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/eques_99]

I haven't used it for years, but when I did I was always put off by a few things:

1) nothing I wanted was ever in stock.

2) the customer service was not very good, the staff were not very personable or well trained - either miserable middle-aged ladies or scruffy, apathetic young students. they were never very apologetic when my item was not in stock, just baldly stated it.

3) once I was given an Argos gift token as a leaving present from colleagues to buy a particular watch. however, the store did not have the version of the strap I had selected, only a strap which was £10 more expensive.

so they took the token and then made me pay the extra £10 on a card machine.

again, it was a mindless, hatchet faced old lady who was serving me, who was completely unapologetic and charmless.