Argos has fully integrated their Fast Track Pick Up service on eBay. They are selling the same range of full price in season products that they have in their catalogue and offering the same Fast Track collection service as they do on their website.
This is significant for a number of reasons. Firstly eBay has been begging high street retailers to put their entire inventory on eBay for many years. Too often retailers still use eBay in the manner of it’s unfortunate ‘Fleabay’ moniker. They’re happy to list their off-price, end of season, returns, end of line and even damaged or refurbished goods on eBay. What they don’t do is put their in season full price goods on the site.
Argos are putting their prime stock on eBay, not only that but they’re now offering a speedy collect from your local store within sixty seconds service, the same Fast Track service you can get from Argos on their own website.
There is no reason other retailers can’t follow suit and put their full in season range on eBay. Argos however have a unique advantage in that they partner with eBay to run their Click and Collect at Argos service, so any of the 20,000 products available at every Argos store can be made available on eBay for collection across the whole country (or at least as close as your nearest Argos store).
We’re still waiting to see what will happen with Argos and their merger and acquisition dance. Will Sainsbury’s (who Argos already partner with for in-store concessions) £1.3bilion offer be enough or will rival bidder South African retailer Steinhoff and their £1.4billion offer win out. This week is supposed to be the deadline for a decision.
It’s strange to think that a ‘warehouse with a trade counter’ business where consumers could never see the goods before they purchased model, that once seemed so quaint with mum, dad and the kids poring over a catalogue at home, now has the potential to turn into the hottest property on the high street and is actually the future of ecommerce.
Where once Argos was an oddity and a hangover from pre-internet catalogue days, now their ability to integrate just about anything online and deliver faster than Royal Mail (and in most areas of the country way faster than Amazon) is still a pipe dream for many retailers, who would love to offer the service. For most retailers, Argos’ current capabilities are still a far distant goal for the future rather than a reality today.
9 Responses
Hopefully the hidden selling limits apply to them the same way as to everyone else.
I’m struggling to see why a customer would buy new/pristine product from Argos via eBay? Personally I’d go directly to the Argos site, cut out the middleman and an extra layer of complexity that could potentially go wrong.
Maybe they’re trying to improve their 98.8% feedback score….
I remember seeing items on eBay sold by Argos that were not eligible for collection at an Argos store.