[3] Frasers modernised the store with the second and third floor being opened up to showroom space and adding of an elevator.

In 1938, it was merged by Frasers with neighbour Robert Simpson & Sons, who they had also purchased in 1936, to create Arnott-Simpson Ltd.[4][5] The two stores were reconstructed as one.

[6][7][8] Further department stores acquired by House of Fraser were successively re-branded as Arnotts during the 1970s and 80s, the trading name eventually being applied to the majority of the group's stores in Scotland.

These included stores of the former T. Baird & Sons group and two of House of Fraser's seven Edinburgh stores (including Patrick Thomson).

[9][10][11][12][13] House of Fraser closed its last remaining Arnotts store, that in Paisley (formerly Robert Cochran & Sons purchased 1964[14]), in January 2004.