own brand specialist Primark
15:39could only blush at the thought of matching those big brand Beauty sales one of Primark's aims is to be
15:45that one-stop shop that people come for home fashion Beauty and Beauty was one of the categories that they
15:51didn't really play into as a business Primark was falling back they couldn't compete on branded
15:57cosmetics so they went in totally the opposite direction to get a bit of the big brand boost
16:03without the big brand budget they would have seen the opportunity to create own brand Beauty and own
16:09brand skincare which will have had a higher margin they would have been able to introduce products
16:14that were very of the moment that they wanted to control and really just capitalize on that market
16:20sharing their sneaky strategies to compete in the lucrative beauty world was to offer big brand allure
16:28without involving the brands themselves so I love soldier De Niro and these are giving off the same kind
16:37of look I'm not sure if we give the same scent let's try it out yes that I definitely will
16:45pick one of these up
16:46and they are only 350 the copyright on fragrances is a legal gray area you can't copy the recipe but
16:55Primark felt they could be inspired by them welcome to dupe by Primark available at a fraction of the cost
17:03of the one in fancy packaging also I've heard that Foxy nude at Primark is a really good dude for
17:09subculture at MAC and this is only 75p whereas in MAC you're probably looking at about 20 pounds for
17:17one of these soldier De Niro jet set dupe souls retail for 30 pounds Primark's six pounds by making
17:26their own version of designer cosmetics far cheaper Primark felt they could steal some of John Lewis's
17:32bombastic beauty business we know we're going to have an immediate hit with this because there is
17:37already a demand for this product so it's quite an easy win because they can almost ride the success
17:44of the actual product that they're then making a dupe of now I think this may be a dupe for
17:50the
17:50Charlotte Tilbury airbrush foundation I absolutely love that foundation so if this is anything like
17:56that one we're in for a good time if you are 14 or 15 you're not going to be buying
18:01Charlotte Tilbury or
18:01MAC or Chanel at those prices but you are going to be buying a dupe it's not the same quality
18:07but that isn't what it's all about Joe Malone's 24 pounds for 9 mil Primark's three pounds for 20 mil
18:14most of the money is in the brand and the marketing so if you can come up with something that
18:19smells
18:19very similar and functionally does almost as good a job of course you know that's what you need to do
18:26as a retailer if you're someone like Primark duping their rivals key brands has helped Primark's
18:31profits smell a bit better sales across all Primark stores globally rose from 7.8 billion pounds in
18:412019 to 9.5 billion last year Primark started introducing their own brand beauty and it has
18:48grown over the years and it's now a multi multi million pound apartment look how similar they look
18:53to the milk makeup jelly blushes they even have this cooling effect so when you touch them they're
18:57really cold just to give you an example they have a five pound moisturizer that they sell six every 60
19:02seconds across the world but it can't compete with John Lewis's 700 million pounds or so in beauty sales
19:10Primark don't separate their beauty sales but admit it's a drop in the ocean compared to their fashion
19:16and homeware sales John Lewis wanted even more people to come through the doors I guess the feeling
19:24of walking around the beauty floor that actually you can really get involved you can really try stuff
19:29is that what you're going for is that a kind of change in direction absolutely we want the
19:34customers to come into a hall and spend the day make make a whole experience out of it this is
19:39in
19:40launch of the new beauty area that's just been completed in John Lewis it's absolutely beautiful
19:44to turn shopping into even more of an event they're upgrading six stores at a cost of 800 million
19:51pounds adding 70 treatment rooms and more than 400 beauty services so what new experiences are you
19:59offering in store so we've got the Dermalogica treatment room and we've got non-invasive treatments
20:05like chemical peels you've got the retinol treatment we've got cryo micro needling John Lewis is
20:12famous for its wedding list now it seems they want the whole bridal party to come for a pampering
20:17too if they buy a few things while they're at it and so all of these experiences obviously they come
20:23at a cost but a lot of them are free aren't they every time you go and buy get a
20:27treatment and you
20:28end up buying that product Charlotte Tilbury is a great example so they're really popular with
20:33bridal consultations or party makeovers and every time the customer comes in they'll buy the lipstick that
20:40they want to top up throughout the night ostromers do spend more when they have that one-to-one
20:45experience I'm sold beauty is the ultimate make yourself feel good for not a huge amount of money
20:55Primark too wanted to glow up their stores to compete with the beauty big shots
