the times | Friday July 31 2020 1GM 17
News
It was once Europe’s most widely
printed publication but the Argos
catalogue has been killed off by online
shopping.
More than one billion copies of the
catalogue have been printed since its
launch in 1973 and at its height the book
was found in three-quarters of British
homes, with only the Bible being more
popular.
However, the rise of online shopping
has seen its popularity wane as custom-
ers browse the Argos website to place
their orders, rather than flicking
through plastic-bound books in shops.
Over the past decade the number of
printed copies has fallen from 10 mil-
lion to about 3.9 million.
Argos said yesterday that it was
scrapping its biannual catalogue and
shoppers would only be able to browse
products online. It is also replacing all
of its laminated books in stores with
touchscreens from January.
The encyclopedia-like tome was
famously once referred to as the
“laminated book of dreams” by the
Goodbye ‘book of dreams’ as Argos ditches catalogue
Ashley Armstrong Retail Editor comedian Bill Bailey in reference to the
time-honoured tradition of children
circling pages of toys that they hoped to
get for Christmas.
Bailey paid homage yesterday,
tweeting: “So farewell then, Laminated
Book of Dreams, Wipe-Clean Almanac
of Aspirations, Sanitised Lexicon of
Possibility. I, like so many others, will
briefly mourn your passing before
instantly kowtowing to our new
Touch Screen Overlords.”
Many Twitter users decried the end
of the catalogue as another “
horror” and shared memories of
compiling their Christmas wishlists
from the catalogue’s pages. The come-
dian Alan Carr chose the Argos cata-
logue as the book he would take when
he appeared on Radio 4’s Desert Island
Discs programme, saying the pictures
“would help me through”.
Celebrities including Arnold
Schwarzenegger, Holly Willoughby,
Tess Daly and Emma Bunton have
graced the catalogue’s pages. When it
first launched, it featured such coveted
items as spacehoppers and hostess
trolleys. The most popular products
now include wireless earphones and
gaming consoles.
Argos is owned by Sains-
bury’s after a £1.4 billion
takeover in 2016
and the
superma
rket has
focused
on boost-
ing its on-
line growth.
Sainsbury’s has
shut about 270 Ar-
gos high street shops
and introduced click-
and-collect counters innearby Sainsbury’s supermarkets
instead.
During the coronavirus crisis Argos
sales have jumped by 10.7 per cent, with
delivery sales up by more than three
quarters. Click-and-collect sales
have jumped by 53 per cent.
As a result the Argos
website is now the third
biggest retail website
in Britain, with al-
most three quarters
of orders comingfrom smartphones. Argos was the first
retailer to generate £1 billion of sales via
mobile phones.
Mark Given, chief marketing officer
at Sainsbury’s, said: “Over the decades
the Argos catalogue has charted the
nation’s changing tastes and trends in
everything from must-have toys to the
latest gadgets and devices. Closing the
book on the catalogue will help us focus
on delivering exciting and inspiring
digital shopping experiences to meet
the changing needs of our customers,
both in-store and online.”
Argos said that it would still produce
its Christmas gift guide which would be
available in all of its remaining shops.Argos has printed more
than a billion copies of
its catalogue since 1973jack blackburn
TMS
[email protected] | @timesdiary
Speaker puts
his order in
In a tradition spanning two
centuries (well, since the 1980s at
any rate), the new Commons
Speaker has selected his own brand
of whisky for sale in parliament’s
gift shops. After blind tasting six
bottles, Sir Lindsay Hoyle has
made a Speyside single malt his
tipple of choice. Whisky experts
say it has a “sweet, rich, fruity
freshness”, but it’s also described as
“traditionally matured” which is
very on-brand for Sir Lindsay,
particularly in comparison with his
predecessor. John Bercow’s whisky
was much like his tenure in having
“notes of spice”, but the label made
no mention of the aftertaste. One
imagines it was probably bitter.aperitif with teeth
Meanwhile, our old EU partners
are still using booze to lubricate
diplomacy. In our absence, Dutch
PM Mark Rutte is the union’s most
difficult member but France’s
President Macron has been
softening him up with Parisian
dinners. Paris Match reported that
Macron later boasted “I got him
smashed on pastis.” This is a
Provençal aperitif which is not to
be trifled with. Serge Gainsbourg,
the French artist and serious
imbiber, described the aniseed
snifter as his “secret weapon”. He’d
order doubles of his favourite
brand called 51 and nickname them
“102” – not just because of the
maths but because the next day it
made you feel like a centenarian.Sue Horne, the UK’s head of
space exploration, would have
been watching yesterday’s launch
of the Perseverance robot to
Mars from home even if she
hadn’t been under lockdown.
“I’ve only once been to a
launch in person,” she tells
Politico. “That was the Cluster
1 mission, when it blew up.
They haven’t let me out again.”don’t bank on it
Actors dread starring in a
successful advert for fear that they
might be associated with the
campaign forever, but Alan
Davies tells An Hour or So With
that he defied this problem when
he did a series of nearly 20 ads for
Abbey National in the 1990s. “The
adverts were such a success,” he
says, “that the bank had to change
their name at the end of the
campaign.”Commercials have been infuriating
another actor, Stephen Mangan,
pictured, as he has been
attempting to enjoy this summer’s
belated sport. “The ads during the
cricket are almost exclusively for
hair loss and erectile dysfunction,”
he complains. “Rather stereotyping
us cricket fans. I have plenty of
hair.”archer to a tea
The cricket has reminded Tory
peer Lord Archer of his boyhood
days working in the tea tents at
Somerset’s matches. “I worked out
at an early age that the tea interval
came at 3.40pm,” he tells the
Oborne & Heller on Cricket
podcast. “I had a dozen teas and
biscuits ready at 3.39pm, I sold
them all immediately and my tent
made twice as much money as the
other tent.” The local union was so
impressed by his enterprise they
fired him in case he started a trend.
“I think that was when I first
discovered I was never going to be
joining the Labour Party,” he says.
A parting of the ways that neither
side grieves.“One of my favourite childhood
books is going out of print,” cries
the actress Aisling Bea. “I’ll never
forget how I used to read it aloud
to my mother before bedtime as
she tucked me in.” This has
been by far the strongest
reaction to Argos’
announcement that they
will no longer be printing
their catalogue.