Boots Q1 driven by record-breaking Black Friday

Boots has revealed it delivered a strong performance in its first quarter of the year, ended 30 November 2023, as retail sales jumped 9.8% aided by a “record-breaking” Black Friday.

The retailer, owned by Walgreens Boots Alliance, also revealed it secured its 11th consecutive quarter of market share growth, with gains across main categories.

It also confirmed Boots.com achieved its biggest ever month of sales in November and its biggest ever day of sales on Black Friday.

Meanwhile, store sales jumped 7% in Black Friday week. Electrical Beauty, Skincare, Premium Beauty, No7 and Fragrance were the top performing categories, with the retailer claiming a bottle of fragrance was sold every second of Black Friday week.

In stores, footfall continued to grow in the quarter, up 7%, with all store formats seeing sales growth YOY, with flagship and travel locations performing particularly well.

Digital sales contributed 19.2% of total retail sales, with boots.com sales growing 17.5%. Use of the Boots App continues to grow at pace and it now has 7.2 million active users.

In addition, it confirmed Beauty sales were up 11.4% for the quarter, driven by continued strong performance of Skincare and Premium Beauty. Haircare saw sales growth of 10% bolstered by the launch of 10 Professional and Salon haircare brands to boots.com, while No7, the UK’s No1 skincare brand, saw sales growth of over 13%.

Seb James, MD of Boots UK and ROI, 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.”