With just a few days to go until the biggest shopping event of the year, Argos is gearing up its online channels, stores, distribution network and people to be ready to fulfil demand for the thousands of deals it is offering to UK shoppers for Black Friday 2015.
The retailer expects this year’s Black Friday to be another mobile-led event with shoppers on smart phones and tablets leading the bargain frenzy, after a staggering two thirds of Argos shoppers snapped up Black Friday deals using smart phones and tablets in 2014.
This year, overall Argos will release thousands of deals on its websites and apps to celebrate the Black Friday shopping season. Its 12 day Black Friday event launched on Friday 20 November, which included ‘3 for 2’ on toys and amazing deals on videos games, 4K TVs and cameras, with some reductions at less than half price. More deals are being added in the run up to the day itself. A select number of highly competitive ‘When It’s Gone, It’s Gone’ (WIGIG) deals will launch in the early hours of Black Friday, followed by more bargains throughout December.
Chief Operating Officer at Argos, David Robinson, said: “Customers can get great deals on everything they want for loved ones or themselves this Christmas. We can also help them get their hands on items fast, in the way they want.
“We know an increasing number of customers want to be able to snap up deals whenever and wherever they are, using smart phones and tablets whether it’s in front of the telly or on their way to work, so we’ve made this as easy as possible for them. Our Fast Track collection and delivery and Check & Reserve services enable them to secure the product they want online and avoid the Black Friday rush if they choose.”
On the high street, Argos has recruited an additional 9,000 temporary workers to help serve customers in its 800+ stores over Christmas. On Black Friday itself, they will be joined by hundreds of head office workers helping out on the shop floor.
To get the deals and top products out to stores and customers’ homes, Argos’ 11 enormous distribution centres covering a total of 5.4 million square feet of floor space will have 6,100 warehouse workers and 1,000 delivery drivers, supported by 3,000 Fast Track drivers based at local stores, dispatching millions of gifts over Black Friday and beyond. High-demand products being ferried across the UK this Christmas using a fleet of 1,800 lorries and Fast Track vans include wearable tech such as FitBit, Nutribullets, 4K TVs, Xboxes and games such as Call of Duty, and hot toys for 2015 such as Star Wars, Lego and Thunderbirds Tracy Island.
Customers UK-wide shopping for deals on Black Friday will be able to take advantage of Argos’ innovative new same-day home delivery service, Fast Track. Same-day delivery slots will be offered to customers on a first-come, first-served basis, with subsequent days’ slots offered once Black Friday’s delivery schedules are full.
In 2014, Argos saw more than 13.5m visits to its web channels on Black Friday, up 197 per cent from the previous year. This year it expects to see a repeat of last year’s unusual shopping patterns as consumers stayed up to shop into the wee small hours to snap up the best deals as soon as they launched. There were more than half a million of visits to the Argos website between 1-2am in 2014.
In 2014, Argos’ peak hour for orders was 2–3pm with an average of eight orders a second. On average per minute Argos sold 14 VAX steam mops, nine Scooby Doo Hide and Seeks and seven iPad Mini Wi-Fi 16GBs.
Argos.co.uk and its mobile site and apps received around 900 million visits in the last financial year making Argos the UK’s largest high street retailer online. Around 45 per cent of all Argos sales are online, with sales through mobile devices now representing 25 per cent of total sales.
