GAME (as in the shop GAME): Retailer Of The Year 2019

Poohsticks wrote:Christ, the upselling in Gamestation is bonkers...the staff must have it beaten into them. Have to say that from just listening in to a couple of sales today it certaintly works.

Yup, and then we're beaten if we don't offer everything. They say it's not upselling, it's just recommending products to the customer, but I still get it in the neck if I don't sell enough.

I said it in the other GAME thread, but I'll post it here as it's relevant to the discussion.



That's Game's share price, pretty much to the day since they stopped their 10-day return (rental) policy. Obviously on the face of it you would say that the policy would lose them money, but in hindsight I think it gave people a reason to shop there over all their competitors and made people much more likely to take a punt on a game they weren't sure of, whereas now people would be much more unsure about taking out their wallet.

I remember thinking myself "It's a little more expensive,but at least I can take it back if I don't like it." That policy justified their inflated prices.

The staff must be under a lot of pressure these days. Last week I went into a store and was accusted by a flock of Game employees.

Employee 1: Hi there, are you looking for anything?
Me: Just looking, thanks.
*moments later*
Employee 2: Can I help you?
Me: No, thank you.
*moments later*
Employee 3: Are-
Me: Just looking.
Employee 3: No problem.

At this point I just gave up and left the store.

^^ Christmas temps out to impress their new boss.

Game's shares are down another 10% so far today.

I hate Game. I know all the excuses “we have to up-sell” but it doesn’t excuse the complete lack of knowledge or courtesy in the stores. I’ll give you my story:

I used to hook my old 20GB Xbox to my router with an ethernet cable. The cable got damaged and I decided I wanted a wi-fi adaptor. I wnt to the GAME in Falkirk and found it was £60 but there was a deal where if I bought ANY item (there were no T&Cs anywhere to be seen on the labels or in the store and none when I asked to see them) I would get it for a lower price.

So, I look around and see a pre-owned copy of GRID for £10 and take it up to the desk. I notice the new copy is £15 so decide to get that instead as it’s also in the offer. When they ring it up they’ve taken the discount off of the game but not the wi-fi adaptor. I question this and they say it only applies to the lowest priced item. I didn’t mind paying full price for the game but I certainly wasn’t paying full price for the wi-fi adaptor

I explain it doesn’t say that anywhere and that’s false advertising. I ask to see the T&Cs and am told “you don’t need to – everyone knows that”. Obviously this is complete nonsense, the label is very clear, there are no exceptions.

Instead of just being polite and saying “ok, there’s been some confusion, but as a gesture of goodwill we’ll honour it” (even though if I was to complain to trading standards they’d have been forced to anyway). Instead they started arguing with me and accusing me of being aggressive (which was funny when it was the manager who stormed over and snarled at me).

He demanded I take a refund since he wasn’t dealing with me anymore then left his poor till assistant to face my mounting anger. I asked her if I’d taken the pre-owned copy would I have gotten the discount. Yes, she replies. So, I pointed out, you’d have made more money from what I actually tried to do, but you wouldn’t do it?

She stared at me, dumb-founded. I was livid and phoned up the head branch for the area. They apologised, sent me an apology letter and said the store should have given me the deal on both items. They also said the manager should have given me the terms and conditions when I asked for them and that a refund was not the right way to have dealt with it. Or the appalling way I was spoken to.

But this is not the first time I’ve dealt with rude staff in the chain’s stores, just the final straw. I had a guy tell me I could play PS3 games on my 360, that the Wii was HD, that I could get HD through a SCART (this was when I got the 360 and asked what the picture would be like through the SCART, which was all I had at the time), that a game on their strawberry floating SHELVES was not out yet and that I didn’t need Xbox Live Gold to play online.

Now, I know my stuff but plenty of people don’t who shop in that place. So next time you try and “sell up” because it’s your job, maybe consider that knowing what the strawberry float you’re talking about is your job too.

I hope they close down.

Shadow wrote:

Delusibeta wrote:Interesting to see many people not realise that share prices do not determine when a company goes bust, or indeed a lack of profits. It's when the cashflow dries up, that's when companies go under.

They've suffered massive losses throughout the last two years though. It depends how much capital they saved up during their boom years. My guess would be not that much.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see both GAME and HMV go into administration in the new year. If there's any forumites on here working at GAME or GameStation I really would start looking for alternate employment if I were you, the way things are at the moment it may be tricky to get another job quickly.

HMV have been in a slump for many years, I have a friend who is the deputy manager in the Derby store, and he's a bit ignorant about it as head office feed him with so much mis-information. The problem with these stores in general is that they are just losing ground on the high street to the supermarkets who have better economies of scale and can afford to lose money on new products if it thinks it will make money from other products. See Call of Duty for example. And they stand no chance online as they just can't compete with the completely online stores who can afford to be cheaper.

