John Lewis pledges ‘exciting’ loyalty updates as losses widen
Despite notching up an £89m loss, the John Lewis Partnership is betting on building out its loyalty proposition and experimenting with social-first content.
· Marketing WeekBy Amrit Virdi 10 Sep 2026 1:41 pm
John Lewis and Waitrose are reaffirming their commitment to value and brand investment through an increased focus on loyalty, social media and digital, despite the partnership notching up a £89m loss.
This approach includes plans for a pan-partnership loyalty scheme, first floated three years ago. In a call with the media today (10 September) presenting the company’s interim results, Waitrose managing director Tom Denyard told Marketing Week the business is “in the process of starting to build a loyalty offer” giving both brands “really exciting new capabilities in the future”.
Although partnership sales grew by 2% to £6.3bn in the 26 weeks ending 1 August 2026, pre-tax losses hit £89m, versus £34m a year prior. The heatwave, a “difficult economic environment” and low customer willingness to buy general merchandise and big ticket items – particularly for John Lewis – were named as factors making this a challenging market.
The current economic climate saw the partnership “simplify” head office structures and follows Tarry reportedly warning staff in an internal employee magazine last month that worsening trading conditions are putting pressure on profits.
Despite the issues, investment in brands rose 29% in H1 to £246m, as store modernisations were stepped up. Chairman Jason Tarry told media he is confident “all profit” is earnt in the second half.
In the past, Tarry has claimed the retailer’s “clear focus” on accelerating investment in customers and its brands “is working”.
Wins for Waitrose
Waitrose saw sales grow by 4% to £4.3bn over the period, although adjusted operating profit fell £7m to £103m, which was attributed to investments in value and loyalty.
In a release accompanying the results, the partnership said a combination of investments in loyalty and lower pieces caused Waitrose’s Net Promoter Score for its loyalty offer to increase 20 points year-on-year.
Additionally, in the first half Waitrose invested an extra £20m in permanently lowering prices, with further investment later in the year poised to take the retailer’s total investment in price since 2023 to £180m.
Denyard told Marketing Week the “bedrock” to loyalty is “having an outstanding core proposition”, with Waitrose also “reinvesting” in the store estate, quality and new product development.
“You have to make sure customers, whenever they experience the Waitrose brand, get a consistent and a consistently brilliant experience,” he added, claiming “brand consideration has never been higher”.
When it comes to loyalty, Little Treats is performing “really well” for the brand, with more than 10 million given away since its launch 10 months ago and “one every three seconds” given away for “engaged customers”. Waitrose claims the scheme is also having “a really positive halo on the broader brand”.
“We’re seeing it have quite a significant positive halo effect on volume for the business and the frequency with which customers shop with us. We’ve also done a good job through Little Treats of increasing membership of our loyalty scheme and through that capturing more customer data, and making sure we can – through that data – better personalise the offers that come through the My Waitrose card, so it’s becoming a really nice flywheel and virtuous circle for us,” Denyard explained.
We also have been investing more in social and digital channels to get our brand to the customers more frequently.
Jason Tarry, John Lewis
Denyard also highlighted the success of Waitrose’s cinematic ‘Gastronaut’ campaign launched at the start of the year. The creative is the highest-rated supermarket brand advert outside Christmas in independent consumer testing, he claimed, citing YouGov research recording “the highest average level of positive conversation about Waitrose in a decade”.
He also told Marketing Week digital and social is a “big focus” for the team and an area the team are “skewing increasing investment towards as part of the marketing mix” to ensure they create “outstanding content”. The Dish podcast surpassed 1 billion downloads this year, with Denyard explaining the marketers are also making sure content can be read by large language models (LLMs), so customers are served Waitrose content when they receive AI recommendations. The retailer also launched influencer-led YouTube series Let’s Cook in June this year.
“Our market mix modelling would suggest that’s an area where we’ve got potential to invest further,” he added.
The ‘Home of Food Lovers’ strategy was also said to be “resonating with customers”, as Waitrose No.1 range sales increased 15% and online sales grew 11%.
Looking ahead, Denyard claimed to be “really excited for the second half of the year”, given the Waitrose brand “comes to life at Christmas”, with new ranges set to land in stores.
Reinforcing competitive value
John Lewis experienced a tricker period than Waitrose, with sales down 2% to £2bn and an adjusted operating loss of £83m, versus £53m last year. Alongside the economic environment, the use of “more targeted promotional and clearance activity” was cited as a reason for the challenging performance.
Tarry also said the difference in results to Waitrose is because John Lewis is “in the earlier stages of its transformation”, with more digital, online and in-store investment coming.
He added that the ‘Never Knowingly Undersold’ proposition – reinstated in September 2024 – continues to “reinforce” the retailer’s “commitment to quality service and competitive value”, with the majority of focus going into this proposition. However, Tarry cited the success of the My John Lewis loyalty offer, which enjoyed a 10% growth in membership.
Like Waitrose, John Lewis is also investing heavily in social and digital, launching new vodcast ‘Gift List’ last week and The Box content creation studio in the run up to Christmas.
“We see significant headroom in being able to engage with customers in that way, particularly with certain themes, particularly around gifting. And we also have been investing more in social and digital channels to get our brand to the customers more frequently,” Tarry added.