Thursday, January 10, 2008

Argos bags are shit

DSC_0007Really really shit. This has happened more than once, but today was particularly painful. I bought shelves in Argos and asked for a bag. Not an usual or indeed unreasonable request. Unfortunately Argos do not believe in having functional bags so I was presented with a bag that came to barely half way up my three shelves.

So not only was it impossible to hold the handles together (I had one handle and a piece of plastic bag for grip) but there wasn’t even any leverage in the bag to keep my long parcels together. This meant there was no medium balance in the bag where even though nearly half of the parcels are hanging out the items remain in the bag and carryable.

No not at all.

I said to the guy behind the counter that given the size of many of Argos’ products they really should stock larger bags. I don’t expect everything to fit in but it seems to me that most of my purchases in the store over the last however long have been too big for the bags they provide. He replied ‘oh no then the bags would be very big’. Jaysus if some people had brains they would be dangerous.


The result was I was nearly murdered trying to find a manageable way to heave/carry/cart the shelves back to the office.

I have no idea how on earth I am going to get them home, probably one at a time over different evenings. But if the unyielding feckers on Grafton Street, who all expected me to move around them despite the awkward and heavy non-bag of items, are anything to go by – I’ll be leaving them in work for now.

Compare this with the large frames I bought in Habitat over Christmas, I could barely cart them across the floor of the shop. When I paid for them the guy behind the counter fashioned some nifty handles from their paper bags which enabled me to carry my lovely new frames home safely, securely and without murdering myself and those around me.

Argos take note, seriously do.

12 comments:

Dole Days said...

Totally agree have had the same conversation with them myself. They expect everyone to have a car.

Anonymous said...

Buy a ball of string and watch my blog on Sunday or monday for the solution.

Anonymous said...

I had a run-in with them a few months ago in the Stephen's Green Shopping Centre. We bought two flat pack bookshelves for the office on Stephen's Green, five minutes walk from Argos. At the till the girl refused a company cheque and asked us for cash or a credit card - we had ID, a cheque card and company headed paper - eventually a supervisor gave us 'the benefit of the doubt'.

So we asked for a trolley to bring the shelves out (and the trolley back again). They refused - despite having trolleys at hand.

Eventually, again after a visit from a senior member of staff they took a deposit and one of our credit cards hostage until we returned with the trolley. Hardly customer friendly... (Sorry for winding on - appears I have issues!)

Red Mum said...

@the distant rambler - I hate that notion that everyone has a car.

@grannymar - will do, I am hoping you have some ingenious method of carrying that will help me bring these shelves home.

@Dave - I feel your pain, literally I felt it yesterday as I stumbled out of Stephens Green SC back to my office (five mins away) in half an hour and one broken back later.

Irish Sallygardens said...

Those bags are fashioned from a material with very odd properties indeed ... if indeed you do buy something that fits into it, two minutes of holding those handles and they begin a slow stretching process, until after roughly five minutes, or two minutes before you reach home/car (whichever is the shorter time span) they stretch to unbelievable limits and then promptly snap, rendering the bag useless. Ingenious.

Anonymous said...

Haha, I bought some Habitat frames over Christmas too and was mesmerised watching the guy fashion the handles out of two paper bags. Genius!

Anonymous said...

Unyielding feckers!!! Red Mum now you've moved and all we have a prior arrangement regarding these sods and the mothership!

Anonymous said...

Did they charge you for the bag?

That looks like a plastic bag to me which presumably should have had a plastic bag levy.

I am sure you knew when you were going to Argos that you were there to purchase shelves.

A bit of forward planning on your part would have enabled you to carry your shelves. i.e. you could have made some string straps as someone else suggested, or brought some webbing with you to make handles. :-) To quote you, jaysus, if some people had brains and thought about what they were purchasing, they'd be dangerous.

No offence, but I don't think you can expert argos to hand out bags to carry heavy shelves for free.

Even if they had IKEA type large bags made with heavy duty straps (that you pay for), you still would not have fitted your shelves into it.

Red Mum said...

@Anonymous oohhhhhh, must correct you on a couple of things there, you have lost the run of yourself.

Yes they charged me for the bag, or should I say I took out 22c and asked for a bag. The only person talking about a free bag is you...

I actually went to purchase one shelf, they had an two for three offer on so I bought three. It was pre-planned and had I known the whole hassle I wouldn't have bought them. I am also sure most shops would be delighted with customers like me who buy more than they planned.

I honestly don't know what planet you are on but I can expect argos to have bags that will cart their customers purchases home. Certainly not all but my recent dealings of the shop has found either no bags or one that is painfully inadequate for purchases that are not that large.

And Anonymous (LOL why you are so irked about my argos bag post?) having actually handled the shelves they would have fitted into an IKEA type bag. Thanks for your comment.

Anonymous said...

If only were the bags (sighs). Argos has one of the worse retail experiences I ever had from the purchase to delivery, customer services and refunds adn quality of the goods. i don't know why we still shop there. Don't go for it, argos's s**t!!!

Anonymous said...

so if its tht bad why shop there? and in reply to your comment it is a policy for argos not to take checks not many companys do now a days, and to big to carry you say? get it delivered retard 5.95 and no hassle probably cost you that in bus fair.

Red Mum said...

@anonymous charming comment, who would have guessed that a post about argos bags would produce such nasty bile from people. I won't comment on your insult, it says everything I probably need to know about you and following on from that I won't comment either on your spelling.