Will you miss the Argos catalogue?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/24/argos-catalogue-blue-pens-tablets

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So it looks like those little blue pens are to disappear from Argos, along with the slips of paper and the doorstop catalogues. These accessories have all been deemed dinosaurs of a previous retailing age, and in six outlets which Argos is calling "digital concept stores" they will disappear. The likelihood is that before long they will vanish from all Argos stores. In their stead will come tablets, a sort of self-prescribed medication for modernity: take these, and you won't feel the pain of transitioning to the digital age.

But won't those pens be missed? As a child, a trip to Argos was an adventure partly because the shopping experience presented a kind of obstacle course – so many desks to pass, so many accessories to acquire on the way round – codes and slips and receipts and collection points and stamps. The pens were a core part of the experience: such a novelty to enter a shop as a child and find it was giving you something you didn't need to pay for. They carried with them the slightly illicit air of the betting shop, the bingo hall and, later, the lottery.

Even Bill Bailey, known for his "laminated book of dreams" sketch on Argos, feels nostalgic for all the paraphernalia he satirised. He told me recently that when he took his son to Argos to buy a toy, he "felt I was passing on an old skill, tapping in the code number on the dial, and seeing his delight when it showed '1 in stock'".

On the other hand, the system is unwieldy, and Argos's parent company, Home Retail Group, experienced a difficult recession. Last year it launched a five-year fight-back plan. IPads are already used in the Camden store, and the website and apps have been modernised. The results Argos announced yesterday – like-for-like sales are up 2.3% – indicate that its process of digitalisation is starting to work. The difficult truth is that Argos needs to lose all its old hallmarks if it is to continue this progress – but its dilemma is that it does not know how far its customers' loyalty is based upon nostalgia for all the things it is dismantling.

Perhaps it doesn't matter. After all, the path of progress is littered with negligible casualties. Does it matter if Argos loses its catalogue and pens? Will the shopping experience be better or worse without them?

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