That being said, HMV are quite good for budget dvds/blu rays.

Of all the stores on the high-street, HMV are the one which - currently - I am most happy to give my hard-earned to.

HMV's share price like Game's has dropped 95%ish in the past year alone. It's quite tough to try and see a light at the end of the tunnel. Although I don't think either will go bust per say. I think if any the companies will just ditch a lot of their shops.

JiggerJay wrote:HMV's share price like Game's has dropped 95%ish in the past year alone. It's quite tough to try and see a light at the end of the tunnel. Although I don't think either will go bust per say. I think if any the companies will just ditch a lot of their shops.

I could easily imagine Game going bust. HMV would probably be better concentrating on a few major stores in big locations such as Oxford Street and growing their online presence

Shadow wrote:I said it in the other GAME thread, but I'll post it here as it's relevant to the discussion.



That's Game's share price, pretty much to the day since they stopped their 10-day return (rental) policy. Obviously on the face of it you would say that the policy would lose them money, but in hindsight I think it gave people a reason to shop there over all their competitors and made people much more likely to take a punt on a game they weren't sure of, whereas now people would be much more unsure about taking out their wallet.

I remember thinking myself "It's a little more expensive,but at least I can take it back if I don't like it." That policy justified their inflated prices.

Its a bit of a stretch to put so much down to them scrapping a policy that got abused to absolute buggery. Stuff like the rise of digital distribution, the collapse of the heavily peripheral based music game which got them a fair bit of business and increased competition from the likes of HMV and Amazon in the preowned market are all much more relevant in my eyes.

Beans wrote:

JiggerJay wrote:HMV's share price like Game's has dropped 95%ish in the past year alone. It's quite tough to try and see a light at the end of the tunnel. Although I don't think either will go bust per say. I think if any the companies will just ditch a lot of their shops.

I could easily imagine Game going bust. HMV would probably be better concentrating on a few major stores in big locations such as Oxford Street and growing their online presence

I think HMV will improve on their position once the Government clamps down on the shops using the Channel Islands to ship gooseberry fool out, I'm actually tempted to buy a thousand shares based on that knowledge.

bear wrote:

Shadow wrote:I said it in the other GAME thread, but I'll post it here as it's relevant to the discussion.

That's Game's share price, pretty much to the day since they stopped their 10-day return (rental) policy. Obviously on the face of it you would say that the policy would lose them money, but in hindsight I think it gave people a reason to shop there over all their competitors and made people much more likely to take a punt on a game they weren't sure of, whereas now people would be much more unsure about taking out their wallet.

I remember thinking myself "It's a little more expensive,but at least I can take it back if I don't like it." That policy justified their inflated prices.

Its a bit of a stretch to put so much down to them scrapping a policy that got abused to absolute buggery. Stuff like the rise of digital distribution, the collapse of the heavily peripheral based music game which got them a fair bit of business and increased competition from the likes of HMV and Amazon in the preowned market are all much more relevant in my eyes.

Y'see I don't think it did, I worked there when that policy was in place and it was pretty unusual for someone to try and return a used game. People on here all think it was massively abused because they abused it, but in reality the wider public only used it when they had to. I look at GAME now, and since they stopped that policy, there's just no reason to shop there: It's expensive, the staff are generally a bit dull, they don't have good offers, their trade-in prices are poor, they don't stock a particularly big range of games and they have a fairly strict returns policy (even worse at GameStation). The peace of mind offered by a generous returns policy may make a lot of people overlook their shortcomings. It'd be cheaper than competing on price with the supermarkets at any rate.

JiggerJay wrote:

Beans wrote:

JiggerJay wrote:HMV's share price like Game's has dropped 95%ish in the past year alone. It's quite tough to try and see a light at the end of the tunnel. Although I don't think either will go bust per say. I think if any the companies will just ditch a lot of their shops.

I could easily imagine Game going bust. HMV would probably be better concentrating on a few major stores in big locations such as Oxford Street and growing their online presence

I think HMV will improve on their position once the Government clamps down on the shops using the Channel Islands to ship gooseberry fool out, I'm actually tempted to buy a thousand shares based on that knowledge.

No doubt, but is the future still not online where operation costs aren't as high as bricks and mortar retail.

Now owns 2,500 shares in HMV

Beans wrote:

JiggerJay wrote:

Beans wrote:

JiggerJay wrote:HMV's share price like Game's has dropped 95%ish in the past year alone. It's quite tough to try and see a light at the end of the tunnel. Although I don't think either will go bust per say. I think if any the companies will just ditch a lot of their shops.

