Boots looks East as Thai stores improve
Health & beauty retailer learns lessons of overseas expansion
March 12 2004
Boots is considering joining the retail exodus to China after learning to adapt its retail offer to Eastern consumers in Thailand.
During a visit to Hong Kong, Boots chairman Sir Nigel Rudd said Boots Thai stores are only now breaking even, after the UK retailer moved into the region in the late 1990s.
Sir Nigel told news agency Reuters: “We went into a number of countries about five or six years ago. We lost a lot of money as we kept to a UK retail format that just didn’t work.”
While Boots’ loss-making Japanese stores were closed in 2002, “in Thailand we now have around 60 stores and they are starting to break even.”
Boots has also seen success in Hong Kong and Taiwan with a shop-in-shop concession model in 60 Watsons stores, a retail chain owned by Hutchison Whampoa. A similar format has been adopted for the USA, where Boots has just started to opensales areas in Target and CVS stores.
[img r]bootsno7.jpg[/img]Sir Nigel confirmed that Boots is considering opening stores in China, as well as Malaysia, and India, but has no firm plans in place as yet.
Boots’ range of own cosmetic brands such as No 7 and Botanics are seen as having strong sales potential in markets outside the UK.
