Tompkins established Argos by evolving his existing Green Shield Stamps concept. Argos retained Green Shield Stamps' catalogue-store model, where customers browse from a book rather than from shelves.[6] In 1979, Argos was acquired by BAT Industries.[7] Over the years, it became a prominent trader in toys, jewellery, electronics, and home furnishings. In 1996, Argos expanded into Ireland.[8] In 1998, Argos was acquired by the GUS plc conglomerate and expanded to reach a peak of 800 standalone stores. GUS was later spun-off to form Home Retail Group, with Argos as its flagship retailer. From 2007 to 2009, Argos traded in India, and from 2011 to 2013, Argos traded in China.[9][10]
In 2016, Home Retail Group (including Argos) was acquired by Sainsbury's, which introduced Argos concessions in its main stores and Argos Collection Points in Sainsbury’s Local outlets. Since then, many standalone Argos branches have been closed, and the print catalogue has since been discontinued in favour of its consumer website, and integrating tablets within its stores.[11] In June 2023, Argos exited the Irish market due to poor trading conditions and high costs.[12]
As of September 2025, Argos has 664 stores across the United Kingdom, 211 of which are standalone.[13]
History
The company was founded by Richard Tompkins, who had previously established Green Shield Stamps in the United Kingdom. He came up with the idea that people could purchase goods from his "Green Shield Gift House" with cash rather than savings stamps. He rebranded the original Green Shield Stamps catalogue shops as Argos, beginning in July 1973,[14] the first purpose-built shop opening on the A28 Sturry Road, Canterbury, in late 1973. Green Shield House was in Station Road, Edgware.
Argos was launched with thousands of staff, taking £1million during a week in November.[15] Argos was purchased by BAT Industries in 1979 for £32million. In 1980, Argos opened its Elizabeth Duke jewellery counter (named after a director's wife) and by 1982, was the United Kingdom's fourth-biggest jewellery retailer. The Elizabeth Duke brand was later phased out, with products sold as "Jewellery and Watches".
The company was demerged from BAT Industries and listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1990.
In April 1998, the company was acquired by GUS plc.[17] A few months later, after a brief leadership stint under Stuart Rose, Terry Duddy became the new chief executive of Argos, serving in the role until 2014. In October 2006, it became part of Home Retail Group which was demerged from its parent company, GUS plc, with effect from 10 October 2006.[18]
In May 2002, Argos, along with rival retailer Littlewoods Index, was accused by the Office of Fair Trading of price fixing goods from toy manufacturer Hasbro.[19] The decision reached in 2003 resulted in Argos being fined £17.28million;[20] however, an appeal in 2005 led to that being reduced to £15 million.[21] Argos boss Terry Duddy gave evidence along with David Snow, Jonathan Ward, Alan Cowley, and Ian Thompson.[22] Argos and the other companies appealed to the Court of Appeal, which dismissed the case and ruled in favour of the Office of Fair Trading in October 2006.[23]
In July 2002, Argos sparked a political controversy in Scotland, when it dismissed several workers for refusing to work on Sundays.[24] This action would have been illegal in the rest of the United Kingdom, as the Sunday Trading Act 1994 gave shopworkers in England and Wales the right to refuse Sunday work (unless they were employed to work solely on Sundays).
The 1994 Act did not apply to Scotland; there was no legislation regarding Sunday trading applicable to Scotland. Although Argos later retracted its decision to sack the workers and to enforce a Sunday working clause in Scottish employee contracts,[25] its actions led to the passing of the Sunday Working (Scotland) Act 2003 which extended the legal right of employees to refuse Sunday working to include shopworkers in Scotland.
In February 2007, Argos opened five shops in Mumbai, India. Argos had a franchise agreement, run in conjunction with HyperCity; its Indian retail partner. In January 2009, Argos closed all its shops in India owing to poor sales.[26][27]
In February 2008, Chinese manufactured sofas from Argos and other retailers Land of Leather and Walmsleys were featured in a BBC Watchdog report on skin irritation.[28] The Chinese manufacturer, LinkWise, denied that the furniture was to blame for the incidents. Watchdog praised Argos for its speedy voluntary recall of the affected products, compared to the two other retailers involved. However, during a lengthy case ending in 2010, customers won compensation against the company.[citation needed]
In January 2009, the higher price that Argos charged for goods in Ireland, compared to the United Kingdom, attracted criticism.[29]
In October 2009, it was announced that the Argos visual branding would be undergoing changes from 2010. This began on 23 January, with the relaunch of the main shopping website, and a new logo. The websites claim to make shopping with Argos more accessible. The careers website, and the release of the Spring/Summer 2010 catalogue were also relaunched. The company expected that the rebranding process would take "a number of years",[1] at a cost of £70 million.[2]
In 2012, Argos withdrew from its involvement in the controversial Workfare scheme introduced by Prime MinisterDavid Cameron. Argos and its parent company Home Retail Group were heavily criticised by some for their involvement in the scheme failing to offer jobs to those who successfully completed the course. An internal company poster produced by Home Retail Group's owned Homebase, supporting unpaid work to boost profits was leaked to the public, and led to the discontinuation of Workfare by all companies within the Home Retail Group and several other major companies.[32]
In October 2012, Argos announced that they would close some of their catalogue shops in 2013. Thus fewer catalogues would be made available nationwide. This was decided after a significant profit fall, and also to boost the popularity of their online shop.[33]
In a later charity initiative, Argos teamed up with Barnardo's in a six-week campaign in the run-up to Christmas 2012 that raised £700,000 for the children's charity.[34] Under the scheme customers brought in unwanted toys to Argos or Barnado's shops in return for £5 Argos vouchers.[35] Argos passed on the unwanted toys it collected to Barnado's for sale in the charity's own chain of shops.
