Boots has been back to its best of late, notching up 12 consecutive quarters of growth. Digital has been the star performer at the health and beauty giant, with online sales surging 16.8% in its last quarter, which took in the all-important Christmas period.
Chief digital officer Paula Bobbett tells the Retail Technology Show, the five key areas it is focusing on to drive digital growth.
Range expansion
Boots has focused on expanding the range of products it sells online.
Bobbett says: “You can see over the last few years we’ve invested massively our brands.”
The retailer is currently home to over 500 beauty brands, including MAC, NARS, Drunk Elephant, Fenty Beauty and Kylie Cosmetics.
While back in October, it launched a new premium and professional haircare category online as part of its strategy to expand its beauty product range and increase its presence in the premium beauty market.
The retailer now offers 400 products from 10 professional and salon haircare brands including Redken, L’Oréal Professionnel, Pureology, Ouai, Briogeo, Ful, and Matrix.
Convenience
Boots’ vast high street presence makes it convenient for shoppers, but Bobbett wants to bring that same convenience to online.
It is doing so by focusing on speedy delivery, partnering with both Uber Eats and Deliveroo.
She says this is a particularly compelling offer for its healthcare as when people have an ailment like a headache or an ill child, they want immediate relief.
Back in March, Boots also rolled out Klarna payment options, which it had introduced into stores in 2022, to both online and via its app to give shoppers a “smooth payments experience”.
Promotions
Boots has started to “trade its website like a pureplay”, in the words of Bobbett.
She explains that its website used to “follow a stores model”, with promotions every 8 weeks, which she says “doesn’t really work” online.
In the January when Bobbett arrived, Boots ran four promotions, the following January it ran 37 online sales, which resulted in strong sales in what is usually a quiet month for the retailer.
“Online is very much about spiking demand, you can drive people in. A stores business is much harder to generate that sort of footfall,” says Bobbett.
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Experience
Bobbett admits that Boots’ online experience used to be “bad” but says: “It’s now better…we are definitely focusing on being even better still”.
She explained that Boots is focusing on what its “customers really want” and making the journey as easy as possible.
Boots has shortened the path to purchase with 75% less clicks, in a bid to give consumers seamless, pain-free shopping experiences when online, says Bobbett.
Boots app
Bobbett called the retailer’s app “the connector between physical and digital” with a whopping 7.7m users.
With such a vast amount of data available from its app and via its advantage card proposition, Bobbett says there is “a huge opportunity of personalisation with the strength of Advantage [Card]” which offers customers the chance to “really connect with our business”.
With, online sales via its website and app soaring 16.8% in its last quarter, the strategy appears to be working.
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