I was not surprised to learn that sales at Argos in the quarter to the end of May were down by eight per cent. Many independents have been telling me privately that trade has been “very difficult” with almost everyone saying their turnover was “down” or even “well down” on last year.

Although Argos sells many different products, the majority of the decline was attributed to the poor demand for TV sets. This is the second quarter that Argos has announced a dramatic drop in like-for-like sales.

Argos has two stores in Aberdeen and the main one is very close to me, so I took a trip over there to check it out. I regret to report that when I called in at 3pm on a Thursday afternoon, the store was deserted. Mind you, I came back to my “wee shop” and found that it was deserted, too.

Trade has also been very strange since the World Cup started. All our male customers seem to be at home glued to their TV sets, but I am pleased to report that the women are coming in on their own and are buying what they want just to get away from the TV.

Our shop has been selling no end of DAB radios and lots of laptop computers. Thank goodness we have plenty of red, blue and green carrying cases to go with our laptops – the guys only ever buy black. Pink mice have also been doing well.

ROBERTS HAS JUST started its annual extended credit promotion and this is an excellent plan for independent dealers. It is a very simple scheme. Buy a range of Roberts products and don’t pay for them until January 1 next year.

This lets dealers stock up and they will surely sell the radios before the start of next year.

Goods purchased from now until Christmas qualify for this interesting stocking plan. Obviously you need to have a good credit record with the company, but in these difficult times the scheme should be welcomed by independent dealers.

PANASONIC IS SOON to ship its 152in 3D TVs to the UK. This is the set that all the other makers were photographing when it was first shown at the Las Vegas CES in January. It is a remarkable piece of engineering, but of course it will sell for a truly remarkable price – at least £500,000.

I do have some multi-millionaire customers but they tend to be very careful with their money. Perhaps it will appeal to highly-paid footballers.

Unfortunately, I know one shop that will not be selling it – my local Panasonic Centre, which has just closed its doors after being here for years and years.

AT THE RECENT Futuresource Conference, Richard Bron, the chief executive of Blueprint Digital, announced a plan that would let Tesco customers buy CD, DVD or Blu-ray media in-store and then download a lower-res version to any of their CE products.

The scheme is like one Amazon already offers in the USA and I hear that DSGi and others plan to offer a similar service, so that customers can play purchased content anywhere, any time. This may sound good, but it is just a halfway house. The internet is improving all the time and once customers can download at Blu-ray bit rates, there will be no need to buy discs at all.

Graham Knight