Analysis: Argos was internet shopping before the internet

It is as intrinsic to the 1980s as Tupperware parties and sausages on a stick.
Argos catalogues were iconic.Argos catalogues were iconic.
Argos catalogues were iconic.

Now, Argos’ owner, Sainsbury’s, looks set to put another nail into the coffin of the brand as we know it - by closing 420 of its 570 stand-alone stores as it unveiled a £137m half year loss across its operations, which were hit hard by closures due to lockdown and “market changes”.

Argos has always been a peculiarly unique shopping concept. Fat catalogues containing literally hundreds of items were available for customers to browse - either in store or in the comfort of their own home - then, once they had decided what to buy, they inputted a code into a calculator-style device to check whether it was available.

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If it was, the customer would pay for it at a till, then take a number and wait for an assistant to bring the item to them from a vast, Amazon-style warehouse out the back.

Now under the ownership of supermarket giant Sainsbury’s, it no longer made sense for Argos stores to be stand-alone entities.

Sainsbury’s has already made it clear that it needs to bring Argos kicking and screaming into the 1st century. Last year, it announced that the catalogue - much beloved of children of the 1980s, who would pour over it with a marker pen in search of presents to put on the list for Santa - would no longer be published.

Yet, it is not that the brand is doing badly - far from it.

According to Sainsbury’s latest figures for the 28 weeks to 19 September, sales at Argos were actually up by nearly 11 per cent, despite its stand-alone stores being closed for lockdown. The concessions within the supermarket, however, were allowed to be open, for click and collect and more standard online retailing. It said that the “flexibility of the Argos supply chain and digital platform” meant the firm was able to fulfil a 78 per cent increase in sales ordered online as people stacked up on office goods and entertainment products as they settled into lockdown in March.

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The 420 standalone Argos stores – including the 120 that had not reopened since they were shuttered in March - will close by March 2024, although Sainsbury's said it would open 150 Argos outlets in its supermarkets - and a further 150 to 200 collection points in other locations, signalling that it sees the brand very much as an integrated part of its supermarket operations.

While the demise of the iconic catalogue caused some to shed a few nostalgic tears - not least Stirling University retail professor Leigh Sparks, who owns one of the few complete collections of the tomes from the very first one, published in 1973 - there is no doubt that Sainsbury’s is doing the right thing.

Argos, arguably, was before its time. It was internet shopping before the internet existed - doing away with the need for expensive shop floor space and creating a click and collect service without the click.

Now, however, everyone else has caught up and for Argos to survive in the modern world, it needs to compete in a modern way.

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