The health and beauty giant opened its doors in Nelson Place for the first time on Thursday.
‘We decided about four or five years ago that we'd like to open here, shortly after we opened in Jersey, but Covid hit and knocked us back for a couple of years,’ said Superdrug CEO Peter Macnab.
‘We’ve always looked at Boots like being your mum, and we like to think of Superdrug as more like your sister.
‘We always try to deliver fantastic value for money, we’ve been in business for 61 years and our heritage is value for money. We’ve got a number of stores in different islands and people seem to really appreciate the value.’
The new Guernsey store has a beauty studio inside, offering brow and lash treatments including, threading, waxing, tinting and brow lamination.
Teresa Le Prevost, who has more than 30 years’ experience in retail, is leading a team of about 15. The store is open seven days a week.
The Superdrug team began the search for an appropriate store last July, and chose Nelson Place due to it being 3,700sq ft, and while it is on two levels, it has a door onto Smith Street on each level.
He added it had taken a huge amount of work to transform it into Superdrug and the team had done a fantastic job.
A section by the tills is dedicated to trending and viral products and Mr Macnab said that social media has a huge impact on trends.
Superdrug’s own makeup brand Studio London recently had a setting spray go viral, and continues to sell one every minute across all of its stores.
‘As soon as TikTok jumps on a product, it goes crazy, it doesn’t really matter the product, a lot of the time it’s beauty but there’s some health products, the amount of vitamins that are driven by TikTok is a lot. It can be a challenge in retail when a product goes viral,’ he said.
Islanders can also get their hands on a health and beauty card for exclusive member pricing.
During a four-week promotion period, Superdrug gives away more than £3m. worth of products and 347,000 units of products.
‘What’s unique about this store is that it's walk-in, unlike most places you don't have to book,’ said beauty services operations manager Ayo Nuga.
Over the next few weeks, the piercing service will be introduced in time for the summer holidays.
‘The first two weeks are really busy because parents want their kids earrings to heal before they go back to school,’ she said.
‘Also about halfway through the summer holidays there’s another rush because we have an express healing solution to heal piercings quicker.’
The Jersey store has the complete beauty studio, with hairdressing and nail services. This is something that Mr Macnab would like to introduce in the Guernsey branch, however it took several years in Jersey to get to that point.
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