I could easily imagine Game going bust. HMV would probably be better concentrating on a few major stores in big locations such as Oxford Street and growing their online presence

I think HMV will improve on their position once the Government clamps down on the shops using the Channel Islands to ship gooseberry fool out, I'm actually tempted to buy a thousand shares based on that knowledge.

No doubt, but is the future still not online where operation costs aren't as high as bricks and mortar retail.

Well, that depends entirely.

The thing about bricks and mortar retail is that you can get whatever you want RIGHT NOW without delivery times, and by the time the item appears on a store shelf, there's no cost to delivery. So there's definitely value in retail as a practive - particularly for high popularity stock that will shift.

JiggerJay wrote:Now owns 2,500 shares in HMV

£96?

It's actually not a bad investment on the assumption that there's not much room for them to get any lower.

One problem with your "insider knowledge" is that HMV's website is also based on the Channel Islands...

dftaylor wrote:I hate Game. I know all the excuses “we have to up-sell” but it doesn’t excuse the complete lack of knowledge or courtesy in the stores. I’ll give you my story:

I used to hook my old 20GB Xbox to my router with an ethernet cable. The cable got damaged and I decided I wanted a wi-fi adaptor. I wnt to the GAME in Falkirk and found it was £60 but there was a deal where if I bought ANY item (there were no T&Cs anywhere to be seen on the labels or in the store and none when I asked to see them) I would get it for a lower price.

So, I look around and see a pre-owned copy of GRID for £10 and take it up to the desk. I notice the new copy is £15 so decide to get that instead as it’s also in the offer. When they ring it up they’ve taken the discount off of the game but not the wi-fi adaptor. I question this and they say it only applies to the lowest priced item. I didn’t mind paying full price for the game but I certainly wasn’t paying full price for the wi-fi adaptor

I explain it doesn’t say that anywhere and that’s false advertising. I ask to see the T&Cs and am told “you don’t need to – everyone knows that”. Obviously this is complete nonsense, the label is very clear, there are no exceptions.

Instead of just being polite and saying “ok, there’s been some confusion, but as a gesture of goodwill we’ll honour it” (even though if I was to complain to trading standards they’d have been forced to anyway). Instead they started arguing with me and accusing me of being aggressive (which was funny when it was the manager who stormed over and snarled at me).

He demanded I take a refund since he wasn’t dealing with me anymore then left his poor till assistant to face my mounting anger. I asked her if I’d taken the pre-owned copy would I have gotten the discount. Yes, she replies. So, I pointed out, you’d have made more money from what I actually tried to do, but you wouldn’t do it?

She stared at me, dumb-founded. I was livid and phoned up the head branch for the area. They apologised, sent me an apology letter and said the store should have given me the deal on both items. They also said the manager should have given me the terms and conditions when I asked for them and that a refund was not the right way to have dealt with it. Or the appalling way I was spoken to.

But this is not the first time I’ve dealt with rude staff in the chain’s stores, just the final straw. I had a guy tell me I could play PS3 games on my 360, that the Wii was HD, that I could get HD through a SCART (this was when I got the 360 and asked what the picture would be like through the SCART, which was all I had at the time), that a game on their strawberry floating SHELVES was not out yet and that I didn’t need Xbox Live Gold to play online.

Now, I know my stuff but plenty of people don’t who shop in that place. So next time you try and “sell up” because it’s your job, maybe consider that knowing what the strawberry float you’re talking about is your job too.

I hope they close down.

Promotions can be withdrawn at any time, and you the consumer doesnt have to be notified, Trading standards could have done nowt about it

Aye, manager's discretion too, he can just tell you to leave the shop and that he's not going to serve you.

Beans wrote:

JiggerJay wrote:

Beans wrote:

JiggerJay wrote:HMV's share price like Game's has dropped 95%ish in the past year alone. It's quite tough to try and see a light at the end of the tunnel. Although I don't think either will go bust per say. I think if any the companies will just ditch a lot of their shops.

I could easily imagine Game going bust. HMV would probably be better concentrating on a few major stores in big locations such as Oxford Street and growing their online presence

I think HMV will improve on their position once the Government clamps down on the shops using the Channel Islands to ship gooseberry fool out, I'm actually tempted to buy a thousand shares based on that knowledge.

No doubt, but is the future still not online where operation costs aren't as high as bricks and mortar retail.

Aye. As far as HMV is concerned, it's putting a plaster on a leg amputation. Hell, their online service is based in the Channel Islands as well, so they're affected too.

Shadow wrote:

JiggerJay wrote:Now owns 2,500 shares in HMV

£96?

It's actually not a bad investment on the assumption that there's not much room for them to get any lower.

One problem with your "insider knowledge" is that HMV's website is also based on the Channel Islands...

About £107 including fees, not a huge loss if they suddenly go tits up, yes they are partly based in the channel island, but I bet in April when the VAT loophole ends, they'll be in a better position.