4 ms·

Argos still exists?

by Normille 6y ago

Argos still exists?

doublerabbit 6y ago
Yeah. I use them instead of Amazon.
nicky0 6y ago
Yes and they do same day delivery now, pretty sweet.
tialaramex 6y ago
Sainsbury's bought it. One interesting consequence of that is, since newer Argos stores were now physically inside a Sainsbury's and Sainsbury's sells e.g. food that people need in order to live it was possible to purchase products from Argos (online obviously, they won't let you stand around looking at a catalogue like it's 1985 because there is a pandemic) and just collect them with your groceries, during the middle of lockdown. You can only buy essential products like bread, eggs, chewing gum... and a Nintendo Switch. I'm sure this didn't hurt the Argos side of the company compared to its competitors that were closed entirely. The main supermarket chain obviously did very well, it was even allowed to do stuff that's normally prohibited by competition authorities, since "Not starving the population" beats "Not encouraging monopoly abuse". For example suppose a small town has two small grocery stores. Normally it's illegal for either store to agree that the other can just supply everything to them and save sending twice the trucks of goods, because obviously that's not going to result in actual competitive behaviour. But during the worst of COVID-19 the UK government said "Do whatever it takes, we won't enforce those rules" and so my Sainsbury's had own brand goods from other major supermarket chains on shelves for a week or so, because it was just easier to ship all the frozen potato products (for example) for my district in one truck, and not worry about ensuring the brand on the product matches the sign on the store because it's all food and nobody wants to starve to death.
swarnie_ 6y ago
The click and collect to a local Sainsburys was a great adaptation. No more driving in to town, parking, fighting though crowds only to find the item isn't in stock. Now you just select the item you want and their "availability" time is based on how quickly they can shuffle stock around to your area. Its actually quite a nice experience.

Argos still exists?

doublerabbit 6y ago

Yeah. I use them instead of Amazon.

nicky0 6y ago

Yes and they do same day delivery now, pretty sweet.

tialaramex 6y ago

Sainsbury's bought it. One interesting consequence of that is, since newer Argos stores were now physically inside a Sainsbury's and Sainsbury's sells e.g. food that people need in order to live it was possible to purchase products from Argos (online obviously, they won't let you stand around looking at a catalogue like it's 1985 because there is a pandemic) and just collect them with your groceries, during the middle of lockdown. You can only buy essential products like bread, eggs, chewing gum... and a Nintendo Switch. I'm sure this didn't hurt the Argos side of the company compared to its competitors that were closed entirely. The main supermarket chain obviously did very well, it was even allowed to do stuff that's normally prohibited by competition authorities, since "Not starving the population" beats "Not encouraging monopoly abuse". For example suppose a small town has two small grocery stores. Normally it's illegal for either store to agree that the other can just supply everything to them and save sending twice the trucks of goods, because obviously that's not going to result in actual competitive behaviour. But during the worst of COVID-19 the UK government said "Do whatever it takes, we won't enforce those rules" and so my Sainsbury's had own brand goods from other major supermarket chains on shelves for a week or so, because it was just easier to ship all the frozen potato products (for example) for my district in one truck, and not worry about ensuring the brand on the product matches the sign on the store because it's all food and nobody wants to starve to death.

swarnie_ 6y ago

The click and collect to a local Sainsburys was a great adaptation. No more driving in to town, parking, fighting though crowds only to find the item isn't in stock. Now you just select the item you want and their "availability" time is based on how quickly they can shuffle stock around to your area. Its actually quite a nice experience.