The business that I have chosen is Argos, located on Holloway Road. Argos is one of the UK’s largest non-food retail company, which supplies nearly every thing that a house would need, pulse Argos has sales over 2bn per year. Argos is one of the UK’s largest non-food retail chains; with sales over 2bn. Argos is the number one retailer for toys and small electric appliances, and a leading player in many other markets including D.I.Y, gardening, consumer electronics and furniture. Argos also have a significant market share in jewellery, sports equipment, D.I.Y products and furniture. The company was funded in 1973 and was the pioneers of the catalogue retailing in the UK.
The company has gone through a lot of changes in the past, after nearly six years as a private company they were acquired by B.A.T industries limited in 1979, and then emerged in 1990. Argos became a limited company again until it was acquired by GUS plc in 1998. Argos is now part of the Argos retail group, owned by GUS plc. Argos has almost 500 stores throughout the UK and Republic of Ireland. Approximately 98% of thee UK population lives within 10 miles of an Argos store. Argos has invested 120m over the past four years in its supply chains. The Argos store that I have chosen is the Argos on Holloway road, it’s a superstore, and they call it a superstore because the store has a large capacity and can store a lot of goods in their store therefore customers can get the most thing that they need from the catalogue in one store and customers don’t need to go to different stores as well.
As a long time customer of Argos I fell that the quality of service is very good and is of a high standard. For example, they have a service where you can phone up and reserve your chosen item and find out if they have it in stock, you can even find what day they will be getting it in the store. Argos is to grow capacity and improve customer service in Argos direct, the delivery to home operation. Sales via Argos grew by 50% compared to last year. It accounted for 16% of Argos sales – up from 12% last year. Preparation for the construction of new Argos direct warehouse has started, with completion planned before the end of the current financial year.
Expectations of the company is very high, customers expect all products to be in store that they expect all products to be at a high quality standard. Argos have recently realized a new catalogue call “addition” this is a catalogue dedicated to cloths a new field that Argos has recently gone into, this is due to the fact that customers wanted to get cloths as the same way that they get their household appliances and furniture, is a very good way for Argos to make quick sales with their cloths but there are a few disadvantages of this method that are
1) The customers can’t feel the material of the product that they are buying. 2) Customers can’t see if there any damages on the product. 3) Customers can’t try on the cloths that they want to buy because Argos doesn’t have any changing rooms. Now Argos has adopted a new approach, they have a saying “try before you buy” this gives customers the flexibility to try a product they pay for it and from the main catalogue if you buy something and you don’t like it you can bring it back within 14 days and get your money back if you are not completely satisfied with your product. Recently Argos has changed their image, they adopted the brighter look, they accomplish this by making their stores more bright, brightening up the catalogue and even make their staff more lively, if you were to compare the styles from last year you will see a huge change, the main thing that customers noticed is a service with a smile.
The Holloway street branch of Argos is very different compared to the store in New Oxford Street. The store in Holloway Street is more for the local people and the store in New Oxford Street is for tourist because Oxford Street is well known as a good tourist attraction due to the fact that there is a lot more shops in that area of London and you can do all your shopping in one place.
There are many different types of customer that use the Holloway Road branch of Argos. For the Holloway branch there are two main characteristics of the customer, the local people and business people. The store is located in the centre of Islington and residential area of London. The business people are what are known as big spenders they prefer to spend more money on the same type of product at the residential people, because they feel that they are getting a product that is of a higher quality and lasts longer.
Spending by local people is very low compared to past years, this is due to high unemployment in this area, caused by the shutting down of many factories, where many people worked, but trade at Argos is high due to the factories being turned into offices where more high paid people have moved into, so therefore they are spending more money in the store so there is a balance. One group of customers are spending more then the other group and in this case it would be the business people spending the most money.
Argos is to grow capacity and improve customer service in Argos direct, the delivery to home operations. This is one of the main ways that Argos has identified to be what the customers want due to the fact that they feel that the service is good quality and convenient for all, this part of their main aims and objectives of the organisation because they feel that this is the way to go when it comes to the most convenient way to shop, they don’t only just have it through the net they also have service where you can order your goods via phone, in the shop and you can collect it when every it is convenient for you.
