Department store stalwart John Lewis is aiming to appeal to more customers who want to place orders for products via safe shopping online and then collect them locally rather than getting them delivered to their homes.

This week it announced that it is going to achieve this thanks to a new partnership with the Co-Operative which will see 500 of the supermarket chain’s locations being made available as pickup spots for John Lewis’ e-commerce customers.

This will expand the total number of click and collect locations included under John Lewis’s current scheme to almost 900, according to Internet Retailing.

As with many retailers that are just emerging from the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, John Lewis is looking for ways to account for the fact that online shopping has become more popular than ever in the past three months. Because essential stores like supermarkets operated by the Co-Op were allowed to remain open during lockdown, it makes sense to work with such a firm in order to ensure that online orders can be accessed even if non-essential locations are forced to close again in the event of a second wave of infections.

Company spokesperson Andrew Murphy explained that the major change in consumer habits brought about as a result of the pandemic was expected to be permanent, hence the need to address the growing demand for e-commerce. As a result it made sense to broaden its click and collect capabilities and thus have a better chance of reaching customers no matter where they live or what their routines might be.

This partnership with the Co-Op builds on an existing relationship between the two organisations, as click and collect was already offered at around 100 stores, but this number has been rapidly increased in response to the current circumstances.