Argos closing

[Deadringer]

I just saw that argos are closing all of their Irish stores. I can't say I am surprised, they have really gone downhill and never seemed to have anything in stock, in my area at least. Shame though, especially for people losing their jobs.

It’s a real pity. My local one is really good and I’ve had no problems offering via click and collect and getting items the next day. I bought a printer and tea towels in the past week.

I feel sorry for the staff but I must admit, I never shopped there myself. When it opened first, I'd spend ages browsing through the catalogue and pick out some items, only to find they were out of stock when I went into the shop (this was pre-internet days). Really annoying when I'd queued up for ages at the till. I gave up on it pretty quickly.

Incidentally, when it first opened in Ireland, I heard there was an enterprising young lad who called into the shop and helped himself to bundles of catalogues. He proceeded to flog them on Henry Street to naive shoppers who didn't realize you could pick them up for free.

I used to buy quite a lot from argos, it was my go to shop for household stuff or anything electrical, but since brexit and especially during the pandemic they never seemed to have anything. I will miss them though, sad to see another empty building on the High Street.

Brexit and Covid didn't help. That and Amazon.

I'll miss mine I do actually use it frequently over the years!
My kids grew up on their Chad valley toys & dolls 😄

Even in England and Wales Argos has gone massively downhill and I'm surprised any branches are still open. They made themselves obsolete by rarely having what you need in stock - our town's branch stayed closed long after other shops reopened after covid. People have just become used to going elsewhere now.
I noticed it a lot at Christmas - it used to be heaving in there in December - this year it was empty and not do much as a pop up Christmas tree! I think Ireland might be first but the rest will follow soon.

Didn't they move to within Sainsburys stores? Or was that just some?

That was just some. We still have an Argos store but it's a sorry looking affair now.
I'm not sure why they located in the big Sainsbury's tbh - if you wanted a dinner set or a set of towels you'd probably just take them off the shelf rather than go through the palaver of Argos. And if you wanted a flat back bookshelf it's probably something you'd order online anyway.

They relocated into Sainsburys as Sainsburys already have that store so they save rent on old Argos store, and only deliver into one store ( this has mostly happened since Sainburys bought Argos). In order to make roon for Argos Sainsburys household and toy dept is much reduced causing people to need to go to Argos

I liked browsing the catalogue years ago but wouldn't buy electrical products there as I like to support Irish retailers as much as possible.
Argos was always dearer.
But it gave us more choices than we'd had.