Argos Entertainment…

This week Argos has struck a deal with The Hut Group, an online retailer, to launch a new entertainments site. The site is due to sell CD’s, DVD’s and merchandise, stocking over 125,000 titles.

While many companies are pulling out of new ventures and reducing their marketing spend, Argos are taking a bold move to sweep up the lost sales from the fall of High street retailers Woolworths and Zavvi. I believe this is a great move for Argos who are fast moving into almost every high street market now. Offering free delivery will be a great pull for prospective customers and challenge the competitiveness of Giants like Play.com and Amazon. With every new area Argos move into, they are strengthening the Brand in the marketplace, but will there be an endless supply of markets for them to enter into? Or are they reaching the end of the diverse line?

Argos will find themselves in direct competition with supermarkets such as Asda and Tesco for music and film sales. Will Argos be able to compete and take sales from the already well established online stores? With plans to market the new site www.argosentertainment.co.uk, through communication with their existing customer base, I believe they have a great standing point to gain a good slice of the pie! By establishing the site as a separate brand name this will add depth to the already strong name of Argos and help them to gain a more respected position in the online high street!

On another note, marketing week have reported that WHSmith are to trail Pick ’n’ Mix stands in a number of stores around the country, a market which has been reported to be worth £200m per year. This is lead by the recent closure of Woolworths. With larger organisations moving to clear up the lost sales of failed companies, customer will not feel the loss for a long, but the glimmer of hope for smaller retailers to mop up these sales will be dashed by the speedy introductions by the big players. Brave moves are being made by companies such as WHSmith and Argos in a bit to increase sales and brand strength. In my opinion, this is a risk more companies should make and I believe with the example of these two companies, a successful story will follow!