In January 2015, Argos took over the rights to sell the Cherokee clothing line from Tesco;[36] however, this was phased out in 2017 in favour of Sainsbury's own Tu brand of clothing.
In January 2016, the sale of sister company Homebase for £340million to Wesfarmers was announced.[37]
Argos Extra shop in Cambridge in 2008. The 'Extra' brand was phased out in 2010. As of October2025, some stores still use the Extra brand.
In April 2016, Argos' parent Home Retail Group agreed to a £1.4billion takeover by Sainsbury's, following a bidding war between the supermarket chain and South African conglomerate Steinhoff International.[38] The acquisition was completed on 2 September 2016.[39] A large number of UK high street and retail park shops were closed, replaced by an Argos outlet in a nearby Sainsbury's shop. When Sainsbury's announced in 2020 the closure of most Argos outlets in the UK, it was commented that the closure was an admission that its purchase of Argos had been a mistake; "Sainsbury's management clearly did not know how to run Argos and the plan to transplant into spare store space has not worked. ... Argos and Sainsbury's appealed to very different customer segments with little overlap."[40]
Since Sainsbury's acquired Argos, more and more standalone stores have been moved into a nearby Sainsbury's store. On 25 September 2019, Sainsbury's announced that more than 50 Argos stores would be closing or relocating in order to cut costs. Stores also began to feature digital computers (which are "wide-screen" touch-screens) as well as catalogues to save costs.
It was announced on 29 July 2020 that Argos would no longer print catalogues and would instead list its products online only.[41] Over the course of 93 editions, around 10million copies were printed per edition at its peak.[42] Despite this, Christmas catalogues and brochures throughout the year remain in print.
On 5 November 2020, Sainsbury's announced that it would close 420 Argos standalone outlets by March 2024, leaving about 100; together with other measures, 3,500 Sainsbury's jobs were to be cut and £600million saved. During 2020, 120 standalone Argos stores in the UK permanently closed. These measures were reported to be owing to changing consumer habits and the growth of online shopping.[40]
On 24 June 2023, Argos ceased its operations in Ireland, citing poor trading conditions, high rents, and a need for investment to modernise the business which was considered unviable.[43][44][45][46]
In June 2023, Argos closed its head office on Avebury Boulevard, Milton Keynes, and moved registered office to Sainsbury's head office in Holborn, London.[47][48]
On 13 September 2025, Sainsbury's was in talks to sell Argos to Chinese online retailer JD.com, claiming that "JD.com would bring world-class retail, technology and logistics expertise and invest to drive Argos’ growth and further transform the customer experience", though it also said that "no agreement has been reached and there is no certainty at this stage that any transaction will proceed".[49] A day later, it abandoned the sale.[50]
Argos operated a financial services price comparison website, in conjunction with BeatThatQuote.com.[51] In January 2012, ArgosCompare was taken offline, as it did not comply with new guidance issued by the UK Financial Service Authority.
Argos Credit Card
In August 2006, Barclays and Argos announced a joint venture to produce an Argos Credit Card (in the same year Barclays also joined with Thomas Cook).[52][53] Argos cancelled its contract with Barclaycard and a new Argos Credit Card was announced in 2012, this time in conjunction with Vanquis Banking Group.[54][55]
Argos Financial Services
Argos Financial Services (formerly Argos Credit and Insurance) provides credit to enable the cost of purchases to be spread over a defined period of time. Since the Sainsbury's takeover of Argos, the Argos Financial Services division has been part of Sainsbury's Bank.
ArgosTV
On 15 June 2011, ArgosTV was launched on Sky channel 642 and online.[56] On 25 October 2011, the channel was added to Freesat on channel 819.[57]
On 19 September 2012, ArgosTV launched on Freeview nationwide on channel 55 for a limited set of hours, as well as full-time in Manchester on channel 59.[58] As part of a reshuffle of the Freeview EPG, the Manchester version moved to channel 54 on 17 October 2012. Argos had leased the Sky EPG slot from JML Direct TV for 12months to trial the channel and also used JML's facilities in Kentish Town.[59]
The channel broadcast 24hours daily, and was produced by ETV Media Group, with four hours of live programming each weekday, and eight hours a day at weekends.[60] Viewers were able to purchase items and collect them from local Argos shops through the retailer's "check and reserve" service.
In 2013, the channel was removed from Freesat on 9 May, Freeview on 12 May and Sky the next day in order for Argos to focus resources in other areas. On Sky, it was immediately replaced with JML Living.[61]
HomeStore&More by Argos
In February 2007, Home Retail Group invested £10 million to purchase a 33% minority stake in Irish homeware chain HomeStore+More.[62][63] With this, the company announced that they would trial the chain in the United Kingdom, under the name of "HomeStore&More", of which Argos would operate and supply the stores. Five stores had opened altogether as part of the trial, located in Aylesbury, Abingdon, Cambridge, Harlow and Cheltenham.[64][65]
In February 2012, it was announced by HRG that the British stores would close, with the company stating that the trial hadn't proven profitable and didn't know where it would lead to.[66] The following year, in May 2013, HRG sold its 33% stake in the Irish business.[67]
HomeStore+More's owners attempted another UK expansion in 2018 with two stores in Scotland, but announced their exit in May 2025.[68]
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£4.23 billion (2024) [3] 