21:00Primark want people to spend time in their stores which is why they've put the hairdressers in
21:05they put the nail bars in because the more time you spend in the store the more money you will
21:09spend
21:10they've installed 16 new nail bars across their stores to appeal to fans like Kitty
21:17it's great having a beauty bar in Primark you have your nails or brows or anything to get done
21:22why not whilst you're shopping so it's into a day out Primark may want you to spend more time in
21:28their
21:28stores but so far they've been unable to lay a polished fingernail on John Lewis in the beauty
21:33game offering it more as an add-on to their triumphant fashion and homeware market coming up the fight
21:42to sell everything including the kitchen sink gets super high tech may I collect of course you can let
21:48me get you checked out John Lewis calls in the robots bye bye and Primark swaps online sales for
21:57online influence Primark changed the way we decorate our homes sinking its rival with low prices John Lewis
22:12fought back offering experiences to tempt you to splash the cash but Primark now has five and a
22:19half times as many physical shops as John Lewis you might be forgiven for thinking Primark have left John
22:25Lewis in the dust but there's a whole other territory that John Lewis is fighting over and you can't see
22:31it on the high street it's online to make up for its lack of stores John Lewis has made winning
22:37the online
22:38war a vital target John Lewis is actually one of the first to invest in the online business they
22:44realized early that the customer had started to shop away from the physical high street the UK online
22:53shopping market is the biggest in Europe 30% of our purchases are now made through our devices and in
23:00the battle for digital dominance John Lewis was iterations ahead of its tech phobic rival without a
23:06shadow of a doubt John Lewis's online presence allowed them to grow where others couldn't and
23:12they've built a knowledge and an expertise about the digital world that their competitors failed to
23:18build during the dot-com boom in the late 90s John Lewis's bubble had burst profits fell in the last
23:25two
23:25years of the decade so at the start of the 21st century they introduced a game changer selling online
23:33John Lewis did it very very early within two months they were getting a thousand orders a day and
23:39profits grew every year for the next seven years they have 50 of their sales online think John Lewis has
23:44really flourished in the power of its online and the shops Primark was left in the digital dust it has
23:51never offered a fully online way to buy their products Primark not being online is weird I mean it just
23:59is weird because how can you survive in this day and age and have basically no online presence even
24:06during the period we could only shop at home Primark refused to get digital even when they risked losing
24:13a billion pounds during lockdown for Primark online seemed more trouble than it was worth the unique
24:21thing about Primark is it's only got shops which means it avoids the costs of a costly online operation
24:28in terms of deliveries expensive returns and warehousing Primark's business model is to keep
24:33prices low and with going online the logistics that are involved in that can and would drive
24:41Primark's main prices up by going through that process it means it's not on the shop floor if it's
24:46not on the shop floor it can't be sold and if it can't be sold then Primark's not making money
24:50from
24:50that product in 2020 up to 70% of John Lewis sales were made on the internet lots of new
24:57TVs to binge
24:58watch our favorite shows it helped their profits only drop 2% despite the pandemic online purchases
25:05are still 50% higher than they were in 2019 Primark couldn't carry on being a digital denier
25:14Primark recently started selling some of its ranges online for click and collect only and I think that
25:23shows that it has hurt their business by not selling online up until now
25:32ah I'm backstage backstage at Primark
25:35techno come lately's Primark only introduced click and collect across all its stores in Great Britain
25:42in 2025 a full 17 years after John Lewis so do you pick these orders from your shop floor no
25:50orders are
25:50not picked from the shop floor the customer places an order online and then that's picked individually at
25:56a distribution center the store receives it and then the customer is notified and they can come
26:02and make a collection as bizarre as it might seem in this digital age Primark still doesn't offer delivery
26:09it seems they want to make you do the legwork you still have to go to the shop to collect
26:15it costs so
26:16much more to ship the products directly to you rather than have you come to the store and take them
26:23away
26:23they have such high volumes of products at such low prices that to make it cost-effective to get an
26:32order to you they might need to charge you a minimum delivery threshold if you are selling something
26:38online that's below say 10 pounds you're gonna cost more to send the item online than actually the
