- Boots to re-open beauty halls from with a safety-first shopping experience
- Boots Beauty Specialists to offer touch-free consultations, with virtual appointments currently being trialled
- Self-selection beauty continues to be available, with added safety
- Due to lockdown demand, more of the nation’s favourite beauty and skincare products will be back on Boots.com
From next week, Boots will begin to re-open beauty halls with new safe shopping measures in place, including no contact beauty advice, new product testing methods, upgraded colleague PPE, new social distancing guides and equipment and customer hand sanitising stations.
A recent study by No7 found that 80 per cent of British women were more likely to feel good about themselves if they wore make-up during lockdown. The reason? Beauty products can be a boost for mental health and wellbeing. Our beauty brands on Boots.com have been helping customers to feel good during this period, and now thanks to new safety measures, we can extend our beauty ranges in store, too.
As an essential retailer, Boots has been open throughout the lockdown period allowing us to learn and adapt to new ways of shopping. This means that we can bring back make up and beauty aisles in a safe way, allowing customers to shop and feel good in confidence.
Joanna Rogers, Trading director and VP of Beauty at Boots says: “The health and wellbeing of our customers and colleagues will always be our first priority. We have explored just how our customers can enjoy our much-loved beauty halls and shop for the beauty brands they love with confidence, in a socially distant way.”
Boots Beauty Specialists will be available to offer brand-neutral advice and guidance through touch-free consultations and can chat through hints and tips on application without the need for physical contact. Boots is also trialling online consultations with its Beauty Specialists following the successful launch of virtual appointments with No7 and Liz Earle advisors. From tailored product recommendations to application tips, customers can get personalised, expert skincare and make-up advice from trusted advisors over the phone or a video call, from the comfort of their own home.
For those who may face the high street with trepidation, Boots is exploring geo-targeted ads that will let people know when their local store is less busy, and customers can also still choose to shop on Boots.com. After limiting some beauty categories on Boots.com to prioritise essential toiletries and medicine orders, we will be bringing back more beauty and skincare products and launching even more, new, cult brands very soon.
“A lot of customers have turned to shopping online since the start of lockdown with hygiene products and toiletries on Boots.com enjoying a huge surge,” adds Joanna Rogers. “During lockdown, sales and searches on Boots.com for skincare and haircare also grew. ‘Hair dye’ was the most popular search term last week, whilst the waiting list for the NEW No7 ADVANCED Retinol 1.5% Complex Night Concentrate had over 100,000 people sign up – the largest ever for a single product on Boots.com”
Testers for make-up, fragrance and skincare will be removed from stores and will be reintroduced when it is safe to do so. When they return, testers won’t be on public display in the beauty aisles, and will be dispensed by a Beauty Advisor with strict hygiene and hand-washing measures in place. Perfumes will be spritzed onto an individual fragrance blotter, liquid foundations will be pumped into a disposable pot and powders will be swiped with a single-use sponge and placed into a disposable pot.
For more information on updates from Boots, visit www.boots-uk.com.
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For more information please contact bootsbeautypr@apteamwpp.com or call 020 3193 3382.
About Boots UK
Boots UK (boots.com), the UK’s largest pharmacy-led health and beauty retailer, is part of the Retail Pharmacy International Division of Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. (Nasdaq: WBA), the first global pharmacy-led, health and wellbeing enterprise.
With 2,465* stores in the UK, its purpose is to champion everyone’s right to feel good. Boots UK is committed to providing exceptional customer and patient care, be the first choice for pharmacy and healthcare and offer innovative 'only at Boots' exclusive products such as No7, a leading UK skincare brand, Soap and Glory and Liz Earle.
Created 170 years ago, the Boots brand is still at the heart of the communities it serves.
*As of 31 August 2019, excluding equity method investments.
Boots has moved quickly to reassure customers of its plans to continue providing a safe shopping experience and safe working environment in stores across the UK.
Since the beginning of lockdown Boots was named an essential retailer, prioritising the safety of customers and colleagues to keep the majority of stores open and ensuring everyone had access to a pharmacy to get the prescriptions, essential medicines, advice and support they need.
A new wave of PPE is rolling out including additional perspex screens to cover all counters, tills, self-checkouts and areas that have not been recently utilised. Boots was the first retailer to introduce perspex visors, and colleagues will continue to receive them along with other PPE equipment. Hand sanitising stations are being trialled in stores and key touch points will be regularly cleaned.
There will be some changes to the way people can shop beauty products in store with the temporary removal of testers and face to face consultations, but customers can now experience the first-ever virtual beauty service with No7. The online video consultations offer 15–20-minute personalised, one-to-one service with a No7 advisor for cosmetic and skincare advice.
When it comes to Boots Opticians and Hearingcare, operational changes have been to ensure people have access to the essential care they need. The expert clinicians are providing care by phone and if they advise that a customer needs to be seen in store, they can offer face to face appointments with the appropriate PPE, social distance and enhanced cleaning measures.