Boots Feels the High Street Squeeze and May Close Up to 200 Stores

LONDON — Boots is considering closing up to 200 shops in the U.K. in the next two years, according to British tabloids, following on the footsteps of British high street retailers such as Marks & Spencer, Debenhams, House of Fraser and Topshop. Sales fell 2.3 percent down to 6.8 billion pounds and the company cited the highly competitive nature of the health and beauty category as the reason for a decline in sales, in its latest financial report. Boots also said pharmacy sales were impacted by governmental agencies seeking to minimize costs of pharmaceutical drugs. But Walgreens Boots Alliance, its parent company, saw beauty sales in 2018 shoot up by 17 percent to an estimation of $1.7 billion. “We currently do not have a major program envisaged, but as you’d expect we always review underperforming stores and seek out opportunities for consolidation,” said a Boots U.K. spokesperson in a statement provided to WWD. “As is natural with a business of our size, we have stores opening, closing and relocating on a regular basis. In fact, we’re investing in our stores, last year we completed a huge merchandising project to update our self-selection cosmetics areas in 2,200 of our stores. We are being realistic about the

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