News broke yesterday that Sainsbury’s plan to cut 3,500 jobs with the closure of 420 Argos stores and all of their meat, fish and deli counters.
“Argos sales grew by nearly 11% in the first half, with 90 per cent of sales originating online and almost two million customers re-discovering Argos despite standalone Argos stores being closed for 12 weeks. Building on this success we will accelerate the structural integration of Sainsbury’s and Argos and further simplify the Argos business model, making it more efficient and profitable and improving our customer offer at the same time.
120 of our standalone Argos stores have not reopened since we closed them back in March. These stores will now close permanently. We currently have 315 Argos stores in our supermarkets and 296 collection points across supermarkets and convenience stores. Over the next three years we will open up to another 150 Argos Stores in supermarkets and a further 150-200 collection points. In total, we will close around 420 Argos stores by March 2024, reducing the total number of standalone stores to around 100.”
– Sainsbury’s
What this means is a change for eBay Click & Collect, although the impact will be less than it would have been in the past – eBay added CollectPlus collection points and so are no longer totally reliant on Argos for the service.
Realistically in the short term, with the 120 Argos stores already closed in March that will now become permanent so consumers won’t have been used to collecting there anyway. What will make a bigger difference is reducing the number of standalone stores to around 100 although if the closed stores are in part replaced with collection points across supermarkets and convenience stores and these are opened to eBay it will be more a case of collecting from a different location rather than a total loss of local collection options.
7 Responses
In our area the local Argos store shut for Covid in March to protect staff.
Totally understand and respect that.
But they also took away the option of buying online from Argos, as our postcode area was always unavailable for online delivery too.
So have been using Amazon Prime since and am unlikely to go back.
I don’t think the Sainsburys takeover has done Argos any favours.
I wonder how long it will take eBay to update their list of available Argos store! I can imagine orders being sent to stores that shut!
We have disabled eBay Click & Collect in March and have not switched it back on since. It was planned to do this anyway since we had a stupid amount of issues with many non-Argos locations “misplacing” and refusing parcels (all within allowed ranges). The additional strain on our customer service was just not justifiable.
I used to get so many click and collects hardly ever see them anymore once in a blue moon but that is like getting a sale on eBay these days (well a decent one). Once they shut the Argos Standalone we have one Sainsburys store with a Argos covering nearly all of the Forth Valley and Trossachs.
Sainsburys have just looked at the figures and outwith Groceries the Homeware/electronics etc just does not make any money anymore, and all those Argos leases are not worth their money, another 400 odd empty stores in race to the bottom UK…a lot of staff will just move to the supermarkets.
90% of the time you find a product advertised on Google / or eBay and it is not available anywhere anyway and that must be frustrating for customers.
Sainsburys is concentrating on Groceries Online Now that is where their growth is, they even shut the counters in the supermarkets.
I closed my Ebay account a month ago, after spending 19 out of the last 21 years on there (a gap in 2004-2005 when I had nothing to sell and no money to buy) . One scammer buyer too many, and also one too many “blame Covid” eBaydiot seller who advertises items they don’t even send. Managed Payments was the last straw. Listed all my sale items elsewhere, found alternative specialist websites for all my regular online purchases, which always provide a more reliable service, Covid or not. Good riddance. They are so far behind Amazon it’s hilarious that they even think that they can compete.