26:45profit you're going to make in it the profit is very very small no offense but a lot of people
26:52a lot of people have been doing click and collect in retail for a long time yeah why is it
26:59taking
26:59you this long we are a business that's totally focused on our stores pick up your purchase and
27:07any additional items that you might choose to make a purchase for whilst you're browsing I mean
27:10that's interesting what you said then so people will come in collect click and collect and purchase any
27:16additional items will people buy more and we know that about half of the people that that shop
27:22with us on click and collect purchase additional product when they come in half yeah the 18 month
27:28trial of click and collect was successful enough that Primark rolled it out to the whole of Great
27:33Britain in 2025 but it all feels a bit too little too late by 2015 John Lewis was already processing
27:40six million click and collect orders a year and around the same direct to our homes but the cost
27:46of it was crippling them the cost of selling online is very expensive the delivery cost is very high
27:52people want free delivery they've grown up with it retailers have realized too late in the day it
27:58costs us a fortune to get that dress or saucepan from our warehouse to your home the problem was made
28:06even worse by the fact you can't try stuff on the critical thing that is pretty tough for fashion
28:12retailers is the returns on fashion are very very high up to 50 percent online if you're going to be
28:18one of those people who buy three copies of the same dress try it on and send two back that
28:24is ruinous
28:26to stop online sinking them out right John Lewis had to think of ways of bringing down the costs of
28:32delivery in 2016 they invested half a billion pounds in technology to help them maintain their
28:39lead in the online game can order by 8 p.m. this evening and receive in any of our waitrose
28:46supermarkets
28:47on our John Lewis department stores the following day by three o'clock so and that's an industry leading
28:53proposition humans are costly and frankly slow so the secret to making orders efficient is to speed things up
29:02and the answer is robots what do I do just press go on the screen okay
29:11bye bye there we go and the next one Kate wow wow just set them off okay and the next
29:17one Kate
29:19wow gosh they got quite a lick don't they there we go keep going Kate oh keep going oh my
29:25goodness right
29:27everyone everyone says bye bye there we go off they go off they go let's go let's follow her hey
29:34you
29:35actually have to walk at quite a pace don't you yeah John Lewis have bet big on speed if you
29:41can deliver
29:41fast not only will it save you money but people will be more likely to pay your premium prices this
29:48ability to deliver very quickly is something that's important and everyone has had to up their game and John
29:53Lewis have certainly had to do that but it definitely drives the costs up because people
29:57want things quickly they're not prepared to wait so you have to balance the cost of what that is for
30:02your business when the warehouse is operational humans don't walk with the robots they wait in
30:09designated aisles to pass the items the robot has asked for to be whizzed to the packing area so what
30:15do we do now you're looking for a a cord gingham jacket size eight okay and find the right pigeonhole
30:24by staying in the packing area and letting the robot do the run to dispatch I can fulfill many more
30:30orders far more quickly with lots of different items in the lockers there won't be a logjam if
30:35something sells like hotcakes you know what I was expecting to see was maybe that jacket in lots of
30:42different sizes all here one one skew yeah but there's actually a range of different things yes
30:47this storage device is what's called a chaotic storage devices it's actual name every location
30:54is a random selection of garments if you have all the same products in one area and it's a really
30:58fast selling line hey all the robots be queuing up and all the people will be stuck with each other
31:03so
31:03this gives you an opportunity to disperse your kind of activity across a wider space got it okay well we've
31:10got our first
31:10yeah we've got our first it's cost John Lewis 150 million pounds to service its online growth over
31:18the last five years but with three billion pounds of John Lewis's sales a year is helping dominate
31:25Primark when it comes to digital warfare in the battle of techno shopping the robots pay for themselves we've
31:34seen a sixty percent increase in productivity each of these robots saves us about seventeen hundred pounds
31:39per month seventeen hundred pounds per month yeah with 160 robots here that's more than three million a
31:48year in savings I mean in a decade's time will Primark still not offer online I mean you're you're risking
31:59just
31:59shutting out half the market are you really going to suggest to people that you have to come in store
32:05to pick up that bedding or you know the lamp or all those kids clothes I mean that's a big
32:12ask
32:15Primark might be dial-up compared to John Lewis's high-speed online presence but there's another
