Argos to close all Irish stores starting March

Meh, haven't bought anything with them in over 2 years. Website was a pain, stores were uninviting and customer service wasn't great for any issues.

Never the first stop for me.

They were usually more expensive for brand stuff, and their own brand quality was poor enough. the quality of Habitat went really downhill after Argos added them and it's no better than Ikea.

They do decent sales, and I'm popping in to get some things later at half price.

Honestly, I think Argos is just out of date. It's essentially a trade counter. They stopped printing Argos Catalogs years ago.

Why go to the Argos website and then drive to the shop, when you can just go to Amazon and your items come to you? Id say the Amazon distribution centre in Dublin was the final nail in the coffin.

Just the cycle of retail life I'm afraid. I've no doubt Argos coming into the Irish market shut down a lot of local shops and now they're being done by online retail.

Will there be any good closing down deals from this I wonder. Must keep a watch for some.

Now that I think of it, the last time I went into an Argos branch, about 4 months ago, it was dead.

Handy to have around for something urgent, but really you can't expect them to keep such big stores open for the odd customer to drift in.

There are more than enough jobs ooen elsewhere for the 400 to be absorbed easily. Hopefully the closures will lead to more shopping local.

Bought a bit of stuff in Argos over the years and never had any problem at all with replacements if issues with goods. Had an insurance thing as well which was worth it for more delicate goods - must have replaced several headphone sets like this with no quibble. Which is quite the contrast with the likes of others who want you to send it off to some address at your own expense.

But catalogue shopping is dead & gone. Amazon? haven't bought anything off them since Brexit.

It's a pity they're leaving the Irish market. I have found them useful many times.

Just remembered that when The Spire was built the Council put a time capsule underneath it containing an Argos catalogue.

I think the same group own Homebase and Argos?

Not recently.

edit: Home Retail Group used to own both, then they sold Homebase to some Australian crowd and then Sainsbury's bought Home Retail Group.

I remember working in Homebase back in college and getting a 10% Argos discount.

I seem to recall going to one in the UK when I was a kid and the stuff you ordered from the catalogue came out from the back on a conveyer belt for you to pick up. Maybe I'm misremembering.

I'd noticed on almost everything they sold since Brexit that they had to add labels to them to include an Irish importers address, was likely becoming a pain with paperwork.

What will likely happen now is Amazon will open an exclusive Amazon.ie webstore for Irish customers that will be a complete ripoff of the .co.uk site and not allow shipments here from the .co.uk site.

You kind of forget they are there tbh. But they are handy if you need something a bit “odd”- like a few years ago I needed a projector and screen for work- only place that had them in stock. I’d imagine carrying they kind of inventory is very expensive these days.

Will leave a big hole in a lot of Irish high streets and shopping centres. Retail in Ireland seems to be in trouble, gone sort of stale with very little new to offer

A relation by marriage works there, from talking to him at Christmas this will not come as a big surprise. Sainsbury taking over may have been the last straw.

I remember when they opened first, I was suprised to find a catalog on my doorstep one morning. Inside was an order form from Jordan Estates, a then-popular moneylender.

Unlikely as we are able to buy from any Amazon site.

Argos not doing deliveries was always going to end badly for them

I mean, they had the people in the warehouse doing all the heavy lifting, why not slap a label on the box and get a courier to collect them instead of the consumer

Back when Ray D'arcy was on Today FM they did an piece where they summed up the whole Argos catalog.

No idea what the total came to.

Ah now, you can't drop that into the chat and not give us the total

Got to think Brexit is a big factor, but having said that the last few things we've got, we selected home delivery anyway.

A handy place to pick stuff up.

The problem I found with them was that they tended to be in the middle of towns. Now while that's not a bad thing in itself, it also meant anything buying anything slightly bulky would require you try and find and pay for parking first, and carry the stuff through town back to the car, which could be awkward enough if you were buying a new TV or something like that.

Their website was shocking too, it's slowness and frequent crashes were more an advertisement for Amazon than anything else.

I'd imagine Brexit played a role too, just too much hoops to jump through to do business over here.

A pity, but it was coming.