Argos to close all Irish stores starting March

AllForIt

Was expecting this for some time. My local Argos is always dead. I didn't even notice it being particularly busy over xmas when it would be packed in years gone by.

What I used to mostly purchase there would be electronic items but in recent years I do that online now because of greater selection and cheaper prices.

walterking

The maudling by some people is just hilarious.

Over half the staff were part time, all will get very generous redundancy and I suspect all will be working with another retail/service company the week after they finish.

I think the staff are winners here.

As for the stores, most are in good locations and good size and there are plenty of retailers looking to take the space and many locations will have several contenders.

So stop the maudling and enjoy the probable closing down sale without any guilt

walterking

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120130603#Comment_120130603

Very obvious that you haven't a clue about retail. Almost every prime retail space is occupied in Ireland

Retail is the #1 pastime of Irish people.

Boring retail where you order on a gadget in a store and wait as a conveyor belt brings your goods that you cannot see before buying, are not what people want

road_high

I’m interested to see what goes into the vacant stores. Can see the Kilkenny one being snapped up as it’s a biggish unit in the High st which rarely come up

The Cork stores are in *very* busy retail parks, so I would assume someone will snap those spaces up.

They left the city centre a long time ago.

The units are probably bigger than they look as they’ve a lot of stock room areas.

road_high

I remember about maybe 6/7 years ago they had a nice display of foodie things (costa coffee etc) at Christmas in the window and I went and asked the pretty clueless staff member told me I’d have to order it and that was only a display- a fcukin nuts way to not sell something to you in prime retail space!

They seemed very reluctant to use that prime space to do what any retail must do- SELL things!

Atlantic Dawn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120131609#Comment_120131609

My point was not a single business will take all 34 stores.

Strumms

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120131595#Comment_120131595

i think loosing the convenience of Argos is the main issue, not the staff per say.

i don’t anticipate much of a closing down sale. Stock can / will just be moved to their British shops.

Photobox

I remember in the early nineties you couldn't buy anything electrical like tv's in the argos store in my home town, the items details were blacked out in the catalogue , i believe there was some agreement that they couldn't sell those items as it would affect local electrical stores, gone be the days of that..sad to see it go, hope all the staff get good redundancy deals.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120131771#Comment_120131771

For me they stopped being convenient when they abandoned their city centre high street shops.

The popping in thing hasn't worked in years either. Never seemed to have what I wanted actually in stock.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120130468#Comment_120130468

That may happen.

Amazon already have pick up locations in other countries.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120130664#Comment_120130664

I don't know about days from delivery, pretty much everything I order on Amazon is next day delivery.

Strumms

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120131796#Comment_120131796

Maybe, I’m just lucky I live close to two 🫣

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120131848#Comment_120131848

Really ? I mainly just get electronics and back in the day Cds/DVDs… even the camera I’m just looking at for my cousin is Wednesday 25th

walterking

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120131762#Comment_120131762

Ah, and with probably 34 landlords it would never happen even if someone did have an interest.

Hopefully something more interesting replaces them, and I suspect that almost every one of them will be occupied within a few weeks of closing

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120131954#Comment_120131954

Very lucky because there isn't very many places that have 2 close by to each other.

Grab All Association

Jesus there’ll be nothing left. Carphone Warehouse gone, now Argos. The only thing left will be vape shops and bookmakers

murpho999

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120130866#Comment_120130866

You have the warranty with the manufacturer not the retailer so no problem.

SteM

Be interesting to see what happens with the one in the square. It's a bit out of the way from the rest of the centre.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120131954#Comment_120131954

Pretty much. Especially if you have Prime. I ordered two items on Wednesday that were delivered today (Thursday).

Also they deliver up to 9pm.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120131771#Comment_120131771

Not as easily done post Brexit…

Strumms

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120132101#Comment_120132101

truth… imagine grocery shopping… early in the pandemic some of the fruit and veg I ordered online was fit for the bin, nothing else.

the great thing about any in person shopping experience is you get to see the product, experience the quality.. choose.

would anyone here, spend 40,000 euros on a car, without going to take it for a test drive ?

in X years you’ll probably have no car showrooms, you’ll just click model, colour, finish, extras….given a collection date and time and collect from a warehouse.

