Facelift boosts Boots sales

High street giant Boots showed the benefits of its modernisation drive today as it posted a 4.4% rise in first quarter like-for-like sales at its core stores.

The health and beauty chain, which embarked on a £390m (€584.6m) overhaul earlier this year, said the results reflected the positive response of customers to improvements.

Boots also revealed that nearly 40,000 of its employees had been given free shares worth around £7m (€10.5m) this year.

Under the award, which was introduced in 2001, staff are awarded £250 (€374.70) of free shares every year. It means a full-time employee with Boots since 2000 will now have received £1,000 (€1,500) worth of shares.

The increase in same-store sales at Boots the Chemist was slightly ahead of analysts’ forecasts and helped lift total group sales by 3.9%.

Today’s results follow the company’s announcement in March that it faced “substantial challenges” to modernise its stores in the face of increased competition.

Since then it has introduced longer opening hours, extended Sunday openings, modernised pharmacies and introduced clearer signs in stores.

Boots has come under pressure in recent months as rivals such as Tesco slashes health and beauty product prices to gain a greater slice of the market.

Chief executive Richard Baker said today: “Continued growth in Boots the Chemist shows the positive response of customers to improving value and convenience on top of our existing strengths of great products and great people.”