Argos aided by m-commerce expansion

Monday, May 6, 2013 - 13:26 by Simon Crisp

Argos is one of the many high street chains that have been going through a rough patch recently and it has been unable to post an increase in sales for the past five years.

However, that all changed this month, when it announced that it experienced a 2.1 per cent increase in revenues over the past fiscal year, according to Mobile Marketing Magazine.

In the past 12 months, about 10 per cent of all sales generated by Argos have come from customers buying via mobile devices, which shows just how important m-commerce is becoming to established bricks and mortar retailers.

In particular, the second half of 2012 saw a real sales surge, with analysts predicting that m-commerce accounted for 13 per cent of all sales during this period.

Argos has its own smartphone app that allows people to shop online from a smartphone, without using their web browser.

When app usage is combined with visits to the Argos e-commerce site, sales were up in this area by 24 per cent, outdoing the admittedly minor growth experienced across the company as a whole.

Spokesperson, Terry Duddy, said that multichannel growth and safe shopping online were helping Argos to emerge from a period of poor performance with its head held high.

He also said that Argos was definitely going to become a retailer that operated most effectively in the digital marketplace, which is unsurprising, given its origins in catalogue sales.

While there can be a lot of doom and gloom surrounding the state of Britain's retailers, the availability of m-commerce and similar digital platforms is giving companies like Argos a lifeline. If they grab it then salvation is attainable, but ignoring it can end in collapse and the closure of yet more mainstream outlets.