Well, Supertanker is wrong about that. Pre-ordered copies should be held for those that paid. But the store should have enough on hand to meet his demand too. That’s EB’s failing here. They are losing sales to competitors because of their own shortsightedness in demand.
–Dave
I’m not trying to steal someones preorder. If you preorder something and can pick it up on a Monday, do you do so? I do. Now, it’s a wednesday and you obviously have a million copies in your display case and you won’t sell to a walk in customer, what does that say?
I drive by a Best Buy and several Wal Marts to go to these Gamestops in my area, and have done so for a long time. It’s a pain in the freaking ASS to go to these places in comparison. So, from now on, I won’t be doing so. Wal Mart/Best Buy HERE I COME!!
Dave, EB didn’t lose the sale because the sale (inventory in store) wasn’t there to begin with.
I used to work at EB for two years half an age ago, so I’m used to putting up with you “me first” schmoes. I’m not totally siding with EB/Gamestop either, as they should have ordered more. We used to fix up our reserves (not even pre-sales) so we would get extra copies because pre-sales used to be, well, in the system, while reserves were not (though they are today) - they were on paper, though you ordered (requested) through the computer.
This always used to happen, we’d never get enough to fill demand, even if you futzed the numbers.
You also have to be aware that it’s possible that the warehouses either don’t have enough to fill everyone’s needs or was shorted by the publisher on the first day, or couple of days, or weeks. Games sometimes come in the main warehouses and get shipped out the next day, so turn-around times can be short as two days from the publisher. That’s not a lot of time, and any kind of weather or other problems can delay some or all of various shipments.
— Alan
To the extent that Jason’s experience is representative, their system of determining demand based on preorders isn’t working very well. At least for this game. Or are the department stores’ distribution systems really that much better that they could get a metric assload of extra copies where EB couldn’t?
Because if not, EB is apparently just ording enough to cover preorders (and maybe a little more that got sold before Jason got there) while other vendors are ordering 3.5 bajillion.
Yeah but it’s not possible that this happens for every single big game. Even if both chains were dazzlingly incompetent, they’d still get lucky a fair percentage of the time.
I really think the “teach gamers a lesson” is the correct interpretation. I don’t think it’s going to work though.
I had a thread where I bitched about this same issue for Doom 3, and it’s come up for one or two other games since then.
Or they may just not have the buying or purchasing power to secure enough copies for every store determined by the need, while Best Buy and others perhaps do.
— Alan
We have these threads pretty much every two months or so, whenever a big release comes out.
The conclusion I’m rapidly coming to is this:
EB doesn’t want anyone who hasn’t preordered. They don’t want a single copy to arrive at the store without it being explicitly allocated to some living breathing person who put down $5. If you don’t preorder, they simply don’t want your business. At all. It’s not a question of getting shorted by the publisher, it’s not a question of shipping costs, it’s not a matter of trying to gauge demand correctly. I don’t think it’s even a matter of getting your $5 a month early, because the income per person on that is miniscule, measurable in pennies.
What I think it is is that EB’s management has decided they like the pawnshop-of-videogames system a lot better. The number of copies of Game X that they want in a store can be counted on the fingers of one hand - unless those copies are preorders. All other inventory is used games.
It’s really the only thing that makes sense. Year after year they do this bullshit and shoot themselves in the foot on release day by not having copies for walk-ins. The obvious conclusion is - they don’t want walk-ins. Not unless you’re there to buy four used games by trading in ten that you don’t play any more.
I’m not saying they should sell me someone else’s preorder, I’m saying they should have some extra copies on hand. My job has me in three different areas each week, often working late. I don’t want to preorder because on release day I don’t know which of four EBs or two Gamestops I’ll be closest to, or if the one near home will still be open when I get back late. I want to buy a game, not get a runaround if I go in to buy a damn fungible good anywhere near the release date.
I think Silverlight’s right about not wanting walk-ins, and given the amount of money I spend in EB/Gamestop I’m tired of being treated like crap. I’ve been saving my game purchase receipts for almost a year, and I’m pretty close to sending them all to EB with a letter explaining why they’ll never see me again. The Blockbuster near my kids’s school just opened a used game section, and there’s a Game Crazy nearby now too, so I’ll go there & Ebay for used games.
And I think you’re right. They are making a KILLING off of used games. they give you peanuts in return, and then sell them at 80 - 90% of the cost of the new copy. People do this because it’s a) quick 'n easy and b) it takes the some of the sting out of buying that new title.
They have very little margin in new games, and a HUGE margin in used games. This is where they’re making their money.
… add to this the simple fact that Wal-Mart and Best Buy get huge discounts on new games from retailers, something that doesn’t happen for the smaller chains, making profit even smaller for anyone other than the big fish.
Well, check this out:
This place is just getting started, but if it works out, it’s by far the best trade value I’ve yet seen. Someone turned me to them, and says they’ve treated him right so far. I’ve exchanged 3 games, and the most I’ve paid for a game is $11 so far. Just look at the values on their trades. They actually gave me more for Second Sight than I paid for it new.
This isn’t some sleeper hit, this is probably the biggest (maybe halo 2 might be bigger) console title of the year. I can’t even fathom why they would not order enough to have 50+ extra copies on day 1. From what I have been told at GameStop is that if 1 person preorders the game, they will have copies (to non-preorders) for day 1 also.
