How The Entertainer outranked Argos in local search & won more local shoppers

Since opening its first store in Amersham in 1981, The Entertainer has grown into the UK’s second-largest toy retailer, with 165 stores, 767 Tesco concessions, and over 7,000 products online.

But despite this scale, The Entertainer was losing out to Amazon and Argos, not on price or product, but on local visibility. When nearby shoppers searched online, The Entertainer simply wasn’t showing up.

Malcolm Carter, Digital Director at The Entertainer, turned to NearSt to transform The Entertainer’s local presence and make them the first choice for local shoppers searching online.

Key achievements with NearSt*:

• 163% increase in top 3 local search ranking in Google
• 48% Share of Local Voice (SoLV), almost double Argos’ share
• 18x boost in store visibility in Google Search & Maps 
• 86% faster online-to-offline shopping experience

*Avg. across all stores over 12 months

“NearSt helped us deliver real-world results.”

 - Malcolm Carter, Digital Director at The Entertainer

The Problem: When local shoppers searched, competitors showed up first

‍81% of retail shoppers conduct online research before buying (GE Capital), but The Entertainer wasn’t appearing at the critical moment when nearby shoppers were searching for products online. Instead, competitors like Amazon and Argos were capturing local traffic simply by ranking higher in Google’s local search results.

Before working with NearSt, Malcolm and his team faced three key challenges:

1. Losing local shoppers to Amazon and Argos

Despite a strong store network, The Entertainer wasn’t ranking well in local searches, causing it to lose potential customers to competitors who outranked them.

2. A disjointed online-to-offline customer journey

Shoppers searching online couldn’t easily see in-store stock on Google, leading to missed shoppers and sales, especially from busy parents who don't have time to search around.

3. Disconnected inventory systems blocking progress

With stock spread across multiple platforms, The Entertainer struggled to consolidate inventory data, limiting its ability to show in-store products to online shoppers.

“Bringing all of the systems and data together to surface live in-store stock data on Google was proving a hugely challenging project.”

- Malcolm

The Solution: Connecting live in-store inventory to Google in weeks 

To solve these challenges, Malcolm, the digital team and the IT team knew they had to consolidate inventory data from multiple in-store and online systems, something they had struggled to do. For a solution, they turned to NearSt, the leading in-store inventory feed platform.

The Entertainer connected their in-store point of sale and online inventory data to NearSt’s platform, which then unified the information into a single real-time structured feed. As a certified Google Local Feeds Partner, NearSt enabled The Entertainer to easily surface real-time in-store product availability across key Google surfaces, including Search, Maps, and Shopping, without the need for complex IT projects or manual data handling.

“NearSt unified our inventory and product data from multiple systems in just a few weeks and helped us use that data to deliver real-world results.”

- Malcolm

Within 30 days, The Entertainer’s full in-store product range appeared in hundreds of thousands of local searches in Google, making it easier for shoppers to find what they needed nearby. With live in-store stock data connected to Google, Malcolm and his team could access the highest quality Google Local Inventory Ads (see image left), ensuring local searches converted directly into store visits.

Get in touch with our team and find out how you can access powerful Google Local Inventory Ads here.

The Results: 18x more visibility online, #1 in local search and 86% shorter online-to-offline journey 

Malcolm and his team set out to fix The Entertainer’s local performance, transforming their disconnected inventory data and a clunky local customer journey into a seamless, footfall-driving operation. With NearSt, they achieved exactly that:

• 163% boost in top 3 local search rankings
  With the top five Google results capturing 67% of all clicks (Advance Metrics), The Entertainer is now chosen by more shoppers and ranking above competitors.
• 18x increase in local store visibility
  The Entertainer appears more often in Google across Search, Images, Shopping and Maps, ensuring local shoppers discover their nearest store.
• 86% shorter online-to-offline shopping journey
  The Entertainer cut its online-to-offline journey from 13 clicks to just 3, making it faster and easier for shoppers to reach its stores.

“Local customers are finding our stores more often in search, and we’ve leapfrogged our competition in local results for dozens of customer missions.”

- Malcolm

Local competitor analysis

Before NearSt, The Entertainer’s stores rarely appeared in the top 10 search results. Argos was winning local search and local footfall.

With NearSt, that changed. The Entertainer more than doubled its Share of Local Voice, achieving a 48% SoLV — almost 2x Argos’ share. They also improved their Average Rank Position by 7 places, leapfrogging Argos by over 5 points across key categories.

The Entertainer’s Share of Local Voice (SoLV)* & Average Rank Position (ARP)** vs Argos

Below is a Local Search Geolocation Grid - NearSt ran searches for several products from 49 locations around their store. Circles indicate the geolocation of the search and their store's position in search results.

 Before NearSt 

 With NearSt 

*Share of Local Voice (SoLV) is the percentage of local search visibility your business has compared to competitors. It shows how often you appear in top local search results, helping measure and improve your local SEO performance. **Average Rank Position (ARP) refers to the mean ranking position of your business in search engine results for a set of local keywords over a period of time.

The Entertainer hasn’t just improved, it's outperforming key competitors across hundreds of locations. By leveraging NearSt’s in-store inventory feed technology, The Entertainer transformed its local visibility, leapfrogged major rivals, and became the first choice for thousands of nearby shoppers.

And crucially, they did it without reinventing their tech stack - just by using the right tools in the right way.

Transform your local performance

Want to outrank competitors and capture more local shoppers? See how NearSt can transform your local performance today.