32:20battleground where Primark's use of online has saved it a fortune the quality of these are so good and the
32:27prices are so reasonable too I wouldn't want to church boy I was given my Sunday best every year
32:34John Lewis spends millions on TV ads and Primark has found a modern lo-fi alternative Primark doesn't
32:40tend to post huge amounts of content it lets its consumers and its shoppers do the talking and it
32:45does this masterfully by kind of seeding some of these products pre-launch to creators and
32:50influencers so a lot of the content that's going to set fire on TikTok for Primark is actually from
32:55the creators rather than actually the brand itself they pay content creators to do that most modern
33:02of social set pieces the hall using simple self-shot clips that seem like they were filmed by a friend
33:08one of the great things that has come out of social media for Primark is when influencers get their
33:15product and then tell every single person that they know about these products you can shop the
33:20Stacey Solomon kids wear collection in store now Primark partners with around 300 influencers every single
33:26month across its markets John Lewis also works with influencers but on a smaller scale I am so excited because
33:34Primark opening their first ever home store it's far cheaper than traditional advertising and authentic seeming
33:42relatable advice is far easier to get direct into the streams of a generation who watch around two
33:48hours of TikTok a day I am doing a Primark haul once an influencer like Molly May does a haul
33:54on Primark
33:54her followers are going to go and buy that product here we have all of the stuff the woman suggested
34:00that
34:00I got the non-paper bags because I had that much stuff in each bag it's great marketing for them
34:05because
34:06they're using their network to tell everybody to go and buy these products it's not a wonder that products
34:12sell out so quickly. Celebs speaking to camera just seems to grab attention
34:16and I feel like Primark zippers are that cheap it would have been rude for me not to pick up
34:20a pair
34:21oh guys these were three pounds these were three pounds like what three pounds for these is that a joke?
34:29When these younger consumers come into the stores that actually they might come for the one item they've seen in
34:35their TikTok feed
34:35but will end up picking up a whole host of other things in the store itself
34:40It makes John Lewis's annual Christmas ad however glossily produced feel a little old-fashioned not to mention expensive
34:49What took you so long?
34:51You
34:54Primark is you know very good at mastering the TikTok feed you know it turns up to the TikTok party
35:00but
35:00John Lewis on the other hand kind of arrives when the dance floor is already clearing you know
35:04John Lewis turns up wearing a tie it kind of feels slightly dated
35:10Coming up in the next stage of the battle to sell it all
35:14Primark add an unexpected new department to its offering
35:17Yeah I did not expect Primark to have a Greg
35:20And John Lewis bets on making you feel a million dollars to get you to buy more eye-wateringly expensive
35:26clothes
35:26It's it's not about me it's about you
35:37Extending into homeware meant new kid on the chopping block Primark became the high streets unlikely rival to John Lewis
35:44Primark has actually become the new department store the aisles are wider the ranges are broader
35:52The windows are more exciting the services are growing
35:57Both John Lewis and Primark are battling over our clothing coin
36:01But fashion is falling out of fashion
36:04We spent three and a half percent less on it in 2024 than the year before as the cost of
36:11living crisis squeezed
36:12Retail is moving faster than ever if you are not agile and you don't evolve you will die
36:18The pressure is stronger than ever for Primark to keep their rivals at bay in the battle for fashion
36:26There was a long period of time when the John Lewis customer wouldn't be seen dead in Primark
36:31That's changed the gap between the style the perception the quality the perceived quality is narrowing
36:38Which means that now more John Lewis customers are creeping in the back door of Primark and having a look
36:44John Lewis pitched his tent on high quality and good service to make a dent in their 1.2 billion
36:51pound fashion sales
36:53Primark's strategy is to aim at a different market
36:56The John Lewis customer will be a mid to premium customer who wants to buy quality and value and want
37:02something for longevity
37:03They will buy fast fashion items but not in the same way that the Primark customer would
37:08They're looking for fast fashion and they're looking for throwaway fashion
37:13Getting a bargain or you know being savvy with not spending too much but looking great is now something that
37:20people celebrate
37:22Primark want to pile it high and sell it cheap
37:26The difference between us and the rest of the high street is that everything we buy is at scale
37:31And we utilize that economies of scale in addition to that our margins are low
37:38We don't work on the same margins as the rest of the high street
37:41So your profit margins are low?
