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"With moving into my new house and panicking several times a day about the costs involved in buying a house and the costs involved with actually kitting out a house, I thought it was important to find somewhere to buy household appliances from. My first point of call for everything has been Argos and I have to say I have been extremely impressed with the level of service and the amount of products which have been available to me. This is why I am going to continue shopping with Argos and have just this minute spent another £300 with them and here is why.
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What is Argos?
Argos is a catalogue shop and sells all sorts of household things such as sofas, cookers, washing machines, televisions, Furniture, toys and other household things such as bathroom stuff. It should be seen as a shop for all sorts around the house.
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How to get to Argos:
Well this is simple as you go to www.argos.co.uk and you will be taken to their home page. Immediately you will see quite a bright looking sight with the huge red Argos name on the top right hand corner so you will know you are at the right place.
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Registering:
If you want to you can register on the site whenever you like. This will allow you to track orders you have made and also save things in your basket so you can buy them at a later date. You can find the register button at the top of the screen on a blue tab bar. To register on the site you will need to enter a few details which is your name, email address and then choose a security question so that nobody can get into your account but you.
Once you have registered then you can log into your account whenever you visit the site. I would recommend doing this if you are a regular visitor to the site as it just makes the whole process easier. Plus I like to keep track of every transaction I have made on a site and this is a great way of making sure you do not get lost with what and how much you are buying.
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Products:
The products Argos supply in my opinion can be summed up as cheap and cheerful. The thing is that they do not look cheap. For example the TV unit I bought the other week looks like it was worth a lot more than £50 and everybody who has visited my house has said how lovely it is and have been shocked at the price.
They have a good range of products ranging from sofas to toilet seats and I think you should be able to find what you need for your house from the Argos website. Also a good thing is that I can never be bothered to actually sit there and look through a catalogue so online it is easier to find what you want and the measurements. Also I find that online they seem to have a lot more products than in the stores so it is much better for getting products and you are more likely to get what you want as they just will come from a huge warehouse as opposed to the shop storage.
The products are extremely reasonably priced and most products you will be able to see cheaper and more expensive versions. I have yet to come up with a product I want for my house that you can't find online. They sell so much and I have just bought a TV, some bathroom equipment, a toilet seat, a coffee table, a storage unit and a door and all for just under £100 which is excellent value.
One thing to note is many of the products are flat packed so you will have to put them together yourselves. They are quite easy to understand though and even I managed to put together the TV unit we bought with a small bit of help. I do however think they are easier to put together than from many other shops and the products do last a long time as they are well made.
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Look and Ease of Use of the Site:
The look of the site is quite bright with obviously the big Argos name in bright red letters. The rest of the site is the trademark grey with yellows and oranges to display products. I would say the look is quite a happy look with all of the colours designed to get the browser in a good mood by the looks of it. The way the site is designed with some blue tabs signalling links to do with your account and then other tabs at the top and left hand side showing products is easy to see and navigate to.
The actual site is extremely easy to use as you can choose to search for products using the Argos lists or you can search for your item using their search bar. You can see that there are logos for your shopping cart and the checkout which is nice and everything you could want can be found on the home page so once you get there then you should be able to see where you need to go to do what you want to do.
When you are buying things this is also made extremely easy so now I will go into a little more detail about the buying process.
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Searching:
The main way to find what you want on the site is to search and the first and easiest way to do this is to simply go to the home page. There you will see at the top of the screen on the right hand side a search bar. Simply type what you would like into that bar and a list of matching products will be bought up on the screen before you. You may notice that the more expensive ones will be at the top but just above the first item you will see a dropdown box. Here you can change it so that it displays the lowest prices first which is what I usually do.
The second way to search is to use Argos' pre-defined lists. You can see these on the left hand side of the screen and tabs near the top of the page. They will be things like room names or electrical equipment. If you click on the link so say if we click on furniture then you will be taken to the next screen which breaks it down. We can now choose things like bedding or office furniture. The numbers in brackets next to the choices are how many different items are available. You now go into each of the choices until you get what you need.
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Buying:
When you are on the site if you see something you want to buy you simply have to press the small red button which has a picture of a shopping cart and the words 'buy or reserve'. This will then take you to your basket where you can see any items that are in there already. You can choose to continue shopping by clicking on the 'add more products' link which is on the top and it will take you back to the last page you looked at, or you can proceed with the buying step.
At the bottom of your list of items you will see that you can buy the items and get them delivered or you can get them ready to pick up at your local store. This is an excellent choice as some people may not want to fork out the delivery charges. If you want to reserve it at a store it will take you to a screen where it will let you choose a store from a drop-down list.
If you wish it to be delivered you simply tick that option and continue. Delivery is not actually much and can be as less as £5 which is what we paid for our cooker which was great. You can choose a delivery day and some may be a little more expensive say if you go for a Saturday. You will then have to enter your delivery details and however you are going to pay for your items.
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Security:
I know many people worry about internet security and the Argos site is very secure. The tell tale signs are that the url changes to https and that a small padlock appears in the bottom right hand corner.
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Delivery:
Argos deliver Monday to Saturday and the times can vary between 7am and 7pm. We ordered our cooker to be delivered on a Monday and they called a few days before to let us know a four hour time slot which was great as we didn't have to wait in all day. They deliver within the slot and get you to sign for it and then you are free to do what you like with your new purchases.
If for any reason you miss your delivery then they will put a small note through the door which gives you a number to call to arrange it to be delivered again. This did not happen to us but it did to my work colleague who said they delivered the items again within four days which was ok.
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Contacts:
I thought the contact from Argos was great and the fact they phoned us well in advance to give us a time slot for delivery. At one point while ordering something for work I had a problem getting things to add in my basket so I phoned them up using contact numbers from the site and they managed to sort it out promptly. Also I have sent them an email in the past and this was answered within 24 hours.
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Verdict:
Overall I have been extremely happy with the Argos website as I think it is an easy, efficient and effective way of getting your household products. I would much prefer to buy things from the site than stand in a shop and browse through the catalogue and then have to wait in the queue for your products. The fact that you can get whatever you want from the site without having to rely on stock in a shop is fantastic.
I am going to give the Argos website five stars as they have been fantastic. So far within the past month I have made four orders from there and am making another at the weekend. They are good and although the products are pretty cheap I think they are of a good quality and I have bought from there in the past and everything lasts ages.
The site is a great design which is simple to use and bright enough to attract even the dullest web browser so I suggest if you have things for your house to buy then I would check out the Argos website first. I tell you that I really wish I had for other things as I could have saved myself over £100
