Boots online customers seek hair dye amid coronavirus lockdown

Boots has released a list of its fastest rising online searches during the coronavirus outbreak.

“With over 350 million searches on Boots.com every year, it's always a good yardstick to understand what consumers need,” Sophie Neary, Director E-commerce & Digital Retail Transformation at Boots UK & Ireland, said on LinkedIn.

“We expected our customers to keep choosing our site for all their healthcare essentials and online prescriptions as well as advice and information on the coronavirus.”

“But I'd be lying if I said we predicted just how important hair dye and hair maintenance would be to the nation during lockdown! Hair dye has been our top search term on Boots.com for the past three weeks now. Again proving that our theme of this new world is most definitely, we learn the way on the way.”

Rise of the cobots

Earlier this month, we reported that Nike had lent Boots nine of its cobots (collaborative robots) to help the retailer’s warehouse staff keep picking and packing for customers as the coronavirus intensified.

Boots remains open for business during these surreal times as it is considered to be an essential retailer. It has faced criticism for this, with some of its staff telling the BBC that they felt "unsafe" at work as customers continued to browse for hair dye and fake tan.

Some stores were still waiting for visors, face masks and gloves for pharmacy workers, others said. Boots stated it was doing whatever it could to protect its staff and customers, including reduced opening hours and closing at certain points during the day for deep cleaning.