Boots battles grocers for festive sales

Boots is to step up competition with supermarkets and high street rivals in the run-up to Christmas by launching a blitz of weekly promotions, offering large discounts.

The first promotion, a “buy one get one free” offer on pre-pay mobile phone packages worth &£69.99 and &£79.99, began at the end of last week and is the first time Boots has applied this offer to mobile phones.

The promotion is running across 300 stores in every city in the UK, and is expected to last until November 15, but a spokeswoman says some stores may run out of stock.

Every week a new promotion will be launched covering electrical products such as hairdryers and tongs, cameras, beauty products, and gift foods such as chocolates and biscuits.

The mobile phone offer has been promoted with press, radio and instore advertising. Each weekly offer will also receive advertising support.

A Boots spokeswoman says not every offer will be “buy one get one free”.

Research by Verdict published this week reveals that grocers and supermarkets’ share of the &£11bn health and beauty sector has overtaken that of the specialists such as Boots and Superdrug for the first time.