Argos SHOULD by rights be successful, as they had large warehouses you could pick up from AND they had the necessary stock stores out back that was perfect for the same day deliveries (which at £3.99 is pretty good value). But, Sainsbury's decided to house them in store with a tiny amount of stock, so a lot of the orders can't be picked up there and then - you need to come back later the same day, or perhaps in a day or two.
If the thinking was that people are going to their local supermarket so why not offer extra goods they can get at the same time, they didn't think it through.
The website has always been poor at making it implicitly clear your order might not be ready straight away, and even those who keep double checking can find in rare cases that the item sells and what you thought was ready to pick up now isn't. It happened to me and it was bloody annoying as I ordered because I wanted it there and then.
I also had two items purchased that had been opened and returned. One had scribbles on the product, the other had batteries in a remote and a cable missing. Staff always say they never resell returned goods, but it's something that has happened to me with things from Argos over the last 30 years and I'm not that big a customer!
And the other thing that can't have worked well for Sainbury's was the different pricing to what the supermarket also sold. At my local WGC store, you can see a Habitat item upstairs and see the shelf-edge price at, say, £9.99 and then look at Argos and it's £7.99. Sainsbury's won't price match Argos (they always distanced themselves from the business as if they had nothing to do with Argos at all), so you would obviously then attempt to buy from Argos and go collect it - but there's no guarantee the item will be in stock. And given how small the space is, why is Sainsbury's doubling up anyway?
Long story short, Argos could and should be turned into a successful business if managed properly by people who understand the way we shop today - but I fear that it's private equity about to do what it does best, and Argos will be run into the ground even worse than under the current/last owners.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
Currys seems to have done an excellent job of reinventing itself to play on the Amazon fatigue (prices that are increasingly becoming uncompetitive, delivery issues, issues with returns (they make it ever harder to speak to someone to organise returns or deal with issues) and promote the ability to go and pick up the product same day a lot of the time. When Amazon is even wanting Prime customers to pay for early delivery and same-day deliveries are rarer than they were, it's sound business sense.
Argos needs to do the same. Be more Currys, less Amazon - perhaps opening standalone stores, but having less open space for people to stand around in, and become more of a showroom. We all remember them having some items in the queuing area and the jewellery bit, but I'm sure there's a way to bring the best of both worlds with those who are starting to return to shopping in real stores rather than get tat from Amazon, Temu etc, but sometimes need to order things that most ordinary shops, including supermarkets, don't stock.
I am not sure exactly how it would work, but I can't stress enough that Argos should be successful. More and more people are getting fed up of Amazon and want a viable alternative.
Last edited:
