Argos has built its retail offer around making things easy and convenient for shoppers. Whether customers visit online or go to a store, they are highly likely to find the items they want, and to be able to get hold of them, via delivery or collection, as quickly as on the same day.
Because the £4.1bn-turnover Argos has a vast range – in the year to 28 February 2015 it added about 11,000 lines, extending its offer to 60,000 general merchandise products – it is visible across a wide variety of categories in search. InternetRetailing Knowledge Partner OneHydra found the retailer had a search reach of 52%.
Because of this strong performance, shoppers are more likely to find an offering from Argos than from other retailers when searching for a specific product. Thanks to an innovative hub-and-spoke logistics model, customers can choose from about 20,000 products for same-day delivery to a local store or to the home, whether ordered via a mobile device on the move, or from a desktop computer at home or work. Today, there are also more potential collection points through the opening of smaller-format digital stores in locations such as the London Underground and branches of Sainsbury’s.
The retailer has in recent years looked to broaden its reach to connect with better-off customers by offering more aspirational products. In its 2015 full-year results statement, it stated that it had set out to appeal to a broader demographic through marketing and advertising, including a Get Set, Go Argos campaign. Post-campaign research found that more shoppers said they were likely to buy from Argos as compared
to the previous two years.
“Customers’ attitudes towards products, breadth of range and quality have all improved,” the retailer said in the statement. Argos also brought eBay customers into its stores, and 5m eBay parcels have been picked up from stores since the launch of a click-and-collect in 2013.
InternetRetailing research shows Argos moves smoothly from early contact into regular engagement, which enables it to develop strong ongoing relationships with those who have already bought. Analysis shows that Argos customers are highly likely to open its emails – the retailer scored 35% for email reads, the highest proportion of any trader studied – while 3.8% were deleted without reading, again better than any other in the study. That’s perhaps helped by a relatively low number of emails sent – a little more than 10,600 in the month analysed – compared to other retailers.
InternetRetailing research found Argos had a high level of brand engagement in social media too, with around 1m Facebook Likes, and more than 7,300 people talking about the brand on its page at the time of analysis.
