John Lewis is to expand its furniture rental service, doubling the number of products on offer and expanding it outwith London.
The range will expand to more than 200 designs which customers can rent for 12 months at a time, followed by the option to purchase the product with payments already made deducted from the purchase price.
In last year’s trial of the scheme two-thirds of those using the service were furnishing rented accommodation and just over a quarter had recently bought their homes.
‘With no need for the dreaded Allen key, furniture rental offers quick convenience and all the fun without the commitment, allowing customers to live their bright mustard sofa dream for a year before returning it for someone else to enjoy. It is also a sustainable choice for our customers and the expansion of our rental scheme reflects our ambition to offer more sustainable ownership options and forms part of the commitment we made to our customers that all of our John Lewis product categories will have a buy back or take back solution by 2025,’ says Nicola Waller, John Lewis home furnishings head buyer.
‘We’re seeing a real shift in consumer behaviour towards usership rather than ownership, the weak signals were already there pre-Covid, with the emergence of car-sharing schemes, hot-desking and services like AirBnB, but the pandemic has turbo-charged this with an almost back-to-the-future move towards sharing, reusing or trading within communities or groups – renting a dress or sofa is the modern day equivalent of borrowing sugar from next door,’ says John Vary, John Lewis Partnership futurologist.
Products will be available to rent from 20 July.
