A soling and heeling for Boots, or just another round of hunt the thimble?

Boots, Boots, Boots, Boots, moving up and down again — no discharge in the war …. Just another change of strategy and an alliance with Alliance. Perhaps it will work better than in-store chiropody. Salients have come and gone, casualties mount, the line is rectified, and commanders succeed one another like British generals in the Western desert. The new plan is to merge with Alliance UniChem, thus giving Boots even more chemists’ shops. Until now, armchair strategists — the High Street is full of them — have assumed that Boots has quite enough shops. Its trouble has been to know what to do with them. What would people rather buy from Boots than from Tesco? Sandwiches? Something for the weekend? Put like that, you might have expected a line of thought to suggest itself. Health has pushed its way up our list of obsessions and up our shopping lists, too. Have we ever spent so much time and money in pursuit of it, leaving aside the incredible sums that the National Health Service spends on our behalf and out of our pockets? How much of this money is now spent in Boots, and how much might be, given all Boots’ advantages — its trusted name, its battalions of pharmacists, its own brands, its own plant, its own laboratories? Surely Boots should be riding the boom? What prevents it? A refusal to play to its strengths, or something simpler — the hunt-the-thimble experience of shopping there? No other retailer goes to such trouble to keep its customers guessing. Is soap a bathtime accessory? Can we be tempted to buy a hot-water bottle on our way round? Nice try.

Good spot

Already Boots has chosen to discard from its strong suit. Boots Healthcare International, the manufacturing base, is up for sale, not as being surplus to requirements but as the easiest way of putting money into the disheartened shareholders’ pockets.