Sainsbury's launches Mini Habitat and rolls out more Argos concessions

The supermarket giant, which officially sealed the £1.4bn deal on Friday, will open five Mini Habitat stores “over the coming months”, ranging from 1,400 sq ft to 2,000 sq ft in size.

As part of its drive to make better use of excess store space, Sainsbury’s will also roll out more Argos digital shop-in-shops at 20 of its larger stores by Christmas.

The move will take the total number of Argos concessions in Sainsbury’s stores past the 30 mark.

Sainsbury’s said the newly created Habitat shop-in-shops will “complement” the retailer’s existing homeware and kitchenware ranges.

The Mini Habitat stores will stock more than 600 products across the furniture, upholstery, lighting, homewares and textiles categories.

Until today, Sainsbury’s had remained tight-lipped about its plans for Habitat, which it acquired as part of the deal to buy Home Retail Group – which has since been renamed Sainsbury’s Argos.

The new Argos digital stores will follow the same format that Sainsbury’s has already piloted in some of its larger supermarkets.

The concessions, ranging from 1,000 sq ft to around 5,000 sq ft in size, will allow shoppers to use tablet displays to purchase goods instore via tablets, or to reserve products for same-day collection.

“Sainsbury’s offers the Habitat brand significant growth potential.”

Clare Askem, Habitat

Sainsbury’s chief executive Mike Coupe said the new concessions marked “the start of an exciting new phase” for the three fascias.

Coupe added: “Being able to shop across all three brands under one roof will make our customers’ lives even more convenient and offer them incredible choice.”

Habitat managing director Clare Askem added: “Sainsbury’s offers the Habitat brand significant growth potential.

“We’ve seen our brand evolve rapidly over the last few years and the opportunity to create a network of local stores to support our multichannel business strategy is a really exciting prospect.”