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John Lewis PartnershipÂ’s JLAB launches new challenge

By Retail Technology | Tuesday October 30 2018

The John Lewis PartnershipÂ’s tech innovation programme JLAB has launched a challenge to find leading start-ups and established businesses shaping the shopping of the future.

The retailer is investing in service and services, and has boosted its sales with the introduction of Experience Desks which offer customers concierge style shopping; and by rethinking and expanding its personal styling service. 

John Lewis & Partners has also experimented with a wide range of events and experiences in its shops which have sold out, from gin masterclasses to cinema screenings, and the opportunity to stay overnight in pop-up luxury apartments in shops.
 
Entrepreneurial minds 

Peter Cross, partner and director of customer experience at John Lewis & Partners, said: “As customer expectations of the shopping experience grow at the fastest pace in living memory, John Lewis & Partners is actively looking to engage with the brightest and most entrepreneurial minds in the nation, whether that be a new technology solution to make shopping more convenient, or an idea that will fundamentally transform how the nation shops.”

This new experiential retail theme follows two other JLAB challenges that launched earlier this year - health and wellbeing and reducing the impact of plastic waste. After receiving over 200 entries across both challenges, three health and wellbeing business were selected following the pitch day, to develop customer facing, digital propositions which could provide Waitrose & Partners customers with advice and inspiration that would make it easier to lead healthy lifestyles and eat more healthily.
 
Entries for the experiential retail challenge are to made via jlab.co.uk and applications will close at midnight on 25 November. The pitch day takes place in February, with businesses presenting to a panel of seven judges, made up of senior leaders from across the John Lewis Partnership.

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