Just in case people have never seen this business, they've got a lot of stuff but it's all on racks accessible only to employees. For customers the experience is there are a lot of catalogs (these days electronic) listing everything they have, you pick what you want (now just touching it on the screen, but historically you write a number on a form) and then you go see a member of staff, they take your payment and meanwhile your items are fetched from the stores. The catalogs are also available to take home (and these days they're a web site).

The biggest difference to Amazon is after I pick that I want an HDMI cable, a garden trowel and a high temperature incandescent bulb for an oven, it says ready to pick up in 5 minutes and I can walk to the store (five minutes) and get it with no delivery surcharge. Also I could pay cash (but I don't).

Obviously if you live 2+ hours from an Argos, Amazon is starting to look more competitive, but in the UK who lives two hours from an Argos? I don't buy much from Amazon.