Not so much for continuing to print new ones.
8% isn't huge, but it contributed to the majority of Sainsbury's overall growth in the period, and it's a massive turnaround for Argos given it's revenues have basically stayed about the same level for a decade.
In 2020 this increased from 19% to 28%, from £76b to £99b [1]
For Argos sales to only be up 8% in 2020, or £320m, isn't good, it took just 1.3% of the extra online sales. Remember also that Argos (on the whole) remained open for collection during the lockdowns inside of Sainsburys.
[0] https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/retailindust...
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/315506/online-retail-sal...
(the certificate has expired today; I’m trying to find who to alert about that)
GP has fond memories of a commercial brand, for a company, that should be priceless. He even intend to keep a catalog on his bookshelf, his kid will grow with an IKEA ad, for a company, that should be priceless.
Except that there is no such thing as "priceless" for a company. And they probably put a price tag on that, and decided that the "childhood memories" value is not worth the costs.