Argos to close more shops for good - with dozens of branches affected

22 February 2023 , 19:17

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Argos to close more shops for good - with dozens of branches affected

Argos looks set to close more shops for good as countless Brits will see their local branch shuttered.

The high street staple has made a major change to how it operates but this has handed a death sentence to a handful of its standalone stores.

These now are set to shut on high streets up and down the country, with one closing down in just weeks.

Argos’ owners, Sainsbury’s, have decided to have less of the solo stores and instead set them up within supermarkets.

The catalogue retailer is set to shut up their Coatbridge branch, in Lanarkshire, Scotland, in a matter of weeks, with it due to close down on Saturday, 11, March.

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Cardiff Bay’s Argos is then set to be the next to close, as it’s set to be shuttered in July but an exact date hasn’t been given yet.

This will be followed by the closure of the Argos in Newport, Wales, later in the summer.

This follows Sainsbury's already shutting two standalone branches last month.

Argos is owned by supermarket giant Sainsbury's who are moving more stores inside the food chain (PA)

On January 7, the Coventry City Arcade store switched off its lights for the final time and then just a week later the flagship store in Nottingham City Centre shut too.

They shut as a part of plans to close down 50 standalone branches by March this year.

But some locations that lost out, like Doncaster, then had branches reopen inside nearby Sainsbury’s and by the end of March the retailer hopes to have opened 25 new Argos inside supermarkets.

Then, one year later the grocer’s plan is to have 160 standalone stores and around 430-460 Argos counters inside Sainsbury’s supermarkets.

A number of Argos standalone stores are set to shut this year (SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

The latest closures come as the retailer has announced it will shut all 34 of its stores in the Republic of Ireland.

The chain will withdraw from Ireland completely on June 24, a decision it said it made following “careful consideration”.

It found that the investment required to keep developing the Irish side of its business was “not viable”.

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The last few years have seen the company cut back on stores, shutting 70 in 2019, and planning to open around as many within supermarkets.

It was a part of a wider strategy to shut 420 standalone Argos stores over three-and-a-half years.

Kieren Williams