37:43Very low so it's all about the volume but for every item the profits are not huge
37:48But obviously you multiply that up by a number of items
37:51It's a profitable business
37:55Primark's operating profits are around 12%
37:58Over 10 times John Lewis's 0.9%
38:04While John Lewis wants customers to shop for life
38:07Primark focuses on younger shoppers
38:09Who want the latest fashions at the keenest possible cost
38:17Have you tried on a lot of these jeans?
38:20Honestly I have tried on every single pair of jeans
38:22And it's probably one thing that I can say very comfortably
38:25To tailor a bigger cut of the fashion market
38:28Primark have to pour over every detail to make sure the price is right
38:33How do you make this for 16 quid?
38:36Well actually originally I think when Trudy came into the sign off
38:39It was 18 pounds and we felt 18 pounds is probably too pricey for our customer
38:43So Trudy you went away
38:46Yeah we looked at the whole garment with the design team
38:49And looked at how could we kind of re-engineer that
38:51To put that out at 16 to match the leg
38:54Re-looked at the pockets
38:55They had flaps on them, two pockets
38:57There was a lot more detail on the sleeve
38:58We were able to go back to our supply base
39:00Renegotiate the price
39:01So for you this started out 18 quid and you thought
39:04No that's too high
39:05We want to knock two quid off that
39:07Bring it down to 16
39:08Yep
39:08And you made the tweaks accordingly
39:10Totally
39:11By focusing on price so closely
39:13Primark can ship more shirts than anyone else
39:16They're the UK's largest clothing retailer by volume
39:19John Lewis couldn't compete
39:21John Lewis can't afford to sell cheapest chips
39:25When you're making 5,000 of the same item
39:28You can get incredible cost efficiencies
39:31It hasn't got the volumes to be able to sell so cheaply
39:38John Lewis' counterattack was to build on what it knows best
39:41And go up market
39:43We've been here for 160 years
39:45You know this spot where I'm standing used to be our draper store
39:48We've always had fashion in our blood
39:51It is a competitive market
39:53I don't think that's a bad thing
39:54And it's not something that we are scared of
39:58It's all about making sure that we stay ahead in those ways
40:02The critical thing for John Lewis is to be differentiated
40:05Not to do what everybody else is doing
40:07You stick with what you're great at
40:11Rachel Cassidy is a John Lewis super fan
40:13And exactly the customer they want
40:15As they can get her to spend more
40:18Every time I've shop in John Lewis
40:20I feel like I'm at home
40:21It represents a certain amount of nostalgia for me
40:24It's a place that I used to come to when I was a child
40:26So to come here as an adult and still shop without my mum
40:29It's like a full circle moment
40:30I get a nice warm and fuzzy feeling when I come to John Lewis
40:34She's prepared to shell out for the personal touch
40:37We're really close to the customer at John Lewis
40:39So we spend a lot of time understanding them, getting to know them
40:44Personal shopping was introduced by John Lewis in 2018
40:48Online shops were taking people off the high streets
40:51And people spent less on clothes
40:53As they spent more on gyms and exercise
40:56Primark's low-cost alternatives meant they were selling 7% of all the clothes in the UK
41:01John Lewis had to fight back
41:03And personal shoppers were their weapon
41:07Another thing that makes us really different
41:10Is that personal relationship we develop with the customer
41:13So our personal styling service is available in every single store
41:17They know that they can trust us to put their wardrobe together
41:19It's all completely free as well
41:21You'll see that a lot of the pieces I've selected from Awake Mode
41:25And I believe that you like Awake Mode
41:27Yes
41:28So we're here to cater to you
41:30It's not about me, it's about you
41:32When it comes to fashion, John Lewis have a whole kind of range of difference
41:36They've got other people's brands
41:37Some of which are quite upmarket
41:39They then have their own brands
41:40Some of which are kind of basic-ish
41:42And then they've got this new-ish brand called the Awake Mode
41:45Which is very much kind of exclusive
41:47You can only get it in John Lewis
41:49Only a few number of pieces
41:50And when it's sold, it's sold
41:52It's kind of the whole
41:53You don't want to sell a dress
41:55That every single woman's going to be wearing
41:58To every single wedding out there