Preorder does not guarantee you to be “first” it just guarantees you a copy out of the first shipment, which yes, you are entitled to then bump non-preorders. What is strange is why they don’t order TONS of extras. Even if it cost them $50 extra to ship them out, is that really going to cut into their margin a lot? I doubt it. Sounds like a shipping screwup to me.
Yes. But who cares about how well EB and Gamestop are doing? I’m a little confused as to why anyone would bother to go to one in the first place on a big release day. They can’t handle a decent amount of customers at once, and they’ve been doing this preorder hooey like above for awhile now, at leats around here.
Just go somewhere else, or order online. You’ll get it on release day.
I worked at a Software, Etc. for a couple years in the mid 90s. When I was there, there were three main selling statistics the corporate office kept track of to evaluate sales performance on both the individual and store level. Those three statistics were MSTs, ESPs and pre-orders.
MSTs (Multi-Sku Transactions) were the percentage of sales that included high profit margin items such as gamepads and hint guides. When an associate asks you if you want a memory card or game guide with your purchase, this is why. And, no, we didn’t get paid on commission but low MST scores weren’t a good way to keep your job.
ESPs (Extended Service Plans, usually for consoles), fortunately, were rated on a storewide basis. I hated selling these, as they were basically worthless, almost a scam. The small print was required reading for anyone who needed to return their system due to a defect that was covered by the plan. If they didn’t follow the plan’s instructions to the letter, the customer was screwed out of 20 bucks and had an unusable device (usually a console they spent $200+ for). Luckily for me, the Manager and Assistant Manager did most of the ESP sales for our store. They had no qualms about potentially screwing over the customer for better numbers.
Pre-orders were possibly the most important stat corporate tracked. It determined how many copies shipped to our store. On Mondays and Thursdays we would receive our regular shipment. The Monday delivery was to replenish our inventory after the weekend sales. The Thursday delivery was to shore up our inventory to prepare for the weekend.
Typically, if a game didn’t have strong pre-order numbers, it would be delivered with our regular shipments prior to the official street date, and we would keep them in the back. When a game had significant pre-orders, it was usually shipped to us the day of its release via FedEx, which sucked for various reasons. FedEx didn’t deliver to our store until sometime after noon, so on those days for at least three hours (from 9am til whenever) we had rabid gamers clamoring to get a copy of the game ,that’s been overhyped for the last year and a half, only to find out that we didn’t have any extra copies past what was pre-ordered.
The release of FFVII still haunts me to this day. 78 pre-orders. 78 copies delivered. Two weeks until we would be getting resupplied with more.
Basically, for highly-anticipated games, we received a number of copies equal to our pre-order amounts. For “lesser” games, we got about twice the number of pre-orders.
It was very important, to both corporate and our store manager, that we get as many pre-orders for as many games as possible. By the end of my second year there, we got really good at “training” our customers to pre-purchase as the only way to guarantee them getting a copy of a title they were looking forward to. I think it helped that our store was basically a monopoly since our only competition in the area was Wal-Mart and they didn’t have the selection of games we did.
I no longer work there, but because of my experiences on the other side of the counter, when I see a game that I definitely want on it’s day of release, I pre-order it. I have no sympathy for those who don’t have the foresight or pocketbook (get a job slacker!) to do so.
From a brief glance, it basically seems to work like the stock market. Trade a game in, they give you X. Trade for it, it costs you X + $5. $3 covers shipping and $2 for gross profit. The only thing that bugs me is that they try to hide this point from you in the prices, but it’s pretty clear if you try to swap a few games for themselves (you’ll always get a price of $4.99).
So your three basic methods of making your bosses happy were to sell the customer things he didn’t want, rip the customer off outright, or get them to dictate your stocking numbers for you. Wonderful.
I no longer work there, but because of my experiences on the other side of the counter, when I see a game that I definitely want on it’s day of release, I pre-order it. I have no sympathy for those who don’t have the foresight or pocketbook (get a job slacker!) to do so.
I don’t see why you feel this way. For one thing, there are very few slackers here, so lay off the personal insults. For another thing, it isn’t “foresight” to think that places might actually, you know, stock a game. Not everybody can run their business into the ground like Software Etc. and EB and Gamestop.
Also, online retailers (including EB’s own online operations) seem to be a lot more on the ball, they don’t charge you a dime to preorder, and they’ll often send product in advance so you get it on release day.
Well the pre-owned games thing is very true, there’s a lot more pure profit involved in used games than nearly everything else in the store with the exception of extended service agreements.
— Alan
Anyone that actually buys into, or bought into the eb/software etc/gamestop mentality is a tool of the retail establishment.
Thats cool, makes you a fantastic store manager :p
Has nothing to do with foresight or funding. You get my money when you have product to give me. Period. Pre-orders are ludicrous. I can’t think of any other retail product in the pricing range of videogames that works like that. I can see why you wouldn’t order more of a certain make of automobile upon release, but a $30-$50 game? Ridiculous.
See you at Best Buy, folks. I’m sure EB and Gamestop don’t care, since I never buy used games and never trade anything in to a chain store, but I expect they’ll start caring eventually.
gamecrazys pretty cool