Boots plans US venture
Toe-in-the-water joint venture with Target and CVS
November 15 2003
Boots plans to test the market for its health and beauty own brand ranges in the US through shop-in-shop areas in Target and CVS stores.
The UK retailer is stressing that this is a low key venture outside its home market , following well publicised losses from company-owned in the Far East and elsewhere previously.
The deal will see 32 Boots sales areas opened in discount store operator Target and the CVS pharmacy chain. The shops will feature Boots own brand No.7 and Botanics ranges.
News of the venture pushed up Boots shares, with the City enthused by the prospect of developing a market for No.7, the UK’s best selling cosmetics range, in the US.
Boots was careful to stress it is testing the waters with what it called a “very low risk, low capital model.” A spokesman told news agency Reuters: “Like most smart retailers you do have things that don’t go quite to plan, but you learn from it and what we learned.is that actually opening our own stores abroad, exporting the store concept, is very expensive and not the right thing to do.
“Having learned that and now having a successful operation in Thailand based on implants we’re now going to try that in America. We’ve got two retailers that excel in their field to work with us.”
Boots most recent shop-in-shop experinece was a trial of branded sales areas in Sainsbury’s stores, abandoned earlier this year.