I know people have a bit of nostalgia about Argos, but to be quite honest, I always found the experience quite grim and somewhat like dealing with the motor tax office before it all went online. There was something very 1970s British civil service bureaucracy about the whole thing.

It just felt like Gordon Brittas (early 1990s British comedy reference) was going to jump out at you at any moment to ask you "How may I help you?"

When you think about how it worked it was quite weird:

1. Until they scrapped the catalogues, look up item in laminated copies of catalogue that were difficult to flip through, or take huge phone directory sized catalogue and sit in a near by coffee shop and browse (which was how I did it). Or look up item on ridiculous terminals that were slightly harder to use than a faulty ATM, and which couldn't take your order (that was a separate machine). Or, use their utterly awful website to find the codes (I often had to Google stuff to find it on Argos.ie as the website was so bad)
2. Check stock levels on weird terminal (much fumbling about with unresponsive touch screen)
3. Scribble 7-digit code onto paper form (which I often got wrong!)
4. Go to another type of terminal, and key in these codes all over again and pay or go to till and have someone type it in for you.
5. Wait in strange waiting room, often with 1 seat and nothing to look at while waiting for your number to be called by the robotic voice (staff in background saying things to automated stock picking headsets)
6. Get handed item.

The stores were bleak - nothing in them on display usually or really ugly pop up cardboard type displays and I found they are very frequently out of stock of whatever it was you were looking for.

A lot of their hardware items were also absolute rubbish. You'd order some bathroom accessory or something and you'd get the box home, open it and it would be way worse quality than you'd pick up in Woodies or similar.

They were good for branded items and toys and stuff like that but overall I can't say I'll be missing them all that much. We've a lot more options at our fingertips and in physical retail over the years since they opened back in the 1990s here.

road_high

I’m not sure brexit was a big factor? Loads of other English/U.K. stores are still gung ho here with lots of stock and no issues

Count Dracula

The internet killed them. It was a great idea 20-30 years ago.

The high street has been in transition for over 10 years now. People are moving more and more to online shopping, no parking and no fuss.

Most high streets shops are essentially brand exposure now. You either like shopping or you don't. It is a marmite activity which some people consider a pastime.

Strumms

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120132362#Comment_120132362

But it’s pretty rare to find any retail outlets that carry the range of products under one roof…

Argos always was great for that convenience factor …

They rarely did carry all that stuff under one roof though. A lot of the time you would find it was out of stock, certainly in recent years anyway. Stocking levels were very patchy.

Flinty997

Management deliberately let the Irish branch wither. It was bought by Sainsbury's 2016 and they've not known what to do with it. It's been lurching along from one bad idea to the next.

"...Sainsbury's management clearly did not know how to run Argos and the plan to transplant into spare store space has not worked..."

While all that was going on they did nothing with the Irish stores and let them wither.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argos_%28retailer%29

Just to give you an idea of how bad value buying electronics is via UK stores these appear to be the same model in black and in white...

I'd consider both of these crazy prices for a toothbrush but I've been finding this a lot with quite a few things coming through UK supply chains vs Germany and France.

https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Rechargeable-Toothbrush-Artificial-Intelligence-Attachment/dp/B094XDW9WS/ref=sr_1_5?crid=35BKXCJT16WCQ&keywords=io+7&qid=1674172456&sprefix=io+7%2Caps%2C79&sr=8-5

https://www.argos.ie/static/Product/partNumber/1238682/c_1/1%7Ccategory_root%7CHealth%2Band%2Bpersonal%2Bcare%7C14418350/Trail/searchtext%3ECLEARANCE.htm

The exact same model and colour (which is old) is on amazon.de for €166.00 vs €480.00 !!! ??!

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120132422#Comment_120132422

It's only recently in the last 12-24 months gone like that. Used to be about 10-30% more expensive than Amazon. (and Argos UK) But they just stopped trying to sell stuff here. They wanted to run it into the ground for some reason.

ejmaztec

I'm so old that I can remember when Argos was Green Shield Stamps in the UK, when people handed over their books of stamps to get the goods instead of cash. 😐️

I only ever bought stuff in Argos when there was a sale on, because the prices seemed higher than some local retailers the rest of the time.

