The Unofficial Sainsbury's Thread

[Martin Phillp]

If more Argos stores move into Sainsbury's stores, I take it they'll have a small concession sized area in the store, while the Argos stock is in the main store room with the Sainsbury's stock?

[james2001]

Although it doesn't say so in that document, I think a part of the prize will be the ability to expand the dozen or so stores with an adjoining Homebase. Kingsway store in Derby must be crying out for this; always seems busy yet it still wears a combination of mid-90s stuff and Greenwich Blue.

The Greenwich Blue stuff still looks great 16 years on, mind.

I actually have some home video footage from inside that store that my aunt filmed back in 1991! Back in the days when the tobacco counter was outside the automatic doors, and the deli counter was in the middle of the shop floor (the latter of which isn't in the video, sadly, but I remember it!).

That store was actually refurbished twice in the space of only around a year as well, getting quite an extensive refurb in 1998- then another refurb around the same time they changed their logo. You can see the holes in the glass on the front where the "J SAINSBURY" sign was (briefly) attatched,

[Martin Phillp]

Tomorrow's The Times reports that Home Retail Group are in talks with an Australian company over the sale of Homebase, which would leave Sainsbury's to acquire Argos.

[james2001]

I dug out the video of the Sainsbury's Derby Kingsway circa December 1991, not brilliant quality, but then it is a 24-year old home video from a 2nd gen VHS. You can see the cigarette counter that was outside the automatic doors in the top 2 (which was further down the corridor in Will's 2nd picture- roughly where that photo was taken- before it was redevloped in 1998), the end of the "Good food costs less at Sainsbury's" sign above the checkouts in the third and the wonderful green & cream tiling in the fourth!



Also here we have an Argos that's in a unit that's attatched to a Tesco Extra, will be interesting to see a retailer owned by one supermarket in a unit owned by another supermarket!

[WillPS]

I dug out the video of the Sainsbury's Derby Kingsway circa December 1991, not brilliant quality, but then it is a 24-year old home video from a 2nd gen VHS. You can see the cigarette counter that was outside the automatic doors in the top 2 (which was further down the corridor in Will's 2nd picture- roughly where that photo was taken- before it was redevloped in 1998), the end of the "Good food costs less at Sainsbury's" sign above the checkouts in the third and the wonderful green & cream tiling in the fourth!



Also here we have an Argos that's in a unit that's attatched to a Tesco Extra, will be interesting to see a retailer owned by one supermarket in a unit owned by another supermarket!

Haha, those hexagonal produce displays bring back memories. Brilliant work digging that out, love it.

[james2001]

And the toddler in the trolley is now a mother herself, and I filmed her wedding video last year- how time flies, eh?

Wasn't hard to dig out that video when I digitised everything 3 years back anyway!

[Philip Cobbold]

It would be nice to see Homebase get a bit of love.

If this deal goes ahead, then it seems certain Sainsbury's will not be showing any love for Homebase and will not be hanging on to it.

Some more details of the proposal were released today (PDF), and whilst I'm sure a lot of research has gone on in the background, I think the Sainsbury's-Argos tie up still seems quite risky.

It will probably all come down to how well they handle the integration of product ranges (so many on page 9), logistics and IT systems. All whilst not taking their eye off the groceries market.

I was also surprised by the chart showing the apparent similarities between your typical Sainsbury's shopper v. Argos shopper.

Although it doesn't say so in that document, I think a part of the prize will be the ability to expand the dozen or so stores with an adjoining Homebase. Kingsway store in Derby must be crying out for this; always seems busy yet it still wears a combination of mid-90s stuff and Greenwich Blue.

The Greenwich Blue stuff still looks great 16 years on, mind.

The Greenwich Blue stores did look better when all the lighting pelmets round the walls were working. Sadly all the lights get removed from the pelmets when the stores get converted over to LED lighting, and the blue looks quite dull when it's not uplit. There's still quite a few blue stores floating about. My local store was refurbished about 18 months ago, and it was only then that the blue was painted over.

[thegeek]

why's it referred to as Greenwich Blue?

[Alexia]

why's it referred to as Greenwich Blue?

May have something to do with the much lauded and indeed now lamented Greenwich eco-store which opened in 1999, perhaps it was the first to carry the new branding / colour scheme?

[WillPS]

why's it referred to as Greenwich Blue?

May have something to do with the much lauded and indeed now lamented Greenwich eco-store which opened in 1999, perhaps it was the first to carry the new branding / colour scheme?

That's it. Although in reality the blue colour scheme and different coloured signs for different areas of store had been happening for a year or two before this - Greenwich Blue brought in the new branding and had everything replaced with Interstate. Greenwich was then the template.

Ashbourne in Derbyshire is (or until recently was) one of the stores which survive the pre-Greenwich Blue scheme (typified by the "take a fresh look" branding that was applied back then).

[james2001]

The strange period where they were using 2 different logos!



This one which popped up on adverts, carrier bags and the website, but I don't recall ever appearing on product labels or the main store signs (I do remember seeing some Locals with that logo though).