Even Big Brands Are Going Back to Basics

In April 2024, Paula Bobbett, Chief Digital Officer at Boots, held a fireside chat at the Retail Technology Show, under the headline "How Should A 175-Year-Old Retailer Approach Innovation In 2024 For Effective Digital Transformation?". She identified 5 key digital strategies that they will undertake in the years ahead, and buzzwords like AI and "digital transformation" and big partnerships like Deliveroo and Uber Eats are mentioned. So you'd be forgiven if you thought, "Boots are one of the UK's largest health and beauty retailers. They'll have so much budget to invest in digital transformations. As an SME, I couldn't possibly match what they'll be doing".

Well, we're here to tell you that, while, yes, they do have budgets we could only dream of, their digital strategy is actually incredibly simple, and, more importantly, it focuses on the foundations; something that we are very passionate about at Mpowering Solutions. In this article, we break down her points and show how small businesses can absolutely adopt the digital strategies of £7 billion retail giant.

Strategy #1: Range Expansion

With Sephora's arrival in the UK in 2022, there was a definite need for Boots to maintain its reputation as the UK's leading health and beauty retailer. At present, Boots house over 500 beauty brands, ranging from staple powerhouses like MAC to new favourites Drunk Elephant. They have also made a strong foray into the premium haircare category to complement their beauty offering. In order to be considered the best beauty retailer, they have to continuously prove their authenticity and authority in this space, and thus it is vital to ensure their brand list is relevant to the UK consumer.

This requires constant assortment analysis, trend forecasting and market research. By keeping abreast of competitor activity, Boots have focused on the key categories where they face the most intense competition in the marketplace, and have ensured that they have the products and assortment to make their offering credible. It is easy to focus so hard on your own business that you lose sight of the wider marketplace. This is especially true for small businesses, when you have so much to do already. However, constant competitor research and trend forecasting is vital to ensure your business stays relevant and desirable.

At Mpowering Solutions, we can perform a Product & Assortment (P&A) Strategy for your business, where we look at your relevant competitors, what trends are upcoming in your industry, and any opportunities you can capitalise on to further your webstore's performance. We also perform Solo Insights if there is one particular aspect of competitor analysis you want to focus on.

Strategy #2: Convenience

Bobbett talks about the desire to make online as convenient as popping into a Boots pharmacy, and cites Boots' partnership with both Uber Eats and Deliveroo to expedite delivery. Boots also introduced Klarna payment options to their website and app to give shoppers an alternative payment method on top of the traditional card payments.

While the headline of this strategy point may seem like Boots' partnership with delivery networks like Uber Eats (which may not quite be in the scope for a small business), this actually points to consumer expectations. We are now spoilt with next-day delivery options like Amazon Prime and ASOS Premier, so more and more online shoppers expect quick deliveries. Yet interestingly, according to Whistl, over 57% of consumers are willing to wait 2-3 working days or more for their deliveries. This shows that customers are fine with waiting, provided their expectations are managed.

Therefore, it is vital to lay out your delivery timelines clearly, and to ensure this information is easily accessible, and not buried away in some page that customers can't access, or need to purchase before seeing. This is part of the criteria of our Website Assessment, as expectation management helps to deter impatient customers and bad reviews if they aren't aware of the delivery timeline. Simultaneously, if your customers are consistently having to wait over a week for their purchase to arrive, it may be worth reviewing your critical path to explore any possibilities of streamlining your production and shipping processes. We can assist you with this with our Critical Path Review service.

Strategy #3: Promotions

In our humble opinion, this is a risky one. Bobbett explains that Boots has started to "trade its website like a pureplay", meaning they are creating a bespoke marketing and trading plan for their online store, rather than following the promotional calendar of the bricks-and-mortar stores. In the January Bobbett first arrived at Boots, Boots ran 4 promotions, whereas the following January, Boots ran 37 online sales, resulting in strong sales in a normally-quiet month of post-Christmas blues.

