Boots has hailed a “record-breaking Black Friday”, achieving what it called its “biggest ever month of sales for November”, driving strong first quarter retail sales for the business.
In-store sales increased 8% across Black Friday week and its top performing categories included Premium Beauty, Skincare, No7, Electrical Beauty and Fragrance – with a bottle of fragrance sold every second throughout Black Friday week.
In an update, the health and beauty giant said it saw a strong retail sales performance of 9.8% year-on-year, on top of the 8.7% growth in the prior year – delivering its eleventh consecutive quarter of market share growth.
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Across the quarter, the retailer said more customers chose to shop at Boots both online and in-store.
Footfall in stores grew 7% year-on-year, while Boots.com sales were up 17.5% compared to last year, contributing 19.2% of sales for the quarter.
Beauty sales led the overall sales performance up 11.4% compared to 2022, once again driven by the strong performances in skincare and premium beauty.
The business said “value remains a key focus” for customers with Boots own brand products proving popular, in particular own label skincare and healthcare.
It said Price Advantage contributed to a large increase in signups to the Boots Advantage Card, with the number of active members nearly at a record high.
Boots managing director Seb James said: “I am very encouraged by the way in
which people are responding to the changes that we have made, especially in our digital and beauty businesses.
It is really good to see that market share has grown for the eleventh quarter in a row
showing that more customers are choosing Boots. This strong start to the year, together with a good Christmas, sets us up well for another good year and I would like to thank most sincerely all of my colleagues for their hard work and resilience over this vital trading period.”
Boots’ Christmas sales performance will be reported on within Q2 earnings later in the year, however it said early indications “suggest a strong Christmas period with sales from Black Friday week until the New Year beating last year’s excellent performance”.
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