Festive rush must come with planning

The chaos that unfolded at Argos in Kirkcaldy was branded “a farce”, and rightly so.

With Christmas just around the corner, retailers are starting to ramp up their festive offerings in a bid to cash in on the busiest time of the year.

However in this case, on the face of it at least, the necessary infrastructure has simply not been in place to satisfy demand.

It is troubling enough that customers were forced to wait for hours to collect their paid for goods, but of more concern are the allegations that no steps were taken to address the backlog.

According to one customer staff continued to take cash at the tills rather than all hands on deck working to provide shoppers with their items.

To their credit, Argos issued a swift apology to all those affected but that will come as scant consolation to those who remained in the store hours after closing time.

Traders rightly look forward to the festive period but too often the focus falls on how much profit in a short window rather than what is best for customers.

The ugly scenes that were witnessed during so-called Black Friday a couple of years ago were perhaps the height of a situation where the impact of cut-price deals had not been properly thought through.

Everyone loves a bargain but there is a tipping point where good sense must outweigh sales.