Grab All Association

For the record. I shop in Argos at least twice a week. Last January I got a ASUS TUF for just under €1000, Amazon, Expert (the latter with half the ram and storage) were priced over €1000. Cheaper than Harvey Norman, DID, Curry’s.

I reckon Curry’s will leave Ireland

Vic_08

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120131792#Comment_120131792

It was nothing to do with being nice to local shops, that's for sure. The UK multiples spelled the end for many small Irish retailers from the 90s onwards.

TVs weren't sold because they were all UK stock and were usually incompatible with Irish broadcasting standards. It was a bigger issue when Argos and Currys often did sell UK spec tvs and vcrs to unsuspecting punters.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120132320#Comment_120132320

How did you get to see the quality of the product in Argos ?

Grocery shopping was never locked down in the pandemic. I hear nobody advocating for online only fruit and veg. Argos didn't fail for the dystopian reasons you are dreaming up.

road_high

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120132833#Comment_120132833

Goods can be tactile and you get a feel for the quality even from the packaging- I like to look at things before I buy them.

TVs here were and still are a slightly different spec here.

Without throwing the thread too far into a tangent, the Irish broadcasters (though RTE Networks 2RN) joined a group called NORDIG, which develops and maintains open standards for the Scandinavian countries, Finland, Iceland and Ireland.

RTE Networks did approach the UK agencies, but they weren’t interested in international partnerships or sharing standards, so the NORDIG group membership made more sense. Saorview was developed using that system of open standards and Irish broadcasters can participate as a full member.

The differences between DVB-T variants aren’t huge, so most TVs have no issue with tuning Saorview or Freeview (and multiple other systems), but there are slight differences. Some UK only spec TVs may just tune Saorview on strange high channels numbers or possibly not see the EPG at all. Older non-HD TVs from the UK can’t tune Saorview at all, as they don’t support MPEG4.

In the analogue era, RTE historically used VHF and UHF frequencies while the the UK only used an small range of UHF channels. Irish TVs also had to be able to tune a wider range of bands to support analogue cable compatibility. So UK spec tuners couldn’t see the full range of channels and often couldn’t tune in RTE if it was in VHF.

Argos only used UK supply chains in its earlier days, so just didn’t sell televisions. It certainly wasn’t anything to do with protecting Irish retail. It was just sheer disinterest in having any kind of localised sourcing / buying. Everything came from the mothership.

There were issues with landline phones too. They were all sold with UK (BT) plugs that didn’t fit the RJ11 wall sockets used here. Most worked with a plug adapter, but some didn’t support Caller ID properly (Eir used an open European spec. BT had its own variant of this.)

Some phones and faxes wouldn’t even ring, if they were expecting the very odd BT 3rd wire ring. You used to need quite complicated adapters for certain phones that had to have a capacitor in them to mimic a UK ‘master socket’

Basically, Argos didn’t really see the Irish market as worth localising for. It’s not at all surprising that post Brexit they’ve just pulled out.

UK retailers are often a bit weird like that. I can’t imagine a French retailer failing to localise things in Belgium for example.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120132856#Comment_120132856

Nonsense. How the hell did you know how good an item was from a catalog and a box.

I get people lamenting the old high street shops with the owner/expert behind the counter but Argos was none of the things you are talking about.

kirk.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120130292#Comment_120130292

Brexit and the business model probably not worth downsizing

Long time ago in UK, catalogues and home delivery was a thing .

There'd be a sizeable market for argos with catalogue and home delivery for the tech adverse but probably in the uk

Data Analyst

Argos was ok if you required something the same day but our only used it once or twice a year.

I do remember being excited as a kid where we got the catalog. Folding the corner of the pages when I found something I wanted.

road_high

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120132875#Comment_120132875

I am agreeing with you :)

road_high

I see brexit mentioned a lot here but many of the other U.K. retailers are doing very well and some still expanding. Thinking of Next for example

OmegaGene

the argos stock that is not their own will be sale or return on credit from suppliers i reckon and their own stock can be moved so likely no clearance sales to come, the stock has been dwindled down for a while now

I remember a couple of incidents where I ordered something and when it came down the chute it was just not what I was expecting at all and they put me though the full returns bureaucracy. You’d already paid for the product at that stage, so it was very very unlike normal retail.

road_high

Anyone remember the “Argoose” ads about 20 years ago? Still stuck on my mind! They were riding high back then, remember Christmas they’d be out the door

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120132915#Comment_120132915

They’re ones that actually localised their Irish logistics. Next clearly wants to remain in the market. So does M&S and plenty of others.

