Has anyone seen Boots are closing 290 stores across the UK?

[Soubriquet]

So frustrating. We only have 2 places to get prescriptions in my town if you can’t get them from the dispensary. One is super drugs, the other is boots. We used to have a Lloyds and a Lloyds in our sainsbury, but since they closed, they obviously closed too.

We aren’t on the list of store closures yet but something tells me it’s going to go under. I know it’s an expensive shop, but it is needed in our town

I think their prices are the real killer. No wonder they are shutting down. You can buy most things elsewhere for much cheaper. Crazy insane pricing. I think they got greedy.

My local Boots is awful. So many shelves empty, half the lights off, no tills open apart from the one on the pharmacy, massive queues to collect prescriptions as hardly any staff.

Boots is owned by the American chain Walgreens iirc. What’s it like shopping in a Walgreens ?

We have 3 big Boots with pharmacies & 2 little ones with pharmacies ( in a small city) plus many other independent pharmacies one of the big Boots has just had an upgrade to their pharmacy area. It would seem more fair to close 1 or 2 of ours and leave them in the areas where Boots is the only option. What mainly annoys me about Boots is that they stock about 30 different types of shampoo and at least the same again of conditioners ( which you can usually find cheaper else where) but very little traditional stuff like first aid supplies.

Walgreens are great.

We aren’t on the list of store closures yet but something tells me it’s going to go under

The store closures is surely a strategy to prevent this, though. Think of some of the biggest names to disappear from the high street - Woolworths, BHS, Debenhams. What did they all have in common? Excessive store estates, often with several stores in declining retail areas or that were poorly located (e.g. on a town’s traditional high street when everyone else had moved into the shiny new shopping centre). Boots also has way too many stores and it seems someone at the top has recognised this.

I think the poster saying the small stores will go has nailed it. While I’m not saying it’s a perfectly run business, someone at Boots realised a long time ago that services were where the money was - therefore stores where they can offer an opticians and a hearing aid centre are going to be way more attractive than those where there’s room for the pharmacy and nothing else.

I think it’s a good move for Boots. They’ve made bold moves before - they got out of physical media long before the likes of WHSmith realised it was going to die off; they ditched homeware when the supermarkets started doing it better. This could be another bold move that works.

This. The shops are dirty, old-fashioned and don't carry any of the stock I buy from them online. They haven't moved with the times at all.

The boots website/app is also really shit.

I'm more likely to use the small branch of Boots as it's more local, I walk past it on the way home from work so handy for picking up prescriptions and any emergency / last minute provisions. I couldn't even tell you the last time I went to the big one of the high street. I've just been in the mid-size one near work to get some painkillers and the store looked so run down, it was freezing cold and I think there was one other person in (even though they sell food and sandwiches and other places were packed with office workers).

Customer service was terrible at my local Boots because they were too busy chatting to their friends instead of serving the customers

Service and pricing at Boots is terrible. Most staff I’ve encountered have tried to be pleasant but they are just short staffed all the time. The only time I ever used it regularly was when I lived somewhere where Boots was my only option. And back in the late 80s when I bought their strawberry lip balm when I was at school.

My dd asked to go in a boots over the holidays, half the shop was bare, no lighting and the escalators to the 2nd floor with all the makeup and perfume weren’t working and no alternative to use. It was in stark contrast to Primark which was literally next door and packed, as was Superdrug a bit further down.

I now live in a small town with several pharmacies, my gripe with them though is they all have shocking access, big steps or multiple steps to gain access. Fine for me, not so fine when my DCs were in prams or for elderly or people with disabilities.

Not surprised. Ours is grubby with only a few staff and regularly posts that because of a shortage of pharmacists, they can't open.

Superdrug online service is quick and cheaper. I always try to support our local shops but on this occasion, I gave up on Boots.

Fine - bit like an out of town supermarket, but just filled with multiple toiletry aisles, is the best way I can describe it.

All pharmacies are struggling. The contract is a mess, dispensing fees static or falling. More expected for nothing. Medicines shortages getting worse and worse, my old shop has someone working full time on trying to find medicines for patients.
it’s not a surprise. Lloyds pulled out of Sainsbury’s and closed other stores.
Young Pharmacists prefer to work as prescribing advisors in GP surgeries to use their clinical skills and not getting abuse from people who are prescribed medicines in short supply or threatened by addicts.
Glad I’m retired really

It's definitely the smaller stores and duplicates that have been axed. We have several dotted around our very small city and there were 2 in our tiny city centre, less than 5 minutes walk from each other. The smaller of the two stores was no bigger than a typical community pharmacy and at one point, you couldn't even go on because part of the ceiling had collapsed, so staff took your prescription at the door. Yes, they were somehow expected to work in conditions that weren't safe for the general public. Unsurprisingly, that store has now closed.

They're downsizing some bigger stores, too. The big one in Newcastle City centre used to span 3 floors but the top floor closed a while back and last time I was in they closed the stairs and lift between the two floors meaning you either have to use the escalator or leave the store and use the lifts outside eg to shop from the mother and baby section, downstairs.

I live near a reasonable Boots which has usually got quite a few people in. The local Superdrug is the same but paying is slow as they're trying sell wipes or shower gel at the till.
The Boots pharmacy is terrible(can't comment on Superdrug one). DD used to have eczema creams prescribed and it took them days to do a prescription.
I'm now on regular meds and use an independent pharmacy who are so helpful and efficient.
Somethings needs to be done to retain pharmacists and pharmacies. We're advised to go tk the pharmacy for certain things, if they go, then even more demand for GPs and A&E.

It’s not a surprise.

The one in my town is small & gloomy, the shelves are always half empty and it has a weird atmosphere - like it’s always about to close (dim lights, nobody around)

Link?

Google?

^

😂

My thoughts too, bumcake

Really sad about this. The Boots near me has been completely denuded by shoplifters who threaten the staff.
I still use Boots.

I had to use a walgreens in summer is Seattle. I have to say it was well stocked, well organised, and huge! And plenty of staff on as well. Only downside was the prices were expensive compared to home. But that was the same across my whole trip and not exclusive to Walgreens.

I hadn't. Must admit the two tier pricing combined with disappearance of manned tills made me stop going in.

I haven't bought anything from boots in years to be fair. It never seems good value

I went to the large Boots in Nottingham recently. All the tills are now self service. So there's a bank of about 25 managed by one person. There was an issue on one machine which had two engineers on and the shop assistant looking on. Nearly walked out as I waited so long to actually get my self service machine working. I emailed Boots saying how annoyed I'd been but they just responded some thanks for that comment. Incredibly disappointed in them to be honest.

I ordered some stuff online from Boots last night. And remembered why I rarely do so. Their website is terrible and always has been.

I do like Boots and we have a quite a decent size one where I live in Nottinghamshire. They also have a very small pharmacy right next to the local health centre and that’s always busy as people can pick up their prescriptions without having to park again. The main Boots site is in Nottingham, my mate worked there for years. I wonder if the main site will suffer any job losses, it’s a big employer round here.

It's definitely the smaller stores and duplicates that have been axed. We have several dotted around our very small city and there were 2 in our tiny city centre, less than 5 minutes walk from each other.

I remember at one time Birmingham city centre had six! It was mad really.

I think a lot of it came from acquisition of smaller chains. I remember they bought a chain called Frosts when I was younger (not sure how big it was) and they converted all the stores, even when some were really close together.