The supermarket paid out £1.4bn for Argos and Habitat
Sainsbury’s is opening its 50th Argos outlet in store, the firm is looking to go up against its rival Amazon.
The firm bought Argos and Habitat for £1.4bn last year, it also said it’s set to reach its plans to roll out a further 200 Argos outlets.
The boss of Argos, John Rogers has said the firm still plans to keep its high street presence.
Argos has also announced that it will be turning 60 more of its UK stores into digital format, this means customers will order on an iPad rather than through the firm’s catalogue.
Rogers said the changes made as well as the Argos outlets within Sainsbury’s would not bring any job losses.
One of the reasons Sainsbury’s decided to buy Argos was for its delivery network as its looks to get goods to customers at a faster rate, much like rival Amazon.
The difference the group has compared with Amazon is that it has to pay vast amounts due to business rates, this bill reached more than £500m for Sainsbury’s, Argos and Habitat last year.
Rogers told the BBC: “We would ask government to radically reform business rates. It’s a very anachronistic tax in this very digital world,”
He also added: “That doesn’t mean to say we can’t compete with Amazon.”
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