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Sainsbury’s will introduce five Mini Habitat concessions within Sainsbury’s stores over the coming months.
Ranging in size from 1,400sq ft to 2,000sq ft, the concessions will sit alongside and complement the supermarket chain’s own homeware and cookware ranges.
The Mini Habitat stores will include more than 600 products – all designed in-house by the Habitat design team in London – with a range of price points across homewares, furniture, upholstery, lighting and textiles.
Habitat managing director of Clare Askem said: “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 multi-channel business strategy – is a really exciting prospect.
“I’m confident our brand will connect with Sainsbury’s shoppers and make Habitat more accessible to shoppers both on the high street and online.”
Meanwhile, Sainsbury’s will add Argos digital concessions to 20 more of its stores by Christmas, bringing the total to 30. Varying in size from around 1,000sq ft to over 5,000sq ft, the Argos digital stores will offer customers a choice to either buy instantly in-store via tablets, or to reserve online for same-day collection.
John Rogers, chief executive of Sainsbury’s Argos, said: “Argos is one of the UK’s leading digital retailers. We know customers value the convenience of shopping for Argos products whenever and wherever they want, and we are pleased to be quickly rolling out 20 more digital concessions in Sainsbury’s stores before Christmas.”
These developments follow on from Sainsbury’s acquisition of Home Retail Group – the owner of Argos and Habitat – which was completed on September 2.
Mike Coupe, chief executive of J Sainsbury plc, said: “This is the start of an exciting new phase for Sainsbury’s, Argos and Habitat.
“I’m delighted to be able to quickly capitalise on the benefits of our combined group, by opening more Argos digital concessions in our stores and introducing the Mini Habitat format to our customers.
“Being able to shop across all three brands under one roof will make our customers’ lives even more convenient and offer them incredible choice.”
He added that the combination of Sainsbury’s and Home Retail Group creates one of the UK’s largest food and non–food retailers, offering customers more than 90,000 products in over 2,000 stores, employing 195,000 staff across the UK and Ireland.
