- Boots UK reinforces its commitment to local high streets with the rollout of 30 new beauty halls in stores across the country including Burton-on-Trent, Grantham and Newport
- Over 100 new Boots Beauty Specialist roles created as Boots UK’s transformation continues
- Customers can now get a flagship beauty experience in their local store and access hundreds more brands via Next Day Click & Collect from boots.com
Boots UK will launch 30 new beauty halls across the country as it continues to expand and enhance its industry-leading beauty offering. The launch forms part of the health and beauty retailer’s multi-format store strategy that aims to provide customers with greater access to the world’s leading beauty brands.
The 30 new beauty halls are smaller versions of the reinvented beauty halls that can be found in 60 Boots flagship stores such as Covent Garden in London and The Trafford Centre in Manchester. They will feature in smaller Boots stores in towns across the country – from Burton-on-Trent to the Isle of Wight. Featuring trending zones, discovery areas and consultation spaces, the beauty halls will offer an exciting range of products including cult brands like Drunk Elephant, Fenty Beauty and MAC. The variety of beauty brands stocked by Boots continues to grow rapidly, with 65 new lines added since the start of lockdown.
Over 100 new Boots Beauty Specialist roles will be added as part of this next phase in the retailer’s beauty reinvention project. There are now over 700 Boots Beauty Specialists across the UK and their role is to provide personalised, brand-neutral beauty and skin care advice to customers for free in stores. They are fully trained by Boots including in empathy training – a unique programme based on brain science and human emotions – which allows them to further understand customers’ needs. An additional 830 Boots Macmillan Beauty Advisors can support to customers going through cancer treatment with free, face-to-face beauty advice.
Boots now offers reinvented beauty halls at 90 of its stores across the UK with the addition of these 30 smaller formats. The leading health and beauty retailer also continues to bring more new and exciting beauty brands to its customers and now offers over 500 beauty brands in total, making it the number one beauty destination in the UK, with recent additions including Anastasia Beverly Hills, UOMA Beauty and Bite Beauty.
Boots has also seen its customers buy more beauty products as the UK eased out of lockdown and into the summer. Sales of beauty products in stores and on boots.com increased 85 per cent in the three months ended 31st May compared to the same period the previous year. The health and beauty retailer’s market share for premium makeup and premium skin is now at its highest on record. It has seen strong sales for its celebrity beauty lines such as Fenty Beauty and Anastasia Beverly Hills and is expecting Kylie Cosmetics to be very popular when it drops later this year. Ingredients-led skincare containing elements like niacinamide, azalaic acid and salicylic acid also are also performing well.
Seb James, Managing Director, Boots UK said: “We are so pleased to launch even more reinvented beauty halls on UK high streets, furthering our position as the UK’s number one for beauty. While our online sales continue to grow, the in-store experience is still hugely important, which is why we have continued to invest in our new-look beauty halls throughout the pandemic and beyond. As we are now out of lockdown and life is starting to look more normal, I am confident that our beautiful new beauty halls will help to drive more footfall into Boots as well as to local high streets more broadly.”
The launch forms part of Boots ongoing transformation strategy built around a growing digital proposition that complements its multi-format store footprint. Today, Boots products and services are available at over 1,200 pharmacies, over 1,000 high street and local stores, 37 flagship stores and 26 airport stores across the UK. Next Day Click & Collect is also available at over 2,200 stores, ensuring Boots customers can access to its full range of beauty, health and wellness products from their local store or pharmacy. Boots has also opened 19 new stores during 2020 and 2021 including in Edinburgh St James and London The Strand.
The new concept beauty stores will be rolled out to the following locations before the end of the year:
- Aberdeen Union Square Shopping Centre
- Athlone
- Belfast Boucher Road
- Brentwood
- Burton On Trent Coopers Square
- Carlisle English Street
- Crewe Grand Junction Retail Park
- Dundee High Street
- East Kilbride The Plaza
- Epsom Ashley Centre
- Fareham Whiteley Village Shopping Centre
- Grantham High Street
- Grimsby Friargate
- Hayle West Cornwall Shopping Park
- Hereford High Street,
- Isle Of Wight Newport
- Letterkenny
- Londonderry Foyleside Shopping Centre
- Nottingham Riverside Retail Park
- Portsmouth Commercial Road
- Richmond George Street
- Romford The Liberty
- Rugby Junction One Retail Park
- Salisbury Silver Street
- Sevenoaks High Street
- Southend On Sea The Royals Shopping Centre
- Southport Chapel Street
- Stratford Upon Avon The Maybird Centre
- Sunderland The Bridges
- Worthing Montague Street