Housewares Business-to-business magazine for housewares retailers and their suppliers
Argos kicked off its Black Friday sale three hours early this year at 21:00 last night (Thursday, November 23) – with record results.
More than 800,000 people visited Argos’s online channels between 21:00 and 22:00 last night, which equates to more than 13,000 customers every minute – smashing last year’s record for peak visits. There were over two million visits to the website in the first four hours.
The retailer said customers are increasingly choosing to shop by mobile phone, as 84% of those visits came from mobile devices.
Tech and gaming products proved popular, with video games consoles, games, tablets and TVs featuring in the top 10 best sellers to date.
Argos ceo John Rogers, said: “These early record-breaking figures show that savvy shoppers are keen to bag themselves a bargain in the run-up to Christmas. People are clearly buying their big Christmas presents, as we’ve seen a real spike in sales of video games and consoles as well as iPads and TVs.
He added: “Our Fast Track Collection service proved popular and we had 10,000 extra staff in our stores today to help people collect their orders.”
Argos has recruited an additional 10,000 seasonal workers to help serve millions of customers in its stores over the festive period. Today, they were joined by hundreds of head office workers helping out on the shop floor.
Argos has more than 800 stores across the UK and Republic of Ireland, which includes approximately 150 Argos stores within Sainsbury’s supermarkets, and around 200 digital collection points in Sainsbury’s stores.
