Index (retailer)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Index was a catalogue retailer in the United Kingdom, purchased by rival Argos in 2005.

Index was formerly owned by retailer Littlewoods, with many Index stores attached to Littlewoods stores as well as several (around 60) stand-alone Index branches. It was a well-known retail outlet in the 1980s and 1990s but after sales began to decline in the early 2000s, its popularity became disputable and it was losing many of its customers in favour of its rival, Argos.

During their 20-year history, Index lost £100 million [1], eventually causing parent company Littlewoods to sell the stores. Argos purchased the brand and the stand-alone properties to integrate them into the main Argos group.

[edit] Similarities to Argos

Both Argos and Index issued catalogues containing very similar items, although Argos had more appeal to the UK market than Index in the latter years.^{[citation needed]} They both had jewellery counters, stock checkers, the same basis of catalogue slips and the same type of organisation, with the customer having to state catalogue numbers when ordering products from the tills.

[edit] Differences from Argos

Index was seen^{[attribution needed]} to have slight differences from its stronger rival. Often Index stores were situated inside Littlewoods stores, either upstairs or below ground level. This proved inaccessible compared to Argos stores, which have ground-level shop floors. Index stores were seen^{[attribution needed]} to be smaller than Argos stores as there was a smaller product range.

Index also often placed many of its clearance and discontinued items out on the shop floor ready for immediate collection by customers. This is in contrast to Argos, as they advertise most of their clearance stock in a separate 'mini' catalogue rather than place it on the shop floor.^{[citation needed]} The clearance items in Argos are therefore purchased in the same way as normal items, however in Index this was not the case.

[edit] Closure

Since rival Argos had taken over the business in 2005, the number of Index stores has been decreasing rapidly. There are now no Index stores left in the UK, and the brand is defunct [2]. All of the former Index stores have been either converted to the Argos format, sold to other retail chains (an example of this includes the former Index store in Swansea, where both Littlewoods and Index were sold and the same property now hosts a large Primark store [3]), or simply closed and the lease surrendered.