THE NEWS THAT Argos plans to shut up to 75 stores to move towards a more online offering dominated their half-year results announcement yesterday. (They don’t yet know if Irish stores will be included in that number).
What might have gotten lost in the report is the fate of the doorstep-sized Argos catalogue. Home Retail Group, which owns Argos, said in their report that they were moving “from a catalogue-led business to a digitally-led business”.
It’s down to the customers who, they say, are showing a shifting preference from stores and catalogues to “digital channels”. Argos is now the UK’s second-biggest online retailer.
So where does that leave the Argos catalogue? Into a “supporting role”, says the report. By January, they will start testing the release of a much smaller catalogue which tells you to go online to check out the full range of the company’s products.
The sheer weight and girth of the catalogue is one of the things we’ll miss most about it. Sure, it was a pain to carry out of the store, but the hours of scouring and wish-listing when you got it home was worth it.
What else will we miss about the Argos catalogue?
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