Argos UK Retail Spotlight: Competition, Marketing & More

• Argos marketplace in the UK is up against Online Marketplace monsters like Amazon and eBay
• Non-branded keywords enable Argos to compete with bigger sites
• Smartly curated landing pages encourage engagement and establish authority

Online Marketplace Trends in the UK

The Online Marketplace space in the UK is highly competitive – with traditional local brands being pushed into the corner by the global giants, Amazon and eBay. While local sites make up six of the places in the top 10 sites, they only account for 18% of traffic to the group. The biggest local competitor, argos.co.uk, received 7.5% of the traffic to the top 10 sites over the past 12 months.

Where does Argos Marketplace Fit In?

Argos is one of the UK’s most beloved brands. Anyone who was a child during the past 40 years can remember paging through the Argos Catalogue making endless wishlists of the toys pictured inside. In 2018 Argos is a bricks-and-clicks powerhouse in the UK where it is estimated that 96% of the population lives within 10 miles of a store. Since launching online, argos.co.uk has established an omnichannel approach to retail encouraging in-store pick-ups. In 2016 Argos’ parent Home Retail Group was taken over by Sainsbury’s which is now adding many more pickup points for online buyers.

While amazon.co.uk generates 5.5X more traffic, argos.co.uk has its own methods of obtaining traffic.

Making the Most of the Holidays – Argos vs. Amazon

In the 2017 Holiday Season, amazon.co.uk saw a 40% bump in traffic, while argos.co.uk website traffic almost doubled – increasing by 88%. Looking at unique visitors over the Holiday Season, Argos won again with an increase of 50% over Amazon’s 12% increase in unique visitors in the UK. This pattern existed on both desktop and mobile platforms.

Traffic Sources

There are different marketing strategies in play at amazon.co.uk and argos.co.uk. Amazon receives close to 50% of its traffic directly. Argos gets the largest proportion of its traffic from online searches. Argos also sees a higher proportion of traffic from paid searches than Amazon in the UK.

Optimizing Non-Branded Search

Despite having a fifth of the traffic, argos.co.uk is successfully targeting sought-after keywords and, in some cases, beating amazon.co.uk for the volume of searches. On desktop, argos.co.uk is beating amazon.co.uk by as much as 3:1 for keywords like laptops and office chairs. Argos gets four times the volume of traffic from searches for ps4 than Amazon. On mobile, amazon.co.uk is a little stronger, but argos.co.uk is very competitive for a diverse set of search terms.

Landing Page Curation

Focusing on non-branded search can be resource-intensive, but rewarding. One of the ways that Argos has managed to achieve parity with Amazon over non-branded search is by curating a series of landing pages tied to specific product families. Each of these pages is SEO-rich and designed to increase the volume of visits from search.

Conclusion

Even in a territory dominated by global players with deep pockets, a good marketing strategy is essential for generating traffic and maintaining mindshare for all online retailers in the UK.

by Similarweb