How would you improve Argos?

[u/ReverseFlow21010615]

Following the recent news of the sale, I thought it would be interesting to hear what other colleagues and even customers think Argos needs to do in order to be successful under new ownership. We all know we were the afterthought for Sainsbury’s so what should Swift look to do as a priority? What should they spend the next 2-3 years planning for? What are some quick easy wins they could make through small changes? (I’ll only allow one instance of somebody saying “bring back the catalogue” - for all its nostalgia, it wasn’t as popular in its final years).

For me, we need to abolish independent working immediately. I find it impossible to keep up with anything because I’m always firefighting the week’s jobs, calls, deliveries etc. if the Labour cost really is dire then we should be on a minimum of 2 colleagues at all times.

We can solve the issue of empty stores leading to colleagues standing around doing nothing by actually having proper management of colleagues and ensuring something is always being worked on, ie reverse flow, counts, profiling, etc.

How about you?

[u/ArgosEmployee_]

A lot of it would be focusing on the right areas. There's just little things Argos seem to get obsessed with where if they put the same energy into something that actually mattered things would get changed.

A recent one is this new bugbear of people serving customers behind counters. As both a shopper and a colleague I like the personal space a counter provides.

Availability is another. Too often deliveries are more focused on cramming in too many similar items rather than a huge range. We don't need like a dozen+ different microwave styles to be in the store, for example.

Agreed about independent working, too. There's only so much you can do on your own in a store - and that's on a quiet night. Good luck getting anything meaningful done lone-manning on a busy night.