John Lewis End Relationship with Vouchercode Sites
John Lewis have decided to cease offering online discount codes, hence terminating their relationship with online voucher code sites. In an email received late yesterday it stated:
John Lewis ceased working with cashback affiliates in May 2008 in order to uphold their tradition of ‘treating all customers equally’. They still however continued to use coupons to offer customers discount through johnlewis.com. This notice is to inform you that John Lewis will no longer be offering coupons or promotional codes online and therefore request to end their partnership with vouchercode directories.
Working in an agency I chat to a lot of retailers and the topic of conversation often turns to affiliates and how to manage voucher codes.
Some retailers perspective is that giving a discount and then paying a commission to an affiliate is simply giving away too much margin, often making a sale break even or at a loss. I do understand this perspective, however I think through careful channel management and simple mathematics it’s not too difficult to get the number right.
A perspective may be that if John Lewis isn’t offering a discount code and M&S is, then should I want to buy that product i’m more likely to go to M&S seeing as I can get it cheaper.
But John Lewis isn’t a discount brand by any means, it’s slogan may be “Never Knowingly Undersold”, but this is on high end products.
So the guys at john Lewis will have done their research. They will have looked at the impact removing themselves from cashback websites made to their turnover and profits and they’ve come to the conclusion that given their a brand renowned for quality. They have no need to actually discount their products, their an aspirational brand, one that people aspire to shop with.
When your an aspirational brand, there is certainly no need to discount your products. A savvy move by John Lewis IMO and long overdue.
