Milton Keynes, UK, 2014-11-28 — /EPR Retail News/ — As one of the biggest shopping weekends of 2014 approaches, leading online retailer Argos is predicting a UK mobile shopping frenzy this year with more visits than ever to its website and apps on ‘Cyber Monday’ coming from shoppers using smartphones and tablets.
With Christmas shopping kick-starting on ‘Black Friday’ 28 November, as customers seek bargains galore from the abundance of special deals this year, Argos is expecting online traffic to reach a peak on ‘Cyber Monday’ 1 December 2014. It is predicting more than five million visits to its websites and apps on the day, more than half of which will come from customers using mobile devices, at a rate of around 3,000 visits per minute as customers increasingly want to shop while on-the-go.
On Cyber Monday last year (2 December 2013) Argos saw over 3.6 million visits across argos.co.uk, its mobile site and apps. Online visits peaked between 11am-12pm, and again in the evening between 9pm-10pm.
This year an increasing number of shoppers are turning to Argos’ mobile apps to Check & Reserve orders where items can be reserved for immediate collection from store.
In line with this, the number of Argos app downloads – currently at around 10 million– is expected to increase over Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
In the spirit of its new advertising campaign, Argos is encouraging customers to GET SET for Black Friday with a special countdown clock on argos.co.uk to help build excitement for the great offers and outstanding deals they can expect all weekend across technology, toys, TV ranges and more.
David Robinson, Chief Operating Officer at Argos, said: “Customer shopping habits are changing fast and more and more are wanting the convenience of shopping on-the-go or in front of the TV in the evening. Making mobile shopping easy has been our priority this year, and we’ve just launched our first ever Argos Collect Store at Cannon Street Underground Station for busy commuters to collect their orders on-the-go. We’ve also brought gift inspiration into the 21st century with some great new Christmas apps for smartphones and tablets.”
Argos’ 11 enormous distribution centres covering a total of 5.4 million square feet of floor space will have 6,100 warehouse workers and 1,000 delivery drivers helping to dispatch millions of gifts over Cyber Monday and beyond, including high-demand products such as wearable technology, video games, DisneyFrozentoys, Lego, hair care like the BaByliss Curl Secret, and Beats headphones, out to stores and homes on a fleet of 975 lorries and vans.
David Robinson continued: “The race to get top gifts such as smart watches, DisneyFrozentoys and video games into customers’ hands quickly will be more intense than ever and our huge distribution operation is already gearing up. For the first time ever, 150 of our larger stores will act as mini distribution centres by supplying products to smaller stores nearby, so customers can get fast access to 20,000 products within hours wherever they are.”
According to the Adobe Digital Index, shoppers are expected to spend around £281 million this Cyber Monday, contributing to a 14 per cent growth of online Christmas sales year-on-year.
Argos.co.uk and its mobile site and apps received around 738 million visits in the last financial year making Argos the UK’s largest high street retailer online. 43 per cent of all Argos sales are online, with sales through mobile devices now representing 22 per cent of total sales[1].
-ENDS-
Notes to Editors:
For more information, please contact the Argos Press Office on 0845 120 4365 or email: media.relations@argos.co.uk. Follow us on Twitter at @Argos_PR.
[1] Home Retail Group half year results, 22 October 2014.
This year, children can create their own digital Wishlist for Santa using the new Argos Wishlist app. Aimed at three to seven year-olds, the app enables children to choose their top gifts on a phone or tablet with help from animated characters. The Argos Gift Finder app offers tailored gifting suggestions for friends and family. Both apps are available for free from the App Store and Google Play store.
Argos has also added a fun twist to Christmas shopping this year by creating its very own Facebook game ‘Friend or Fraud’ where users invite their friends to guess what is on their wish list. Customers with smartphones can also use the Argos app to access videos, games and competitions from Argos’ traditional paper gift guide, available in store now.
One of Argos’ biggest distribution centres, Barton in Burton upon Trent, has 650,000 sq ft of floor space – equivalent to eight Wembley-sized football pitches – and typically dispatches 44 million items every year. This Christmas Barton’s 900-strong team of workers are expecting to dispatch over 300,000 items and by the end of the year will have sent out enough iPads to create 22 million gigabytes of memory – that’s enough to store roughly 4.4 billion songs and is half the capacity of the new Titan super computer in America.
About Argos
Argos is a leading UK digital retailer, offering around 43,000 products through www.argos.co.uk, its growing mobile channels, stores and over the telephone.
Argos continues to be the UK’s largest high street retailer online with around 123m customer transactions a year through its stores and 738 million website and app visits in the 12 months to February 2014. Customers can take advantage of Argos’ convenient Check & Reserve service available through its network of 734 stores across the UK and Republic of Ireland.
In the financial year to February 2014, Argos sales were £4.1 billion and it employed some 29,000 people across the business.
Argos is part of Home Retail Group, the UK’s leading home and general merchandise retailer.
ARGOS MEDIA CONTACTS
###
