Please note that this company profile is now out of date but remains here for its pedagogic value. A more up-to-date company profile for Boots can be found here.
What are their main products?
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Health: Pharmacy products
This represents about one quarter of the company's sales. Over-the-counter medicines used to be regulated under Resale Price Maintenance (RPM), so that smaller local chemists would survive. The effect of RPM was to keep prices artificially high. Larger firms, such as the major supermarket retailers, could have charged less for these medicines. Eventually, the benefits of protecting small pharmacies were outweighed by the lower prices that could be gained by letting supermarkets compete. So the RPM was abolished. More on this period can be read in Biz/ed's Wanna Argument (http://www.bized.co.uk/current/argument/arg9.htm). -
Beauty and Toiletries
Boots is the leading UK retailer in a number of cosmetic brands, such as No. 7. -
Baby, Food and Photography
- Baby-related products are good for increasing 'footfall' (a retail term for the number of people entering the store)
- Sandwiches
- Food items for customers with special dietary requirements
- Digital cameras and in-store technology to produce prints from memory cards
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Opticians, Dental care and Wellbeing services
- Opticians and eye care, including LASIK clinics.
- Dental care is a growing part of Boots' services. Private dentistry in the UK is worth £2bn annually.
- Boots' Wellbeing beauty treatment centres were shut down in 2003.
Images: www.freeimages.co.uk; beauty products by Isaac Esteban, stock.xchng