Argos Limited is a British retailer operating in the United Kingdom online and through catalogues, and formerly in Ireland; it was acquired by Sainsbury's supermarket chain in 2016.

[7][8] 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.

[12] 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.

[16] In April 2016, Argos' parent Home Retail Group agreed to a £1.4 billion takeover by Sainsbury's, following a bidding war between the supermarket chain and South African conglomerate Steinhoff International.

The Argos shopping process had involved completing a small order form with the catalogue numbers of the desired items.

On 25 September 2019, Sainsbury's announced that over 50 Argos stores would be closing or relocating in order to cut costs.

During 2007, Home Retail Group launched a trial of five Homestore & More shops in England, situated in Aylesbury, Abingdon, Cambridge, Harlow and Cheltenham.

[citation needed] Argos operated a financial services price comparison website, in conjunction with BeatThatQuote.com.

[41] 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.

[42] Argos is the registered owner of a number of brands, which feature on a substantial number of products contained within the catalogue, including: Challenge,[43] Visiq,[44] Pro Action,[45][46] Cookworks,[47] Beanstalk,[48] Pro Fitness,[49] Opticom,[50] Grosvenor,[51] Steamworks,[52] Aquarius,[53] Coolworks,[54] Elevation, Acoustic Solutions, Mega Games and the now defunct Elizabeth Duke.

[55][56] In January 2009, Argos also struck a deal to take over the brands Alba, Bush,[57] and Chad Valley.

Stores that received a "fully-digital" format since 2016 have grey colour schemes, new "wide-screen" touch-screens, new store layouts which saw the removals of the payment desks and self-service kiosks (customers can now self-checkout directly at the order point, but they can also checkout at the collection point if they made an item reservation at another store or if they have been given a replacement of a "faulty" or "wrong" item that had to be returned), the removals of order forms and pencils (which replaced the old blue pens in 2010 as an early attempt to reduce plastic), and faster pending times for item collections.

This event was known internally as a Cat Launch, and individual stores quite often held party-like festivities to drum up public excitement.

These terminals gave customers the ability to check stock availabilities for items in-store rather than on the phone at home.

[69] Argos passed on the unwanted toys it collected to Barnado's for sale in the charity's own chain of shops.

In July 2002, Argos sparked a political controversy in Scotland, when it dismissed several workers for refusing to work on a Sunday.

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.

[74] Argos boss Terry Duddy gave evidence along with David Snow, Jonathan Ward, Alan Cowley, and Ian Thompson.

[76] 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.

Watchdog praised Argos for its speedy voluntary recall of the affected products, compared to the two other retailers involved.

[citation needed] In January 2009, the higher price that Argos charged for goods in Ireland, compared to the United Kingdom, attracted criticism.

[78] In 2012, Argos withdrew from its involvement in the controversial Workfare scheme introduced by Prime Minister David 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.