Boots opened in October its first fragrance-only boutique store in London, UK, following more than two years of development. The store features 400+ luxury and niche scents across almost 200 square metres of retail space, offering shoppers immersive experiences, premium concierge services, luxury gift-wrapping and expert consultations. Products include well-established fine fragrances like Tom Ford Private Blend, Balmain and Hermès as well as founder-led and independent niche brands like Gallivant, BeauFort London and TOBBA, with over 20 brands entirely new to Boots. The retailer has also launched a ’Fragrance Hub’ on its website, enabling customers nationwide to shop the range featured in-store.

According to the retailer, the store opening marks a “significant milestone” for Boots and reinforces its position in the UK beauty retail market.

Commitment to the high street

“We are well known as being a key retailer on the high street,” said Grace Vernon, head of global foresight and trends at Boots. “We’ve definitely continued to invest in the high street; we’re committed. And this store launch shows we’re continuing to commit to the high street and that we see huge value in those in-real-life environments,” Vernon told Premium Beauty News.

And this is particularly the case for fragrances, she said, which is a category seeing somewhat of a “resurgence”, driven by TikTok and other online platforms. It is also a category set to contribute significantly to wider beauty market growth in the coming years, according to Euromonitor International data, she said, with fragrance set to drive 23% of overall beauty growth between 2024-2029.

Vernon said Boots, therefore, wants its fragrance store to provide an “accessible” space for consumers to learn more and immerse themselves in the world of fragrances.

Chelsey Saunders, director of fragrance at Boots, said the store is certainly designed to achieve this.

Expert-led, accessible and genderless

“One thing we are extremely proud of are the fragrance specialists working in the shop – they’ve gone through elevated training on scent profiling, scent matching, personalised meetings, and it’s all free-of-charge,” Saunders said.

Importantly, she said the Boots Fragrance Store has been designed to remain accessible to a wide range of high street shoppers and is not a “super high-end” space. Prices, for example, start at £20 and move right through to the luxury and niche price tags. The store also has an array of samples and trial sizes to give extra accessibility but also tap into the fragrance wardrobing and layering trends.

The entire boutique is also “genderless” and designed for shoppers to engage with all brands and products in a more fluid and personal way, Saunders said.

“We’re always trying to attract new consumers, of course we are, as well as honing in on the consumers that love Boots and give them a different service and different environment. I think we’ll learn a lot from this boutique.”

Asked if Boots planned to open more fragrance-only stores, the executive said: “It’s too early to say, unfortunately. We need to prove the concept.”

However, Saunders said the concept store is certainly part of a wider beauty strategy at Boots and will continue to evolve based on market data and feedback.

’A big transformation journey’

“We’ve been on a journey–a big transformation journey–when it comes to beauty,” she said.

Back in 2023, Boots opened its first beauty-only store in Battersea, London, where it tested a range of innovative in-store initiatives. And its focus on dermatological skincare and related free walk-ins proved hugely successful and has since been rolled out as a service across the wider Boots network. In 2024, Boots also trialled a more elevated look and feel across fragrances–stocking more niche brands and changing the look and feel of in-store displays–and this has also now been rolled out to almost 30 stores, she said.

The latest fragrance-only concept store, therefore, will be an important space for future ideas and engagement strategies to be developed by Boots across fragrances, she said.

“Fragrance will continue to be a strategic pillar within our beauty strategy,” Saunders said. And looking ahead, the retailer will continue to closely track trends here, she said, including mood-boosting and emotional fragrance use, which continues to be an “interesting space”.

Vernon agreed “moodscaping” and using fragrances to “showcase personality” and “manage wellbeing” are certainly key trending areas in the category.

“Boots is the number-one destination for perfume in the UK,” Saunders said. “Opening the boutique reaffirms our position as the number-one and shows a big intention from an investment point of view into fragrance.”