Hello all 153,134 of you!
Thank you to the 201 people who emailed Boots asking the retailer to lower the price of period products in line with tampon tax ending - what a fantastic response.
Now, we need an answer.
To keep you updated, Boots contacted us last week to say a representative would ring us to discuss further. However they have failed to do so, despite us following up with them several times over the course of the week.
It would be amazing if you could tweet Boots, letting them know we are still waiting for an answer. You can do so by clicking on this link.
If you haven't yet emailed Boots, there's still time to do so! It would be incredible if we could boost the number of emails sent as this will strengthen our case.
Please find the email template below. Feel free to email this to Boots (Boots.CustomerCare_Team@boots.co.uk) and please cc' us into your email so we can keep track of the numbers for evidence (droptampontax@gmail.com).
Next week, we'll ask if you would like to send template emails to all other retailers so we can gain some more answers. Watch this space! Thank you once again for supporting and campaigning on this issue.
Have a lovely weekend,
Laura
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Subject: Boots: Tampon tax ended. Where is the price cut?
Dear Boots UK,
As you will be aware, in 2021 the UK Government removed all VAT from period products, following a successful campaign to end tampon tax, which was signed by over 300,000 people.
Yet, a report recently revealed consumers are yet to reap any financial benefit, as retailers have failed to drop the prices of period products in line with this tax ending. This report shows that while manufactures of period products have dropped their prices, retailers and supermarkets such as yours have not.
I have joined over 150,000 people calling on you to drop the price of your period products as soon as possible.
We know you care about your customers and that you are doing a lot to help during the cost of living crisis. In line with this, we are asking you to please:
Drop the price of period products in line with tampon tax ending and share with us your detailed plans for doing so, complete with a timeline
If you have already dropped your pricing, this is fantastic! Please prove this is the case by emailing droptampontax@gmail.com with detailed monthly pricing data for all period products from January 2020 to December 2021. If you dropped your prices at an earlier date, please provide this data covering a relevant time period. Once we confirm you have indeed dropped your prices, we will be able to showcase your store as a shining example, which others can follow.
We expect you to retain all of this data for your own purposes, and so we understand it will be relatively simple for you to obtain. We are also happy to sign an NDA and agree not to release any of the prices you provide to us, or indeed any confidential information relating to your stores other than the conclusion we reach from analysing the data.
We are working with the Tax Policy Associates to analyse this data and they are experts in handling datasets much larger than this, so we are well prepared to read this data once it is emailed to us.
We look forward to working with you to put this right and ensure the tampon tax ending benefits those it was designed to support: consumers.
As the Government used to generate £15m every year in revenue from tampon tax, we feel it is grossly unfair for retailers to turn this money directly into profit, when instead it should be converted to savings for consumers.
A government spokesperson recently told the Guardian: “We have kept our promise to scrap the tampon tax to make sanitary products more affordable, and urge retailers to pass the savings on to shoppers.”
We hope you share this vision and look forward to hearing back from you soon.
Yours sincerely,
[INSERT NAME]