Argos and Red 298

This time of year in the UK many big retailers report their Christmas figures and rumours abound This year Argos is at the centre of some of the stories (and of course there's the M&S boss going did he jump was he pushed?)

Argos- Looking Smiley as a takeover target

Sainsbury's have made a bid (rejected) for the turbo charged catalogue chain of outlets Argos(and it's parent Home Retail Group)   I'm not sure what the value would be for the Supermarket behemoth - I suspect that they like the supply chain and ground breaking tie-up with E-Bay but fear that Sainsbury's (and others) might put too high a price on this particular 'jewel'.

I was surprised at how much traffic a 'Tweet' of mine mentioning Waitrose generated (not internet breaking but a lot by my modest standards) - retail matters to people and  conventional wisdom means that the 'business' pushes to move upmarket, where margins are greater - would Sainsbury's tie-ing itself to a slightly downmarket  offering and would the consolidation actually take longer and cost more than anticipated almost definitely yes).

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I'm not against Argos and collected an Ebay placed order this morning - very efficiently handled but for such a big deal I'm not convinced that the synergy is there.

The items I picked up was provided by a company that perhaps has something of a split personality - nice product though.

really Seaview Shavers?

Retail in the UK is a fiercely cut throat business with actual deflation currently taking place amongst the aisles - look how Morrison's moved out of the smaller  neighbourhood shops business - quite elegantly but I guess at a price - beware CEO's who want to be remembered for cutting big deals, they move on.   

Briefly Morrison's now My Local

Red 298

My shipment wasn't  particularly (Fragile) but this is for some that are

Appropriate