42:00Primark often do sell the dress everyone's wearing to the wedding
42:04Personal shoppers like Beth can often lead to several hundred pounds in sales
42:09In the six months after they were introduced
42:12They generated 20% of all John Lewis' women's wear sales
42:17John Lewis are offering the consumer a memorable experience
42:21And to do that, they need to think about the retail theatre
42:24Because the consumer's going to walk away
42:26Thinking about every single aspect of that store
42:29And how it made them feel
42:31A personal shopper and Primark just don't fit as well
42:35But to get a little bit of that premium
42:37Primark called in a little glamour of its own
42:40Oh my gosh, I've seen this everywhere on social media
42:44I've seen so many girls wearing it on TikTok for festivals
42:47And it's only £15
42:50Primark started attaching huge names to their clothes
42:53Like Rita Ora and Disney
42:55A few years ago the fashion journalists used to laugh
42:58And just say Primark's become Primarnia
43:00Because it's copying the looks on the fashion runways
43:03But by introducing the big names like Rita Ora and Disney into the brand
43:10Primark has actually suddenly got the gloss and the fame of the brands
43:16It was once copying
43:17Disney, you've got Lilo and Stitch
43:19You've got Marvel and Star Wars
43:21I want to go for Disney
43:22And I bought T-shirt
43:26Primark signed its first licensing agreement with Disney in 2011
43:30But went big in 2019
43:32The year after John Lewis introduced personal shoppers
43:36They even opened a Disney cafe in Birmingham
43:39Instead of the designer sub-shop seen in John Lewis
43:43Primark has Disney and Harry Potter in store shops
43:46As well as tie-ins with Friends and Minecraft
43:50What Disney and Marvel allow Primark to do
43:53Is to tap into the popularity of these super brands
43:57And sell a wide range of products at affordable prices
44:01The challenge for the trademark owner
44:04For someone like Disney
44:06Is how much do you have to be selling
44:08To make it all worthwhile
44:09But the truth is they're obviously selling a lot
44:13In 2023, collabs like this helped UK sales rise
44:18To cut John Lewis' cloth further
44:21They've created a whole new kind of department store
44:24If you're a department store
44:26And you're competing with online
44:29You've just got to every year
44:31You've got to give people another reason to keep on coming into the shop
44:34They've got to offer something new
44:36Something different
44:37So what they need is footfall into their shops
44:40Primark are investing in their stores
44:42In the same way as John Lewis are investing in theirs
44:44So a way of getting that buzz into their shop
44:47And what's more on brand than teaming up
44:50With another affordable retail chain
44:52On a winning streak
44:54I did not expect Primark to have a Greggs at all
44:57I think this is great whilst you're shopping
44:59Come and get a little sausage roll or a pasty
45:02It's great
45:04Greggs has an in-store restaurant
45:06In Primark, Birmingham
45:07With 130 seats
45:08Other stores even have sausage roll shaped swings
45:12The joy of Primark
45:14Is you don't necessarily
45:16Have to go in there and buy lots of product
45:18You can spend a couple of hours there having fun
45:21You know, going to the Greggs Cafe
45:23Because the Greggs Cafe in a Primark
45:25Is more fun than a Greggs on the high street
45:30There aren't many department stores left
45:32And the two biggest are constantly trying to get one over their rivals
45:37Shoppers are no longer brand loyal
45:38They no longer
45:40That's my department store
45:41That's where we do our shopping
45:42Whether you like budgets
45:44Or bougie
45:45John Lewis is fighting to stay relevant
45:47It definitely lost its way for a couple of years
45:50And I think John Lewis have got their mojo back
45:52The way we shop has changed
45:54And these two last high street juggernauts
45:57Will continue to slug it out
45:59And they are investing a lot in their shops
46:02So as the years go on
46:04I think we will see them more and more as rivals
46:07And it's going to be interesting to see who ends up on top
46:16Ordinary folk take to the stage
46:19Sing the songs that mean the most to them
46:21And share the heartfelt human stories behind each note
46:25Your song starts Sunday at 9
46:27A retired police officer revisits the scene of the crime
46:31The worst first date ever
46:33Make it right Fred
46:34A brand new series starts in an hour
46:36Before that next
46:37New Gogglebox
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