John Lewis expands UK click and collect service.

Monday, September 5, 2011 - 09:58 by Graham Miller

More UK consumers will be able to use the John Lewis website to carry out safe shopping online and then collect their products from in-store, after the retailer announced it would be making the click and collect service available in many more locations this year.

At the moment, there are 60 branches of John Lewis and Waitrose where the click and collect feature can be accessed, but by the end of next month, this will have almost doubled to 119.

The new locations will include stores in places such as Lincoln, Harrogate and Towcester, which should go live before the end of the month.

20 per cent of all orders made via John Lewis' e-commerce outlet are accounted for by the current click and collect service and this is being seen as a real area for growth by the firm's management, justifying the roll-out at additional stores.

Using safe shopping online you can pick from over 130,000 items and have them delivered free of charge to your nearest store. You can then pick them up as and when is convenient and if you finalise your order prior to 7pm, it should be ready for you to collect by the following lunchtime.

This push to bring click and collect to more consumers is not ending in October, as John Lewis said that it will continue to strive for wider coverage in 2012 and beyond.

Spokesperson Andy Street explained that working in partnership with Waitrose made it much easier for John Lewis to reach all of its customers who want to take advantage of in-store pickup for goods bought online.

Customer recommendations for the service have flooded in and John Lewis is hoping to become a true multichannel retailer that innovates with new initiatives, according to Mr Street.