Relying on markdowns and promotions is not a sustainable way to drive business. Customers nowadays are incredibly savvy and have long memories. By constantly marking products down, you risk training your customer to wait for the next markdown, meaning they are unlikely to purchase at full price, and your margin takes a significant hit. And any retailer will tell you you need those full price sales for maximum profit.

However, given Boots' prominence in Christmas gift-giving, it is unlikely that their customers will be deterred from purchasing in December to wait for the January promotions. Discounts and sales will always result in a spike in traffic (who doesn't love checking out a bargain?), so if they are strategic with their markdown offering, it could definitely be a worthwhile strategy to explore.

We would absolutely advise against using markdown as a traffic driver, because you will end up in a self-fulfilling prophecy whereby you have to markdown every year to keep up with last year's performance. Instead, small business owners should set out their trading calendars ahead of time to help identify the peaks and troughs in their expected sales, and can then consider promotional activity during those 'low' times, provided they do not detract from any full price window, such as Boots' January example. At Mpowering Solutions, we can perform a Strategy Consultation to identify trading opportunities and provide proposals on how to leverage them.

Strategy #4: Experience

In a very bold move, Bobbett admits that Boots' online experience used to be "bad". Having shopped (and seriously struggled) on the Boots website and app, we unfortunately have to agree.

(Take note: if a £7 billion empire can admit their website provided "bad" user experience, there is hope for everyone out there! It shows that even the big players don't always get it right.)

As a result, Boots have worked hard on improving the customer journey as much as possible. For instance, they have shortened the path to purchase with 75% less clicks. This is vital because you should aim for the fastest path to purchase possible, ie the fewest clicks. As mentioned before, consumers nowadays are increasingly impatient, and want to get from homepage to desired product to checkout as quickly and smoothly as possible.

Therefore, small business owners should try shopping their own webshop. Too many store owners set up the shop and just push it live without going through the customer journey themselves. Stress-test your store, see if you can find your products effortlessly, and your store's checkout process. If you are unable to, or don't know where to start, we can do this for you with our CRO Audit, where we assess your webstore's user experience (UX), user interface (UI) and design to identify any pain points or issues that are complicating your store's path to purchase and hindering your conversion.

Strategy #5: Boots App

The Boots app has a staggering 7.7 million users, so it is clearly vital for Boots to ensure the app runs smoothly to maximise number of purchases. However, the added bonus of the app (and the Boots Advantage Card) is that they are a goldmine for customer data. Data allows for customer experiences to be personalised and tailored dependent on the customer's purchasing history and habits. By showing them products that are relevant to them, they are more likely to trust the algorithm and purchase recommended items that they've never bought before.

We're not saying you need to build an app. Most small businesses don't really need an app. But what this ultimately refers to is conducting sales data analysis and generating consumer insights. Small business owners should regularly review their sales data to gain insights into their customers. By understanding your clients, you can serve them the most relevant products that will most likely lead to purchase. This then leads to you potentially tailoring your range to them, which in turn will then resonate with them, resulting in further purchases. If number crunching isn't your thing, we can help with our Data & Insights Review, where we analyse your sales data to spot any missed opportunities and come up with proposed action points.

As for the topic of personalisation, there are ways SMEs can capitalise on this: identify your top customers and send them bespoke emails when you launch a product you think they'll like; if your business appears to have strong birthday sales (such as a cake business), create a database of customer's birthdays to send out reminders when the date next approaches to prompt them to purchase again; include handwritten thank you notes in your deliveries... The possibilities are endless. Personalisation makes the customer feel special, and when they feel like a VIP, they are more likely to be loyal to your store and return for another purchase.

So there you have it! The digital strategies of a retail giant, applicable for small eCommerce business owners. Boots have demonstrated that digital strategies don't have to be all about virtual reality and artificial intelligence and chatbots and other trippy technologies; instead, they are going back to basics, to ensure smooth and easy customer experiences. And we're so happy to hear this, as this is what Mpowering Solutions is all about: we believe that building a solid foundation is what is most important for your digital space.

If you feel inspired by Boots' back-to-basics approach but not sure where to start or how to proceed, get in touch and we can help you kickstart your digital journey with us.