Boots Beauty will debut at London’s Battersea Power Station
The battle for Britain’s lucrative beauty market is about to heat up, as Walgreens-owned Boots prepares to launch its first standalone beauty studio concept.
The U.K.’s biggest health and beauty retailer has responded to the fresh challenge from LVMH’s Sephora, plus the likes of Next and Frasers Group with the launch of a new beauty-only store at Battersea Power Station, London.
The 11,200 sq. ft. beauty store is set to open later this year at the mall set within London’s former iconic power station and will showcase Boots’ beauty offering across products, services, advice, and trends the company said.
Not only will Boots be hoping to head off an incursion by Sephora but also to capitalize on the beauty hall-sized hole left by the closure of many U.K, department stores in recent years, which once dominated the sector.
Next, Frasers and Boots have all attempted to step into the breach, while Sephora has ended an 18-year exodus to return to British shores.
The supersize beauty studio will offer more than 250 cosmetics, skincare and haircare brands available. Boots is promising several new U.K.-exclusive brands and ranges, plus skin-specialist pharmacists and qualified dermatologists on hand to offer advice.
Sephora U.K. Return
The news comes around a month after Sephora, which returned to the U.K. with a 6,000 sq. ft. unit at Westfield White City in March, announced it will open a second store in Westfield Stratford City in East London in November.
Sephora said in a statement: “The launch of Sephora.co.uk and the app last Fall was met with unprecedented demand, and British consumers can continue to enjoy shopping their beauty favorites exclusively at Sephora in another iconic store.”
Sephora relaunched with a brick-and-mortar store in March after launching its U.K. website in the Fall, and returning a mere 18 years after exiting the British market first time round.
Huge crowds gathered for the debut of Sephora in London, 18 years after it last exited the U.K. … [+]
At the Retail Week Live conference earlier this year Boots CEO Seb James said that his team had set out to disrupt Sephora’s store launch and claimed that Boots saw a large sales uplift the day the beauty brand opened.
“Our whole team lent into the idea of making that launch a disaster. We grew 85% in a year and the general message going around the store was ‘up yours Sephora’,” he boasted.
However, despite his bold claims, queues remain to this day to enter the Sephora store, which has proven a huge hit with U.K. shoppers.
Little surprise then that Boots will try and leverage its nationwide portfolio and scale – the company has around 2,200 stores in the U.K. – to try and block Sephora off at the pass.
On opening its new beauty offer, Boots will also introduce all of the new beauty brands to boots.com, as Boots says that it “continues to invest in beauty halls and beauty advisors” across its U.K. portfolio.
Boots Beauty Halls Roll-Out
The Battersea announcement follows the rejuvenation of over 170 beauty halls across the U.K. and Ireland – most recently in St. Albans, Kilbride, Grantham, White City, and Stratford-upon-Avon.
These Boots beauty halls have been the first to stock brands such as Grown Alchemist, Sol De Janeiro and Function of beauty, alongside cult beauty icons, Kylie Cosmetics, NARS, MAC Cosmetics and Drunk Elephant.
Boots has launched almost 4,000 new lines this year alone and Boots said its investment in beauty is reflected in market share growth, with the beauty category at its Q3 results for the three months to May 31 showing sales growth of 18% year on year for the period.
Paul Niezawitowski, Beauty Director at Boots, said: “Our new Beauty showcase solidifies Boots’ position as the U.K.’s number one beauty destination and marks the latest innovation under our ongoing beauty reinvention programme.”