In many cases their products aren’t originating in the UK anyway, so they just need Irish warehousing and to bypass the UK logistics and avoid a mess of transiting the UK.

For example if you’re say a clothing or electrical retailer, almost nothing you sell is made in the UK. So you can just order your Irish stock directly from the same companies, for delivery to Irish warehouses.

If you have continental European links is even easier.

Where Brexit becomes an issue is where goods are being imported to the UK and then re-exported to Ireland (the EU).

There would be no logic in say buying a washing machine made in Poland, Italy or Germany, exporting it to the UK and then bringing it back into the EU again to sell it in Ireland.

Likewise if you’re bringing in clothing or electronics from somewhere in Asia, you’d just bringing them straight into the EU, not via the UK.

The areas most impacted are actual UK exporters and that’s often areas like the food sector, which is also highly regulated in Europe.

If Argos wanted to continue here they would have had go set the Irish operation up as a stand alone business, with its own logistics and purchasing capabilities.

Argos UK is also being integrated into the supermarket chain that owns them, Sainsbury’s. The days of stand alone Argos shops are numbered.

Also I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if Argos just disappears. I think Sainsbury’s may have bought a business that was long past its sell by date.

What they were trying to do was compete with the likes of Tesco Extra but also with Amazon that has added groceries and is very much beginning to eat a lot of UK retailers’ lunch.

AndyBoBandy

I would still use them regularly enough, especially for buying printer ink (HP364) for work related matters… and maybe Switch games for the young lads Nintendo Switch…

Then as many have said always great when you needed something there and then like a HD or flash drive or something and don’t have the time to wait for an online delivery..

Have probably spent thousands over the years in Argos….. Printers, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, video games, laminator & pouches, photo paper, shredders, HDD’s plus countless amounts of other random tat I needed over the years…..

Being able to check stock and reserve items was great, but as many have said the website was utter scut. When checking stock for a particular item that wasn’t in stock in your local Argos, you had to manually select 2 other stores to check stock there…….. How about just show me every store where the item Is in stock and let me decide if I want to venture to that particular store to get the item!!!

Amazon have certainly killed them off as why go to the hassle of visiting an Argos when the postman can deliver the same item, and probably cheaper either the next or following day….

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120132947#Comment_120132947

Exactly - traditionally Ireland was seen as an extension of the British market and any Irish business that imports/ exports from Britain now across the Irish Sea has issues. It's a great pity as it makes most sense to trade with and via our nearest neighbour.

Then we have the whole issue of cars and that we are very much an extension of the UK market there with very undesirable consequences for the ordinary motorist.

Unfortunately, none of this is anything we’ve any control over. The UK left the EU, the single market and the Customs Union. Ireland didn’t change anything and we can’t really remedy most of this. Following them out would be economically suicidal, given the much larger scale of connection to the rest of Europe, and we wouldn’t even have a formal trading partnership with the UK anyway, even if we did. We would be back to the days of being informally dependent on a large neighbour, yet having no input into that very unequal relationship.

There’s really very little we can do to mitigate this other than ditch UK derived standards and avoid ever getting into that trap again.

It just shows though if you’re a small country, never, ever, ever adopt and become dependent by inertia on weird specs from a large neighbour, and always use the most open standards possible.

Our issues with the UK are RHD cars which is extremely difficult to get around and on a more minor annoyance the weird plugs and sockets have supply chain issues by making ireland a slightly odd market that is out of step with the entire continent and beyond. It’s less of a big deal but it’s still a hindrance to free trade.

The food / drink sector is also a huge one as there’s familiarity with brands and similarities in taste which means UK products have a big market here historically. So many will just continue to be imported regardless, which is possibly feeding into inflation.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120128745#Comment_120128745

fool! They’ve used pencils for years!! Your business was fecked from inception.

Could always sell to the golf crowd though.

Just launch a range of tiny multi-coloured pencils and tiny colouring books.

Ot tiny sketch pads and call them “old school selfies”

Think outside the box!!

road_high

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120132947#Comment_120132947

Great explanation of the supply chains. Thank you