How does someone make a profit on ...

RHemmings

buglawton wrote: »

That seems to confirm my theory in post #14

That's precisely what I thought when I saw the survey questions.

Brooker_Dave wrote: »

If Argos get taken over by Sainsburys, the pickup thing may be ditched?

Or, there may be a premium put onto Collect At Argos, as happens for collection at the Coop.

RFW

Brooker_Dave wrote: »

If Argos get taken over by Sainsburys, the pickup thing may be ditched?

Sainsbury's current business model seems to be to have many fingers in many pies. Sainsbury's and Ebay already have some connection via Nectar. My guess would be that Sainsbury would want to deal more with Ebay, not less.
One of the main attractions for Sainsbury is Argos' delivery network, that could tie in quite well with Ebay. A conglomerate of Ebay, Sainsbury, Argos and all its catalogue companies would certainly frighten Amazon.
It's also worth noting that Argos shift a lot of stuff on Ebay, I'm betting they barely pay any fees.

RFW

RHemmings wrote: »

Interesting. I've just had ebay ask me to do a customer survey on Argos pickup. They asked a lot of questions that looked as if they were trying to build a case that pickup at Argos lead to additional business for Argos. E.g.

As far as I can tell click & collect is a long term experiment. I'm sure by now Argos have enough of their own stats to see how it works.

If Argos are getting more punters through the door at little expense then they won't complain. Especially if they have to wait a few minutes when they get there, even if they don't buy there and then they may well be a future customer. There are a few other high street stores who could join in, M&S, Next, etc have click & collect for their own goods so they'd be interested in figures.

RHemmings

RFW wrote: »

As far as I can tell click & collect is a long term experiment. I'm sure by now Argos have enough of their own stats to see how it works.

If Argos are getting more punters through the door at little expense then they won't complain. Especially if they have to wait a few minutes when they get there, even if they don't buy there and then they may well be a future customer. There are a few other high street stores who could join in, M&S, Next, etc have click & collect for their own goods so they'd be interested in figures.

I'm not convinced. Argos will have costs involved in running this scheme. Both in dealing with customers, and also organisation behind the scenes. Unless there's evidence that overall there is a benefit for Argos worth the cost, something will change. I'm taking advantage of it while it is available.

Brooker_Dave

RHemmings wrote: »

I'm not convinced. Argos will have costs involved in running this scheme. Both in dealing with customers, and also organisation behind the scenes. Unless there's evidence that overall there is a benefit for Argos worth the cost, something will change. I'm taking advantage of it while it is available.

Unless there's money in it, I doubt they'd keep going, all they're doing if clogging up their store with non payers, other people's merchandise.

RHemmings

I must admit that I'm probably the kind of person who would make the system not work. I get lots of small purchases sent there, turn up there once a week or more, and never buy anything from Argos itself. I'm concerned that in the future it'll be £1 or so for each pickup. A lot of my purchases will fit through the postbox so I could just have them sent to my home. But, ones that won't fit through are a problem.

RFW

RHemmings wrote: »

I must admit that I'm probably the kind of person who would make the system not work. I get lots of small purchases sent there, turn up there once a week or more, and never buy anything from Argos itself. I'm concerned that in the future it'll be £1 or so for each pickup. A lot of my purchases will fit through the postbox so I could just have them sent to my home. But, ones that won't fit through are a problem.

Looking at Argos' feedback on Facebook they probably do around a million sales a year, with a big average sale. At a guess I'd say that's £100 million in sales for them, if Ebay only charge them 1%, that's a million quid for Ebay and a few million saved for Argos and sales of a lot of dead stock. Plus Ebay still get a cut from Paypal that the punter pays. Ebay have also always run Argos' clearance auction website, going back almost since Ebay started in the UK.

RHemmings

RFW wrote: »

Looking at Argos' feedback on Facebook they probably do around a million sales a year, with a big average sale. At a guess I'd say that's £100 million in sales for them, if Ebay only charge them 1%, that's a million quid for Ebay and a few million saved for Argos and sales of a lot of dead stock. Plus Ebay still get a cut from Paypal that the punter pays. Ebay have also always run Argos' clearance auction website, going back almost since Ebay started in the UK.

They did this before they started Click and Collect. And if Click and Collect was cancelled (or if additional charges for this service were brought in) then Argos could still clear stock and do other business through/with Ebay. There is a long history of business happening between Ebay and Argos, but I don't think this means that Click and Collect, free for both seller and buyer, will necessarily continue. I hope it does, as it benefits me considerably. But, I think we have to be realistic about things.

RFW

RHemmings wrote: »

I hope it does, as it benefits me considerably. But, I think we have to be realistic about things.

You may well be right. Current business thinking is that it isn't all about the money, there's more value in getting someone through the door even if they don't spend a penny. That's part of what Sainsbury's are after, bringing value to their service. Some interesting stuff in this article from last month http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35290161
Long term they may have an idea like Amazon Prime in mind where "Sainsbury Prime" will get you free click & collect at Argos, 0% interest with Littlewoods, next day delivery on Argos goods and free grocery deliveries, throw in a partnership with BT or Sky and they offer all of Amazon and more.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Brooker_Dave wrote: »

With babzmedia everyone assumed they knew something everyone else didn't.

Then they went bust.

The moral of this thread, is, no matter which way you look at it, anyone selling stuff bigger than a postcard on ebay for 99p or £1.25 inc postage is making a loss.

And there do seem to be an awful lot of people on both ebay and amazon who mistake turnover for profit.

I was under the impression someone else was taking the loss on babzmedia's behalf?