Play N' Trade is AWESOME!!!!

[rxp darkbox]

Let the Licensing rant ensue!!! I would like to hear it!

I think that my first impression of the place was nice, but then I realized how lame they are! But please. Share your thoughts! LOL

[Deeds]

Heh.. Posting here to be modified for my future wall of text.

-deeds

[rkrol]

It is actually the best gaming store in my town and I work there for some extra cash. I mean all the Game Stops stink around here. All the private game stores are very cheap looking, very runned down, and they are way to expensive. So I really cannot complain about this one. Great service with communication and great work in making customers happy, but one thing. The owner hates using more than one cash drawer and it takes him to long to get customers in and out of the register area. This is the only thing is really poor there. But, hey, I am learining all their good and bad things for when I open my gaming center, which is the closest thing to a center in my area.

[Deeds]

It is actually the best gaming store in my town and I work there for some extra cash. I mean all the Game Stops stink around here. All the private game stores are very cheap looking, very runned down, and they are way to expensive. So I really cannot complain about this one. Great service with communication and great work in making customers happy, but one thing. The owner hates using more than one cash drawer and it takes him to long to get customers in and out of the register area. This is the only thing is really poor there. But, hey, I am learining all their good and bad things for when I open my gaming center, which is the closest thing to a center in my area.

Play N Trades are franchises imo not much better then independant shops.  My beef is tournament licensing, not how the stores are actually run which I admit are nice.  When you start buying licensing, and pursuing support from publishers you'll see.  I will eventually write my rant on play n trade.  But I'm just not in the mood for it honestly.  Because for selling games they are great.  But their tournaments and licensing for those tournaments they tend to receive a double standard from publishers.  And when they start hosting tournaments regularly that is affecting my business and they aren't making themselves legit with the licensing I have problems.  And when I call a publisher to find out how that works I'm told they sell millions of dollar worth of their games and to basically stfu.  Publishers don't tend to care about game centers because they don't see their bottom line as clearly.  Even thou my centers have resulted in possibly thousands of purchases of their games so gamers could practice at home.

-deeds

[rxp darkbox]

trust me, I understand your point of view... but in a business sense, PnT is a friend of the gaming world.... it keeps their pockets FAT, so it doesn't really matter what they do, as long as it doesn't negatively affect their bottom line, which is to sell thousand and thousands of games.

the only thing there is that you can really do, is just model yourself in a way to stomp their asses. We have a PnT here and 3 gamestops, and 1 mom n pop place that, I'm sure, is hanging on by a thread(unfortunately). I would love to do a great deal of damage to all 4 of them! but I don't know where to start... but when I do, I am hoping that not only the awesomeness of our store is great, but me and my partner/brother are super people persons... and I am hoping that we can build a loyal fan-base and fucking blow this town UP!!!!!


sorry for the bad language, but I felt like it fit the mood?!

[Deeds]

trust me, I understand your point of view... but in a business sense, PnT is a friend of the gaming world.... it keeps their pockets FAT, so it doesn't really matter what they do, as long as it doesn't negatively affect their bottom line, which is to sell thousand and thousands of games.

the only thing there is that you can really do, is just model yourself in a way to stomp their asses. We have a PnT here and 3 gamestops, and 1 mom n pop place that, I'm sure, is hanging on by a thread(unfortunately). I would love to do a great deal of damage to all 4 of them! but I don't know where to start... but when I do, I am hoping that not only the awesomeness of our store is great, but me and my partner/brother are super people persons... and I am hoping that we can build a loyal fan-base and fucking blow this town UP!!!!!


sorry for the bad language, but I felt like it fit the mood?!

Its not hard to take a Play N Trade down.  There is a small game store in the town I currently live in that put game crazy, play n trade, game crave, and game stops out of business.  They've all try to put in within miles of him.  He knows if they take hold in the area that his store will eventually fade.  So he increases to a crazy level what he gives in trade in credit.  Gamestops trade in policy will never beat his. 

-deeds

[rxp darkbox]

I think we are going to use that as our start-up policy, to offer great trade-in credit, in-store credit will be BEAST, and the regular trade-in for cash will be better by far. To get our used game supply up, without having to CASH everything to get it in! if that makes sense... is there a set price that gamestop pays in trade-in, like somewhere online to check it??? or is it an in-house formula

[Deeds]

I think we are going to use that as our start-up policy, to offer great trade-in credit, in-store credit will be BEAST, and the regular trade-in for cash will be better by far. To get our used game supply up, without having to CASH everything to get it in! if that makes sense... is there a set price that gamestop pays in trade-in, like somewhere online to check it??? or is it an in-house formula

There's a formula but I don't know what it is.. The local shops formula is he gives instore credit worth half of what he is selling it for.  And new games he gives more then half credit on.  If its cash its like 1/3 of what he would sell it for.  I've seen games that gamestop is selling for 12 bucks that they only give 1 dollar In-store credit on.

-deeds

[rxp darkbox]

yeah, that makes me sick... to see that kind of markup. I understand they might hold on to some games for a while... but there is almost NO way to lose money when you give $1 for a game....

[rkrol]

Makes sense what you guys are saying, but too do not forget that these stores only real profit is actually in the sale of used games. That is their bread and butter. Some games stores get better deals with new games than others. My areas play n trade buys from wal-mart and target and places large like that so it can sell the game and make at least $1 profit compared to losing $2-3 per game.

That is one reason why their trade in values often suck. As a consumer they cut our throats, but as business men they are doing what it takes to stay open. Not to mention most game stores in store credit drops typically around 75% if they have 2-3 copies already in the store. This is where play n trade in my area get their 35% off game deals.

Yeh, I got like $2-5 for Assassin's Creed on PS3 when it was still worth about $35-40. Trade in is bad.

Personally, my goal would be to give trade value 50-75% of what I would sell it for. This way I would sell in volume. My profit would be towards volume not minimum sales at high prices. Of course this also helps hinder discounts on the games too if you have lower profit per game. That is also why game stores have such crummy trade in deals.

My other idea would be taking the trade ins slightly higher than the other stores and sell the games a lot lower. Those are just a couple ideas I've had on game store competition.

[rxp darkbox]

Trade in is where the money is, no doubt... but We are hoping to offer a crazy in-store credit for games at the get go, so we can build up our used games for minimal out-of-pocket.

[rkrol]

That's a great idea. The less out of pocket the better.

[rxp darkbox]

I know it's all in the name of profit's  but I have a hard time, mentally, raping a little kid on something I just gave $1 for and charging him $20 for it. Just seems like a bad business model if you are trying to CONNECT with your people.

I explect to get PHUCKED when I get a used game at GameStop... but sometimes, it's what you gotta do!

[gox777]

At my game center, we know a local PnT owner that has proven to be a good ally. We help each other out in various ways.  We advertise each other's tournaments. We display/sell some of his merchandise. He repairs some of our games/consoles using fancy equipment he invested in.

I think it depends on the management. We've also known some retail owners that are complete jerks.

And forget gamestop. Too many corporate regulations. Constant revolving door of managers.

[Deeds]

Eh PnT in the areas I started centers always turned out to be douches. And I generally agree with the gamestop thing.  Constant revolving door with managers and no lee way for anything.

Best Buy is a good option thou.  When I would buy new releases that iGames wasn't doing a showcase for.  I would go with best buy.  Use their credit card and get the disc protection (console games) also got reward zone and gamer zone points. Worked really well seeing I always spent so much.

-deeds